Chapter 17 #4
He’s looking at the horizon while reaching out with his free hand. There’s a soft plop, and the lollipop reappears between his fingers. He rolls it once before bringing it to his mouth.
“Point is,” he says around it. “Even if Tessa can share your 4D, I don’t think she’s been living in her own anymore. Not consistently.” He pulls the lollipop out and taps it once against his knee. “I think she started slipping. Between hers, yours, and whatever’s in the space underneath both.”
The quiet that follows has weight to it.
Tessa disappeared because she found somewhere that felt better than being awake. But she wasn’t alone in it. She had someone to stay for.
“You say it as if she got lost, but she chose this, didn’t she?”
He puts the lollipop back in his mouth and looks at the sky. “If she fell in love with who I think she fell in love with, yeah.”
My head fills with questions all at once, crowding each other out while he sucks on that damn lollipop.
Who does he think she fell in love with?
What does he know that he’s not saying?
Why does the way he says it feel more like a warning instead of an answer?
But none of them matter right now, not really because there’s only one question drowning the rest.
How do I get to her?
“So, anyone can get to 5D? The same way anyone can get to 4D in dreams?”
“It’s not that simple. Yes, anyone can go there, but you have to lose your grip on yourself enough.”
“And what does that mean now?”
“It’s not like I have any personal experience with it. People say you only stay if you let go completely, or if something inside that space holds you there, like a tether.”
My brain hurts. “A tether? What’s that?”
“I can’t hold lucidity as I used to, and when I can, I’m blocked by my own nightmares.
I can’t do what I do best, which is a real problem when your entire coping mechanism lives in your subconscious, but when I touch you…
” he looks down at our joined hands, thumb brushing over my knuckles once, twice, “… everything locks into place around me. It stops feeling like I’m one wrong thought away from slipping out of lucidity. ”
“Sounds like you’re the emotional one in danger of waking up,” I reply, but it comes out breathier than I want.
He huffs a quiet laugh, then the lollipop pops out of existence again.
“I thought about this way longer than I should since I got stuck in your dream, but I think I figured it out. I always thought people were crazy talking about tethers, but this is it. This grounding feeling that you give me, it’s a tether. ”
“So… you’re saying I’m basically dream superglue for you?”
“I’m trying to tell you that touching you is the only time I feel as if I can be myself again, and the only time I don’t feel like I’m one bad memory away from waking up screaming, which is… kind of addicting.”
My heart is hammering so loud I’m sure he can hear it, and I have to remind myself to keep my emotions in check, even if I have no idea what is happening right now.
“We can get her back, right?” My knee brushes his as I turn toward him fully. “You can help me get her back.”
He looks at me as though he’s weighing something dangerous, then apparently decides I’m already past the point of safety.
“Let’s make a deal.”
I scrunch up my nose. “I don’t like how that sounds.”
He ignores my comment. “I’ll teach you everything I know about lucidity, and I’ll tell you all I know about the guy Tessa thinks she’s in love with.”
“And in return?” I ask, even though my chest already knows I’ll agree to this proposal, no matter what he wants.
“You keep letting me in. Keep letting me build here, while holding your hand… And yeah, use your mind for my own purposes.”
A shiver slides down my spine. That sounds wrong.
“You help me stay, I help you learn, and maybe…” his voice drops, “… maybe we figure out how to get Tessa back.”
The flowers pulse brighter around us, light breathing through their petals in time with my heart racing. Beneath all of this that is too much to fathom, something steadies.
It’s a thread of hope, something I can hang onto.
He lets go of my hand, and my fingers curl into the sudden empty space, grasping at nothing. Ridge flexes his hand, then extends it to me, palm up. “Deal?” He looks like the devil asking for my soul, and God help me, I’d hand it over without blinking if it meant getting Tessa back.
“Deal.”
The instant our palms meet, heat rushes up my arm, and my chest tightens so hard I gasp, breath stuttering as something locks deep inside me, clicking into place with a certainty that doesn’t feel like mine.
The flowers ripple violently, petals bending inward as if they’re bowing. The sky fractures, warping like glass under pressure, stars dragging long, white scars behind them.
“Ridge.” I grip his hand harder, but I feel the dream slipping, and my fear unravels faster than I can stop it.
“Sleep tight, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice amused, like he’s already counting the nights I’ll spend regretting this.
The world tilts violently, and I’m still clutching his hand when the Milky Way collapses inward—
I wake with a gasp, heart hammering, the echo of crystalized ginger and Ridge’s warmth still clinging to my skin.