That night I dreamed of Conrad. I was the same age I was now, but he was younger, ten or eleven maybe. I think he might even have been wearing overalls. We played outside my house until it got dark, just running around the yard. I said, “Susannah will be wondering where you are. You should go home.” He said, “I can’t. I don’t know how. Will you help me?” And then I was sad, because I didn’t know how either. We weren’t at my house anymore, and it was so dark. We were in the woods. We were lost.
When I woke up, I was crying and Jeremiah was asleep next to me. I sat up in the bed. It was dark, the only light in the room was my alarm clock. It read 4:57. I lay back down.
I wiped my eyes, and then I breathed in Jeremiah’s scent, the sweetness of his face, the way his chest rose and fell as he breathed. He was there. He was solid and real and next to me, crammed in close the way you have to be when you are sleeping in a dorm-room bed. We were that close now.
In the morning, when I woke up, I didn’t remember right away. The dream was there in the back of my head, in a place I couldn’t get to. It was fading fast, almost all the way, but not quite, not yet. I had to think hard and fast to piece it all together, to hold on to it.
I started to sit up, but Jeremiah pulled me back toward him and said, “Five more minutes.” He was the big spoon, and I was the little spoon tucked into my spot in his arms. I closed my eyes, willing myself to remember before it was gone. Like those last few seconds before the sun sets—going, going, and then gone. Remember, remember, or the dream will slip away forever.
Jeremiah started to say something about breakfast, and I covered his mouth and said, “Shh. One sec.”
And then I had it. Conrad, and how funny he looked in his denim overalls. The two of us playing outside for hours. I let out a sigh. I felt so relieved.
“What were you saying?” I asked Jeremiah.
“Breakfast,” he said, planting a kiss on my palm.
Snuggling in closer to him, I said, “Five more minutes.”
