The Dreams That Were Dreamt

Chapter Seventeen: Whispers

This late summer night didn't play out any differently. He wanted to see me. It was an early Saturday in the end of August where he felt out of it. We can just order some food and watch a movie, he said. I spent all day gathering tinder and kindling. I was always ready to venture out into the woods whenever he shouted my name in the dark. I felt that the chilly late summer weather called for a soup. Potato and leek. I had even baked bread which, in my small kitchen, was something that rarely was done. I vacuumed my apartment, bought candles, and put fresh sheets on my bed. I was ready and eager to have a calm night inside with Owen.

But the plans changed, like they often did with him. Half an hour before he was supposed to knock on my door, I received a text. I met up with some friends. Do you wanna come to the bar and grab a beer before heading back to your place? I didn't, really. But I wasn't fooled by question marks any more. This wasn't a question. And I was never in a position to object. I knew exactly what his response to not getting what he wanted would be. You don't want to see me? You're seeing someone else, aren't you? I don't see you ever knocking on my door wanting to hang out. And it didn't matter how much evidence I had, telling of proposals of mine he had ignored. They didn't exist in his story. I had learned that there was no point in even bringing it up. I just had to go with whatever he was saying. Yeah, that could be fun, I responded and exchanged sweat pants for jeans.

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Nothing was ever straight forward with Owen. When I arrived at the bar where everyone knew of me, he wasn't there. I waded through the tables and searched every nook and corner for him. Nothing. When I couldn't find as much as a trace of him I waited outside the bathroom. Maybe that was where he was. I'm here, I texted him. Minutes went by without an answer. Countless faces tripped in and out of the gender neutral bathroom. Some I had seen before, some I didn't want to see again. Where was he? After twenty or so minutes my phone finally buzzed. I'm on my way, my screen read. No apology for being late. No estimation of when. Right. I got a non-alcoholic beer in the meantime. After some minutes of scouting for a table by the bar, an opening was presented. I quickly ran over to the table I thought I had earned and sat down. There, I waited.

How was it that Owen always managed to pull me in? It was a difficult question to answer. Maybe it wasn't that difficult. He had his ways of breaking the walls and bending the gate. He was the one pulling the wind. It brought trees down. It made roof tiles fly and it made cattle disappear in the night. He had this way of keeping me exactly where he wanted me to be. And he could do so, without ever changing who he was and without ever being forced to take any sort of accountability for what he caused me. The beats and the steps of the waltz always changed.

Every cycle would start off with a happy period. A cycle would usually span a month, maybe two. But it felt like a year. The rollercoaster of diverting and precipitous emotions made it feel like seasons changed. In the beginning of the season he was kind to me. We would share laughs and intimate moments that I would tell myself made the rest of the year worth it. The solar winds never failed to warm me. Even the coldest of summers sufficed, although they never lasted for long. The season would transition from summer to fall when the wind died down. The wind died down when he spoke the words: ''I just don't want you to have any expectations on me. I don't know how long I'll be here''.

In the fall, I would be left with barely anything. Seldom, would he answer my texts and when he did, another leaf fell from the tree. When the row of trees were all naked and I was beginning to come to terms with a future without him, he always reappeared and pulled me back in. ''Someone on the bus smelled like you, I miss you,'' was something he would send my way, making his escape of my mind impossible. After many ifs and buts we would meet again. But these meetings wouldn't be the ones you wanted to remember. More often than not, they were coated in harsh words, deceit and unwelcome advances. It was cold. And it would grow even colder.