Seven

Chapter 48

"We should swim back, they'll have lunch made by now." I tell her and she nods.

Lily talks about her selected classes over lunch and how we need to pay for them as soon as we get back to land with a decent internet connection. I try my best to keep up with her new academic schedule but all I'm hearing is how busy she'll be, how little time she'll have for me. I try my best to keep composed so she doesn't pick up on my resentment of her full schedule and when I get the opportunity to change the subject I do. When I notice her awkward examination of the steamed crab set out on our plates for lunch she asks for help on how to go about eating the sea urchin. I show her how to extract the meat from the shell and she takes delight in making many jokes and doing some ridiculous skit that involves her playing with the empty crab shell. It's not even that funny but it makes me laugh so hard that moisture collects in the corners of my eyes.

After lunch Lilianna reads aloud a book she's found from the boat as we lay together in the sun on the top deck. I don't know the story myself, though I try stay focused on listening to the actual plot my eyes are constantly distracted in studying the way her mouth moves as she talks. Zoning in and out of listening to her read I just watch her and my eyes begin to get heavy. I'm so tired from sleeping like shit the last few nights. I've been hesitant to fall asleep since the first nightmare, genuinely scared of what would be waiting for me behind my closed eyelids. All the dreams were so real which is what made it so awful, and having her so far away that I couldn't just hold her and tell myself it was just a dream made it even worse. But being here with her now, hearing her voice lull me into a slumber while her body is pressed to my side is the best cure to those fucked up dreams.

Instead the images my brain projects onto my closed eyelids are very different and something I've never dreamed about in my life. Like the last few nights they're very vivid, the smells, touch, taste and visuals are all very realistic and just like those last few nights this dream will haunt my conscious mind when it wakes. I know I'm dreaming but I can't bring myself to wake up just yet.

The small girl sits in the field of grass. Tiny hands with chubby wrists cling to fresh blades and pull them from the earth before tossing them aimlessly. The little green overalls she wears now sprinkled with dry dirt and sprouts of grass. Her short, dark blonde hair is pulled into a tiny ponytail at the top of her head. Small curls that are too short to tie up fall around her neck and ears. She's so small, maybe not even yet three. But when the small human lifts her face up from observing her dirty lap to meet my gaze my breath hitches in my throat. Hazel-green eyes look up to me and her full pouty lips pull into a familiar smile showing off the dimples in her cheeks. Small arms reach up for me and I look around this empty grass field but we're alone. The small child's hands motion impatiently for me to pick her up but my feet are unmoving.

"Dada."

I sit upright on the deck, breath heaving in and out of my lungs fearfully as Lilianna looks over at me from her sunbathing position.

"You okay?" She asks, concern washing her face as I settle my gasps.

"Y-Yeah. Yeah I'm fine." I assure her.

"Did you have another nightmare?" She sits up and moves closer to me.

"No." I run a hand over my hair. What the fuck was that? It wasn't a nightmare as such, but it still scared the shit out of me.

I glance at Lilianna and the little girls face appears when I blink. She looked so much like her. I shake my head of the terrifying thoughts and reach for Lily. She lets me pull her on to my lap and I bury my face into her neck as she plays with my hair. A few moments pass and her fingers have soothed my brain into that comforting silence.