"Do you think it could be done?" I ask Thomas and Morfran, still sitting in my hospital bed, but now I've been awake for almost two days, and suffering immensely when I realize none of it happened. I didn't go to pick up the ring. Dad and Anna were never brought back. I never proposed to her. None of it was real. Morfran scratches his head while Thomas looks to me in sympathy. I ignore him.
"Maybe. You said this is how it happened in your dream?" My spirits are crushed when Morfran calls it a dream. I still can't believe it. But it makes sense. I never had memory loss. I couldn't remember anything because it never happened. I never had a life with Anna. I just nod to Morfran's question.
"Could–" My breath hitches in my throat. "Could I have come up with a way to get her back because the dream was about her?"
Morfran shakes his head in thought, but no words come from his mouth. I can tell that even he hasn't come across something this strange. I scoff. Strange, my ass. Painful; that's more like it. Why would Fate throw me such a cruel card after everything I've ever went through for her? False hope and the thought that Anna could somehow be back here with me. I know it may sound strange, but I wish I'd never woken up in the first place. I'd rather have a beautiful lie than the horrible truth.
I'm sitting in the hospital bed, my eyes trained on the uninteresting lines on my hands. I see Thomas whisper something to Morfran from the corner of my eye, and next I know he's gone from the room. Thomas sits alone with me, a heavy silence weighing between us. He's the first to break it.
"I've been seeing what you did. You know, in your dream." He talks hesitantly, as if he's stepping on eggshells. I won't deny it. He is stepping on eggshells. There I was thinking I brought the girl I love back to life, move into her destroyed house with her and proposed to her. I want nothing more than her. To be with her. And now I have the cruel knowledge that none of it happened. Of course. How the Hell could I possibly have gotten Anna back from Heaven? And why would she willingly leave for me?
Thomas, hopefully, can't see how broken I am. I don't want to be seen as weak, even in the time where I most deserve it. I just want to curl into a ball, cry my eyes out and be left to rot away. Left until I turn to dust. Maybe then I can join Anna in Heaven. I'd leaving Mom and everyone else, but I'd never know the difference. It'd be just like when I let Anna go. Once the powers that be had made that damn house for her there, she had seen a doppelganger of me. It wasn't me. It never would be. But Anna would never know the difference. She's living the life she should have had all those years ago. I could live that life, too. If only this damn place would let me leave.
Through this frustration and fury and anger and pain comes the topic of my dad. I haven't told Mom anything, but I'm damn sure Thomas knows. He just isn't saying anything. Dad's practically been a stranger my whole life, and I thought I had miraculously gotten him back, too. It was all a lie. But I could have been content with living in that little world. And through this suffering is when I decide that this is only the beginning. And that I have a lot of work ahead of me.