Sometimes, you wake up in love with a woman you've never met.
...
You remember the first time you see her, because she takes the night terrors away. The dreams have been pulling you under since you are old enough to understand why you are so scared every night. Before the woman comes, you crawl into your parents' unnaturally cold bed and when you're too old to do that, you cry in silence until the visions began to fade. People try to prescribe insomnia medication, but you won't take it for fear of the monsters taking you while you were too incapacitated to fight back.
Kids your age call you a baby, afraid of the shadows. You tell them they should be afraid.
You learn to hide your sleepless nights with concealer, a substance that had never worked very well on your too-pale skin. By middle school, people don't question you, too worried about themselves to tease the girl who doesn't recall a full night of sleep. You cover the bruises from falling off your bed with fuzzy sweaters and tights, growing your red hair out longer to avoid looking for the monsters you know dally in shady corners waiting to drag you into the dark.
As you get older, you begin to see what scared you so much: blood dripping on the walls, a body divested of skin, vicious claws, gaping, pointed smiles, curly golden hair and a twisted red mouth, a gunshot wound, a cold face frozen forever in wide eyes and parted mouth, ropes twining your skin, knives and fury and black irises, grave dirt woven into blonde hair, broken screams of pain and loss. Now that the darkness has taken shape, you can do little more than pray for something to take you away.
And then, as if by magic, the woman comes.
The nights with pain and gunshots are the worst, the ones that make you scream and scream, and your parents have already put in their earplugs because they know what kind of night it is, somehow. You can't wake up, so you stay in terror, waiting for it to be over.
And all the sudden, it is.
You know it's a woman; her arms wrap around you, clutching you to her chest. You bury your head in her hair as if you've done this before. She kisses you on the forehead, taking your hand and lacing your fingers through hers. The last of your tears make little puddles on her blouse, but she doesn't seem to care. Flashes of light trickle from her hands like tiny fireworks.
When you're mostly calm again, she smiles softly down at you. She's got the most beautiful blue eyes you've ever seen. "You okay, Willow?"
Of course she knows your name. "Yeah."
She rubs circles into your back with her thumb. "That's good."
You can't help but ask: "Why weren't you here before?"
A look of pure sadness falls onto her face. "I tried, sweetie. I tried for a long time to come and see you, but none of my spells worked. You're somewhere very far away from me, and that makes things even harder."
"I'm sorry," you say. You don't want to make her sad anymore.
"It's okay. I'm with you now, aren't I?" You nod, laying your head on her shoulder. In the middle of your conversation somewhere, you both end up sprawled on a couch, her arms around her waist, and you perched halfway in her lap.
There is silence for a while; she strokes her fingers through your hair and you've closed your eyes at the feeling. You don't know exactly what she smells like, only that it's the closest to home you've felt in a long, long time. Maybe you never were home until she found you. "I wanna go back to sleep," you murmur.
"I'll keep the monsters away, I promise," she replies, letting you use her lap as a pillow. You fall back asleep easily, waking up refreshed and lively, but without her.
...
The next several years are spent this way, with the woman coming into your dreams to make all the monsters disappear, and you falling back to sleep in her embrace. You know innately that she loves you, but you don't know how.
As a teenager, you talk to her about school, your best friend and secret crush, Alex, your fear that you'll never be good enough. She listens, and she always tells you that it'll be alright. No matter how sad you get, or how frustrated and angry, she holds you like you're something precious. It's how you figure out she loves you the first time.
"Do you love me?" you ask, one night when everything seems to be going terribly wrong. Alex starts dating Delia, a shallow girl who only is interested in him so they can make out. Your grades are a smidgen above getting chewed out by your parents, and the woman was gone the last two nights. You're stressed and exhausted, and all you want is for her to say it. Anyone to say it, really.
She looks so sad when you ask. "Of course I love you, Willow. I've always loved you."
"But why?" You can't just let her off the hook. You truly don't understand love, because no one except her has ever given it to you. The librarian at school is stuffy and kind and British, Anne is blonde and smiley, and Alex is oblivious and dorky, but there is only friendship there. No one looks at you like this woman does.
"There doesn't have to be a why. Sometimes, you look at someone, and you just know." She runs a palm over your hipbone, ducking her head to dust a tiny kiss on your nose. "You'll always be my Willow, no matter what."
"Are you sure?"
Her smile lights up the fuzzy dream-place you're in. "Yes. I'm sure."
...
She begins to find you less and less now. Your night terrors have all but gone away, but so has she, and you almost wish for the frightening mirages to come back so she'll find you and pull you into her arms again.
You're starting to forget her. You can't recall her smell anymore, nor the way she feels against you, and it's driving you crazy. Hours normally spent on homework and helping your friends with research are wasted with the tip of your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth trying to remember her name.
When she returns again, she is distraught, with reddened blue eyes and flushed cheeks. There's fingerprint-shaped bruises on her wrists and black-and-blue spots barely visible through her white blouse. "Baby, who did this to you?"
"It doesn't matter," she mutters.
"Yes, it does!" You tear forward to hug her, being careful to avoid the marked parts of her body.
"I just want you to hold me," she sighs. "I need you to be near me, that's all."
You don't even think twice before pulling her down on the couch with you. For once, it's you doing the comforting, and she nestles into you like she's always belonged there.
...
You forget that you're dreaming until you wake up. She seems more real than any of this.
...
When she leaves for good, you can't remember her properly.
...
You barely register entering college. All you know is how chipper Anne is now that she has a hunk of a boyfriend named Finn, and the glowingly happy look in Alex's face whenever he thinks about Anyanka, a transfer student. Mr. Calendar, the British librarian, invites you all over for dinner every once in a while. But your life is empty, and you can't figure out why.
One day, a day that should have been like all the others, you go to a Wicca group on campus, just because Anne says you need to get out more. While you think the group is a load of hogwash, someone catches your eye. She's curvy, with a zig-zag part in her hair and the bluest eyes you've ever seen.
Before you know what you're doing, you tap her on the shoulder. The moment your eyes meet, something burns through your chest. It hurts, but it's more of an ache, an ache you didn't realize you had until you saw her again.
"I'm Willow."
She smiles softly, just like she did a long time ago. "I know."
You pause, staring at her. "You're Tara."
"I know."
...
When you can get Tara alone, you ask her, "What were my nightmares?"
"Memories of a different life." She looks at her feet. "I had the nightmares too, you know. I tried everything I could to get them to go away, and when my mom finally taught me magic for the first time, I used a spell meant to find relief from pain. And I found you."
"So, magic really exists?"
"Ever wonder why you went to a Wicca group, out of all of the miscellaneous clubs on campus?" Tara laughs, and suddenly, everything you missed comes back to life.
...
"I love you," you whisper into her neck. You're both curled up on Anne's couch, and she's playing with your hair.
She turns her head just slightly to place a reverent kiss on your lips. "I love you too, Willow."
...
In another life, you fall asleep and the nightmares come. You can't wake up, not anymore, so you just keep screaming. The sound pierces your ears, making you think they're bleeding on the pillow. Same color as your hair. You toss and turn, your blankets wrapping around your body, choking you like the mouth of the fanged monster in your dream. A gunshot sounds through your head, and you begin to cry.
And then, she comes to save you, flashes of light trickling from her hands like tiny fireworks.
...
Sometimes, you wake up in love with a woman you've never met.
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