She used to love the color red. It reminded her of rose gardens. Velvet theater curtains. It was luxury, decadence, passion, beauty. She had filled her wardrobe with it – crimson scarves and silken blouses in everything from pomegranate to vermillion to ruby.
She dreamed in red.
And that was the trouble.
The uncompromising, lapping delirium that took over every night scared her in a way that her dreams hadn't in years. In those old nightmares she'd learned to navigate, become lucid. Fluid. But those were familiar terrors.
In those dreams there was smoke. She could breathe that smoke now. She could walk through fire.
But in these dreams, so new, his pleading eyes bore holes through her.
In these dreams he was dying.
She could hear but not feel as her hand squelched into the hole in his chest, the blood gushing up between her fingers. The creamy silk of her scarf began to bruise red and purple, the wound in his chest pooling into its once lovely fibers. She didn't feel her tears, but she tasted salt, metal… the iron tang of his blood as she carelessly swept her tainted hand across her face.
Just hold on. Just hold on a little longer.
Please. Please. Please.
Her own heart began to clench and squirm the longer it took to get in the car. It shouldn't take this long. He'd lost too much blood, he was in shock… he was trying to get up. She could hear the gurgling in his lungs… watched as the petals of red bloomed larger on her scarf. Dark curling chrysanthemums of blood… bestial reminders that he was slipping away. Beads of sweat slicked over his brow.
He'd be dead soon. Gone. She was watching the last moments of his life slip away in the backseat. Her voice sobbed as she begged him to stay… her eyes remaining dry.
She would reach out to touch him, her hands passing through him like a specter – she would grasp and stretch piteously trying to gain a hold, to press her hand into his wound. The little boy and the hole in the dike. Futile but so devoted.
Can you hear me? Open your eyes.
The dream was starting to spiral, more real than ever before. Swirling color, a flowing blur of sound. A pulse. The juicy thudding of a heart beating. She could feel her hands gain purchase on his shirt, grasping groundlessly for his heart. If only she could get her hands around, it she could protect it. If she could hold it she could save it. It was safe with her. If only she could reach it. It would be safe. If only.
She could smell a whisper of his aftershave over the coppery blood. She could hear her own voice, unintelligible but frantic. Her own heart thrummed against her chest in the whirling fog. She gathered the shirt toward her… closer, faster… soon she could press her hand against it and stop the bleeding, if only she could get closer. Just inches now.
Red? RAYMOND! She knew she was screaming but she couldn't hear. She gripped hard to his shirt. RED!
And she heard him say her name. Quietly at first, weakly. Just above a breath. Lizzie.
Then, suddenly the color was gone. Just noise. Her name. Two hands holding down her shoulders, grasping her tightly. She struggled under the weight of it. She struggled until she began to sweat, choke. Shake. Gasp.
Her eyes burst open.
His hands were on her temples, her cheeks, brushing wet tendrils of sweat-drenched hair from her face. His fingers were rough. And they were everything. She clamped her hand over his, not willing to let it go.
"Are you alright?" he asked, searching her frantic, wild eyes. "You're dreaming, Lizzie, wake up."
"Are you OK?" she disregarded his question, repeating it in her stupor. His eyes widened as she grabbed for his shirt, her face wild and unfamiliar. "Are you…" she began, finally becoming conscious before she could finish.
"Am I what Lizzie?" he asked, one hand under her chin, tilting her frantic gaze to his eyes. She relaxed into the hand that still cupped her face, slick with sweat and tears.
"Are you… bleeding," she asked, resigned to the fact that she was now awake. In his flat. Where she was safe.
Where he was safe.
He lifted his shirt to reveal the tightly healed but still raw bullet wound in his chest. Nearly six weeks old now. She let go of her breath for what felt like the first time, going limp against her sheets.
He was fine.
He was alive.
"Does this happen every night?" he asked, pulling his shirt back over his chest with only a shadow of a wince. "Lizzie, you don't need to worry about me."
"And you don't have to worry about me but I know you do," she said, her voice gravelly and low. He picked up her hand and placed a kiss into her palm, letting his lips linger. She closed her hand around it, as if to keep it like a bird. He turned to walk away.
"Stay here," she said, her voice pleading slightly through the lingering fog of sleep. "Can you just… lay here? Please." With her head on the pillow, he was just out of her sight and she waited to hear his weight shift on the floorboards. For too long she heard nothing. She turned over to see his lips curl into a languid, relaxed smile as he stood above her. And then the weight of him next to her and he laid down. The rush of air as he laid down smelled like his aftershave and it drew her in.
She heard his breath hitch as she turned toward him pressing her ear to his chest. The beautiful sound of his heart ebbing and flowing under his ribs made her ache with relief.
"Don't leave me," she whispered, letting his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest lull her to sleep.
"I won't," he said, putting his hand on her head, stroking it over her hair. "I couldn't."
And in the dark, for the first time in months… for Red, maybe years… they slept without moving. Without waking. Without dreaming.