CHAPTER TWENTY

LOST IN LOVE

Ichabod and I each retired to our separate rooms when we finally arrived home. Throughout the long journey back, I rested calmly in Ichabod's arms, and groggily allowed him to escort me to the house when John began to unhitch the horses. I contemplated on brewing a kettle of tea, as I was still quite chilled from the biting air, but for some unknown reason, I ascended the stairs to my room, my eyes puffy and cheeks salt-stained from my tears.

Lighting the lamp on the desk, I slithered from the silk gown and laid it on the bed. I struggled with the laces on the back of the corset, and soon grew hot with frustration when the breath pilfering confinement did not ease. "If I knew which man invented such a cruel garment, I'd slaughter him with my bare hands," I moaned and collapsed onto my bed.

I thought of Ichabod. He hadn't slept a night since I had stayed with him, and I knew he wasn't at all likely to be sleeping now. "Well Constable," I muttered to myself rising to my feet. "You assisted getting me into this thing, and now you're going to assist me in getting out."

Wondering though the hallway, the wooded floor felt cold and numbing on the soles of my feet. Not a light guided by way, but my pupils adjusted to the darkness and I experienced no difficulties making my way down the corridor. A weak radiance crept from under the crack of the door, and that was the only confirmation that Ichabod was wakeful. I placed my hand to the door, knuckles white as I went to knock, but I didn't. Instead, it seemed like I froze in time, my hand seizing in midair. A nauseating sensation swept over me that over me made my knees tremble. I was dreaming. Everything had been a dream, creations of the dictatorship of my own imagination. And now I was returning to that nightmare that had caused me to wake drenched in sweat so chronically before.

It was in that nightmare when darkness would enclose lethally around me, the luminous and vibrant light erupting from the vast barrier of the door, and I wanting to scream at the top of my lungs, wanting to die, wanting only the existence of sound. Yes, I thought - If I'm indeed dreaming, when I knock, there'll be no sound, and the fate of this dream will be of like that of all the others.

I held my breath. This vital moment would change everything; revealing the ruthless facts of reality from those of my fictional dreams, nightmares, and fantasies. How I longed for it to be real. If it were not, it would leave me to question the authenticity of everything else in my life. I delicately knocked on the door, quivering, as if the door itself were crystal and would shatter if I knocked too hard. There was a slight tapping from my knuckles' footsteps, and although dim, these footsteps were as strident as thunder, even it seemed, rumbling the ground.

Relief filled every bone in my body. Everything was true, nothing the dream I had dreaded. I felt like crying, and if I had not shed every tear that existed in my body earlier, I would have began crying then. But at the moment, my tear well was dry.

I could hear the faint shuffle of Ichabod's feet as he neared the door, and could hardly see his face as he opened the door a crack wide enough only to see the person who had called upon him at such an hour of the night. "Melanie?" he asked rather sleepily and puzzled.

For a moment I had thought he was sleeping before I disturbed him, and a pang of guilt twisted my insides, but quickly demolished when I noticed a book resting beside a low candle on an end-table near a chair. "Yes, Ichabod. It seems as if…" but Ichabod interrupted me.

"You're well aren't you? Nothing's wrong?" he asked opening the door inviting me in. His face was completely covered by a shadow, as the single flame from the candle was the only light the room offered.

"Oh yes, I'm quite well." I said. "But I also seem to be having troubles trying to get out of this dreadful garment as well."

Ichabod blushed when I stepped into the dismal light only clad in the nominal corset. "It's just the knot on the back of this thing. I can't seem to get it undone." I smiled in attempt to ease his embarrassment and turned my back to him. "I swear I'll never wear another corset as long as I live," I stated as Ichabod's fingers worked the laces. Letting out a sigh of relief, I felt the corset lighten its deathly grip. Although I was quite thin, the corset's ideal contour was far different from my own.

Goosebumps formed rigid and tight on my skin and the cool air swathed my back, newly exposed, as the laces pulled apart. I held the front of the garment with an anxious hand, but it seemed like twenty-six years had passed before Ichabod said anything.

"There," he spoke nervously and struggled with that single word. But even with that said neither one of us shifted. I felt the intensifying heat of the moment, like stepping from shadows into daylight for the first time.

Ichabod moved closer until I could feel the subtleties of his breath on the sensitive flesh of my neck. I gasped when I felt his hand tenderly sweep up my spine and in the valley between my shoulder blades. I turned my head toward him and my eyes met his own. They glimmered of fear and trepidation – like the last live ember in a pile of ash. His vacillating lips drew closer to mine and he was hesitant and uncertain. But in that moment when our lips met, it was as if adding timber to that of a blazing fire. We kissed ardently and hungrily, his fingers caressing my head, like nothing else mattered, because in that moment nothing else did.

"Everything is telling me this is wrong," he said pulling away. "Everything but my heart."

"I know. I know," tears were streaming down my cheeks. I wrapped my arms around his neck. "We're so stupid! We're so stupid, Ichabod!" I cried burying my head into his chest. He froze for a moment, not knowing what to do, as if he were contemplating the gravitates of what was about to happen.

In the next instant, his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him, his mouth firmly against mine. He kissed me more intensely than I ever knew possible and I found myself kissing him back. We made our way to the bed, like we were the last two people on Earth free of the many complications and impediments of our existence. And with that, I found myself completely vulnerable in his arms, not giving a damn about what would happen tomorrow, or next week.

We collapsed onto the sea of emerald velvet, forgetting everything, forgetting who we were – just two people caught in the midst of love. "You're sure about this?" I asked shakily. Ichabod paused and blew out the candle in one sizzling breath. As Darkness dominated the room, luminescence dominated my mind.

"More certain than anything in my life," he softly breathed and his fingers delicately traced my lips like they were more valuable than a gem itself.