Midnights and Dreaming

a short story about a dream she just can't forget

Credit where credit is due: thank you to queen Kimmy for seeing the potential in this piece and publishing it in The Weaver - current issues and back issues are available thru that link. She shares the profits with contributing artists.

isn’t this the most beautiful orange on orange on orange you’ve ever seen

Any fiction pieces in the future will be paywalled. I’m keeping my nonfiction work free to access.

A little backstory: this story was written in the summer of 2023 in between shifts at a Mexican restaurant. It was inspired by a real dream I’d had almost a year earlier and couldn’t forget. It had felt like a premonition at the time. And that’s where I started writing from.

Enjoy :)

***

Midnights and Dreaming

They were side by side when she slipped under, his arm under her head and the muscles soft in sleeping.  He had said goodnight and she had said goodnight and it had been normal and nice. 

That evening they had floated around each other in their familiar way, returning from work to cook side by side. He chopped garlic and she stirred celery on the stove. They hardly talked. Their bodies hummed with that same electricity. Nina Simone played over the speakers and he sang along in his beautiful voice– My baby just cares for, my baby just cares for– and she hummed along, not a great singer by any means but happy to accompany, happy to fall into their easy routine after three years of living together. 

They had flossed and brushed their teeth while facing their own faces in the bathroom mirror. She mentioned that she had a dentist appointment the next day. He asked if she would need a ride and she said no, but thank you, she would drive herself, and there was a moment when he looked into her eyes in the mirror and she felt this kindness and gentleness directed towards her from his entire being. Then they went to bed. 

They didn’t make love because they were tired. Or maybe she was tired, she couldn’t recall later. But that was okay, there was no pressure after three years together (plus another six months before that when they didn’t live together yet and they had discovered each other like the first bodies on earth). He fell asleep first and she followed him there soon after.

She blinked her eyes open, her head on his chest. Moonlight breezed through the white curtains. She looked up and saw him looking back at her. His face was calm but held deep contempt.

“What’s wrong?” She said. He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling.

“What did I do?” She tried again. She knew she had done something terrible. She was filled with dread that he knew, he had found out.

“I don’t want to know you after tonight,” he said, his voice calm.

“What can I do?” She begged. 

“I could never be with someone like you,” he said, so cold it felt like someone else, so cold the words glittered between them. She had done something so awful and she knew it, and now he knew it too. He told her to go back to bed. This was their last night together and there was in no rush for it to end. He continued holding her as she drifted back into sleep. 

She woke up in his arms again, moonlight still coming through the curtains, gasping for breath. She lurched forward in the bed, trying to sit up and get some air. He stirred and pulled her back to his chest by reflex. 

“Are you okay?” He said, half-asleep. She said yes and breathed deeply. She realized the other conversation had been a dream (had probably been a dream) but she could still feel the words in the air between them. 

…

In the morning he confirmed that yes, it had been a dream. But her guilt from the night before seemed so familiar, like a sickness she kept expecting to return. Deep within her was this sense that he had been right to say it. This feeling of deserving it, of being found out; a sort of catharsis and guilt.

I could never be with someone like you. Spooning scrambled eggs into her mouth the next morning she felt nauseous with the words. She wanted to talk with him more about the dream but found herself unable to speak about it. As the words spilled out of her mouth they became more and more true. And he never liked to hear about dreams in general. He was made of the earth and only believed in things he could see and touch. 

He sat across from her now, looking at his phone and drinking black coffee. It was Saturday and they didn’t have anywhere to be until the afternoon. A party.

Like many of their friends, these were really his friends. Part of his age group, while she was younger and her friends spent their weekends going to brunches and bars. His friends were better to hang out with as a couple. 

It seemed so strange sometimes that she had woken up to this life, in this house, with this man– that it had been her decisions that led her here. Sometimes her own power over her life was overwhelming and she wanted anyone else in the world to tell her who to be for five minutes. 

“You look beautiful without it,” he said, kissing her shoulder as she smoothed a blush stick over her cheek. She gave him a weak smile, to acknowledge that this was a signal of his devotion. There was always this sense that these comments were more about him than her, the Good Boyfriend Olympics. She enjoyed applying makeup, she enjoyed the routine of it. But as always, she gave that tight smile and didn’t say anything. He loved her and she was overthinking. It wasn’t nice. Sometimes her brain wasn’t nice. 

…

The driveway was so steep she had to close her eyes as he parallel-parked. This part of the city was so quiet, the trees old and wide. The inside of the house was very white, with splashes of bright contemporary art. She overheard women murmuring about the pros and cons of boarding school. She stayed close to her boyfriend’s side and gave small, polite smiles. 

The hosts led them over to the sundeck where guests were sprawled out on lawn chairs and couches.  She made small talk with a pair of twins, small women with buzz cuts and Catalonian accents, second-cousins of the host. They invited her to an upcoming show they were DJing at in a warehouse. From her boyfriend, she knew they were also heirs to a plastics manufacturing company. 

She tried to imagine dancing with her boyfriend in the dark and the heat, in the press of bodies. She tried to imagine herself there, all alone, and saw nothing at all.