“What would you like to know?”

“Are you still in love with her?”

“Right now,” I grab the edges of the baby doll and pull it up over her ass, revealing her bare pussy to me, her flat stomach, and her perfect tits, “I am not.” When Rachel is completely naked and trembling under my hands, I toss the fabric carelessly on the floor, reach for her hips, and guide her core toward my mouth. “Allow me to show you.”

The article forgotten …

Along with the woman I once loved.

Blaire

THERE’S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. As I wake up, my eyes growing accustomed to my surroundings, I notice that this is my childhood bedroom. Confused, I push the duvet cover to the side and get out of bed. “Coming,” I say as the banging grows louder. I open the door and find my mother standing in the hall, dressed in the same clothes that she had on the last time we saw each other years ago. It’s like time has stopped moving and she hasn’t aged. She’s still as beautiful as the day I left home.

“Mom? What are you doing here?”

She hands me an envelope without saying a word.

I take it and gaze down at the letters written on the white paper. “What is this?”

“Everything you have left of your father.”

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

My mother spins on her feet and begins to walk away from me as fear clutches its ugly claws in my chest. “Mom! What do you mean? Where is Daddy?”

She stops somewhere down the hallway and turns to look at me, her eyes empty. “He’s gone, Blaire. He’s gone.”

Devastating pain explodes inside me, shattering me from within. The room begins to spin, people, furniture, and various flying objects become a mass of swirling colors.

Then I’m in the arms of a man whose face I can’t see. Every time I try to look at him, my sight becomes blurry and it prevents me from discovering his identity. His gentle touch is familiar, though, and it fills me with a sense of tenderness and love.

The man clasps me tighter to his chest without saying a word. His silence is more comforting than words could ever be. But it’s his presence that means everything and gives me strength to continue breathing.

“My dad is dead,” I whisper brokenly. “And I never got to say good-bye to him.” I press a hand to the ache in my chest and wonder how someone can feel so much pain and be able to live through it, breathe through it.

He presses a kiss on my forehead. “Would you have wanted to?”

“I don’t know … I feel so lost.”

“Go back home, Blaire. Go to him. Go to your mom,” the man urges.

“I can’t. I’m too late.” I try to look at him again, but he begins to disappear as though his body is made of smoke. “No!” I shout hysterically, reaching for him but grasping nothing but air. “Don’t leave me. Stay with me. I n-need you.”

“Go back to them, Blaire. It’s time to heal and to forgive …”

I wake up suddenly, gasping for air as my heart races madly. My sight adjusts to the dark, and I half expect to find myself in my childhood bedroom, but the familiar furniture brings me back to the present. I get out of bed urgently and walk to the door, dreading who I’ll find on the other side.

Nothing but my empty living room.

Relieved, I turn the lights on and go to the kitchen to pour myself something to drink. As I gulp the water down, images of my parents, of the man whose face I couldn’t see, continue to flash in my eyes. Their voices grow louder and louder. I place the glass on the counter and cover my ears to tune them out, except it’s no use. They shout like every fiber in my body is to go to them and set things right between us. It’s the last thing that I thought I’d ever want but, in a startlingly lucid instant, it becomes as essential to me as my next breath. Suddenly gripped by a choking fear the dream might be true, I decide to go in search of answers back to where it all started.