To Sleep - To Dream

Josh looked like he was going to either pass out or flip out. “But honey,” he shook his head as if trying to make sense of my reaction. “My grandmother had to wear these; they were gifts to her from the man she loved.” He ran a hand through his hair, “I thought…” his voice seemed to catch in his throat and he lowered his head.

I wanted so badly to take the ring and the cross, the story of his grandparents love was an inspirational and moving one. In some way, I felt that their story was our story but I couldn’t believe that he would even try to give me something he gave Carol. I couldn’t stand to see the hurt that I caused because he didn’t understand why I didn’t want to wear something that his ex was given. Jumping out of the bed, I had to get away from him. As much as he was hurting right now, I couldn’t feel bad for him for I was hurting too.

“Anna!” I didn’t turn around when Josh called out to me or when I heard him jump out of bed. “Where are you going?” He asked as he gripped my arm and turned me around to face him. I found I couldn’t speak, there were so many things I wanted to say but nothing would come out so I went to turn around again. “Anna!” Josh spun me around again but this time he didn’t take the chance that I could turn away. Pulling me closer, he dropped his shoulder and threw me over.

“Josh! Put me down!” I screamed but he ignored me. “If you were worried about the view earlier, you should be worried now too.” He didn’t say anything but he did slap my bare ass. “Hey!” I went to slap his but he knelt onto the bed and tossed me down onto the mattress.

“I don’t know what your problem is with wearing my grandmother’s jewelry. My grandparents have a great marriage and they love each other very much, much like I believe we will when we get to be their age but Anna, damn it!” He fell to the bed beside me, “Honey is it because you don’t love me? Is that why you don’t wish to wear something that means so much to me?”

When I sat up he grabbed my arm, “No!” I said as I pulled my arm from his grasp. “I refuse to wear something that you gave to someone else!”

Josh leapt up onto his knees pretty damn fast. “You think I gave them to her?” He said ‘her’ with so much hatred in his voice that I was starting to doubt myself. “Don’t answer that, the look on your face tells me that’s exactly what you thought.”

“Josh -”

“Damn it Anna! How could you even think that? I never once even thought about giving them to her, not once!” He picked up the box, “You know how long I’ve had these?” I shook my head. “Ten years Anna, I’ve had these for ten friggin years and up until I met you I never thought I’d ever find the woman who deserved them.”

“Josh I’m sorry, I thought…” I trailed off, there was no point in saying what I thought, he knew.

Josh gave a little chuckle, “Do you have any idea how pissed off my grandparents would’ve been to see symbols of their love anywhere near Carol?”

“Why would they be mad? You did love her once.”

Josh shook his head, “I thought I did but I only loved the idea of who she was supposed to be. Anna my love life isn’t that spectacular, in fact it has been pretty damn boring. When I met her, I thought I found someone who could make me happy but I found out soon enough that she wasn’t even close to being that one. I have no idea why I married her, maybe I thought I would end up alone and that scared me.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Pretty stupid huh?”

I shrugged my shoulders too, “How do you know it’s not the same with me?”

He smiled, “Honey do you have any idea when I fell in love with you?”

I shook my head, “Christmas?” I guessed.

He laughed, “God no!”

“New Years?”

Again he laughed, “No Anna.”

“Yesterday?” I raised my brow as I asked, “There aren’t that many other days to choose from Josh.”

He smiled, “Yes there are.” He slipped under the blankets and sat against the pillow back rest he made earlier. “Come here,” he patted the bed beside him as he held out the blankets. When I was comfortably resting in his arms, he kissed my forehead. “The moment I knew I was in trouble with you was five years ago when you said to me, ‘I don’t want you for forever, just one dance.’”

My head snapped up and I stared at him in shock, “What?”

“You have no idea how disappointed I was to hear you say that, in my mind all I was thinking was, ‘why don’t you want me for forever? What’s wrong with me?’ Of course, I knew what was wrong with me, and I knew that I shouldn’t have been wondering why that was a problem.”

“You certainly didn’t seem to want to dance with me.”

Josh turned his head, lowering it down against my neck. “Anna it damn near killed me to hold you, to be that close to you and not be allowed to touch you. I wanted to kiss you so badly but instead I asked you your name.”

“I remember that, you sent shivers through my body when you did that.”

He smiled, “I know. But the second time we danced it was so much worst, I had to remind myself that I was married. I said it out loud, so I know you heard it.”

I nodded, “Yes and you told yourself that you loved her too. And then later she was there, in your arms and I wanted to kill her.”

Josh raised a brow, “How do you think I felt when I saw you with my brother that night and at the party at my house?”

“Nothing ever happened with Robbie.”

“I know, he told me then and again when he came back to town.” He tilted his head back and tried to cover a yawn. “That night of the party,” he looked at me, “When I realized it was you in my bed I thought I died and gone to heaven. I had been dreaming about you since the night at the bar.”

Snuggling closer to him I told him I was glad and pressed a kiss against his chest. “At least I wasn’t the only one.”

We were quiet for a while, I was thinking about what he just told me and what we were talking about, eyeing the box I looked up at him again. “Josh? What would your grandparents think if they saw their symbols of love on me?”

Josh lifted his hand to my face; his fingers gently brushed my cheek. “Anna my grandparents would be thrilled.”

“How can you be sure?”

His lips grazed mine, “Because they know how I feel about you, they know about the night we met. Anna, they knew I had found you the first time I saw them after that night. I don’t know how they knew because I didn’t tell them but they knew. My grandfather took me aside and said, ‘Joshua there’s only one woman who can make a man truly feel like a man. You have found that woman and we both know it’s not the one you are married to.’ When I tried to deny what he said, he told me that denying you existed wouldn’t make my feelings go away and that pretending Carol was the one was only depriving me of my masculinity.”

His unbelievable belief in us made me unbelievably happy but at the same time it made me worry that I could hurt him even worst than Carol did.

“Honey what’s wrong?”

Snuggling closer to him, I told him how loved him and wanted to make him happy always. “I don’t want to hurt you Josh.”

“I’m not naïve enough to think that you will never upset or hurt me Anna. We are both human and have a tendency to do stupid things sometimes but with that said, I believe that we can work through any problems we come across and have our relationship come out stronger in the end. We communicate Anna, maybe not always as soon as we should but we do talk and that makes all the difference.”

I thought about what he said, I knew he was right. “Josh?”

“Yes my love?”

My fingers brushed against the box still in his hand as I smiled up at him. “I would be honored to wear these symbols of love and devotion. To know that whenever I look at them or feel them against my skin, you are as much mine as I am yours.”

There are no words to describe the sheer joy that seemed to come over Josh, somewhere between the kissing and the words of love that fell from his lips, he managed to somehow slip the ring onto my finger and do up the clasp of the necklace that the cross hung on.

Locked in each other’s embrace, our bodies still warm from the heat of our lovemaking, we slipped off into a peaceful slumber.