My phone buzzes against the kitchen counter, cutting into the hush of morning. I’m elbow-deep in soapy water, coaxing a stubborn coffee ring from the bottom of my favorite mug. The vibration is insistent—the kind of thing that signals you’re wanted, or worse, needed.
I dry my hands on my shirt. Jeff, of course. The screen glows with an image: a screenshot of his sleep tracker, a jagged skyline of deep blue and violet bars. Ten hours logged with a caption, “I know this reveals my inner nerd, but here’s what my watch shows. I’ll send you more details, but you’ll have to delete them.”
Delete it. The request hangs there, cryptic and deliberate. I read it twice, then look up at the window, as if the glass itself might be listening. The house is silent except for the low hum of the fridge and the distant, muffled sounds of my son getting ready upstairs. I reread Jeff’s message, trying to see the joke or the riddle or whatever this is supposed to be.
What could he possibly want me to erase?
“OK,” I type, my thumb tapping a staccato. “Maybe you needed that amount of rest.”
He replies fast, bubbles popping up and vanishing in a jittery rhythm. “Sometime during those 3 hours and 12 minutes of REM, I had a dream about you.” The next bubble, “a sexy dream.”
My chest tightens. Heat pulses through me, quick and involuntary, like when you nearly drop a plate and your arms flail before your mind can catch up. I feel it low in my stomach, a flutter that’s both shameful and alive. The rest of me, though, is already bracing for the aftershock: the way even the most innocent flirtation can become a dare, a test, a measuring stick for how far you’re willing to go.
We’ve been circling this for weeks, playing by the rules I set for myself: keep it light, keep it fun, don’t let it mean anything. Now he’s leaped over the line I so carefully drew. This isn’t just fun anymore; it’s a situationship, and the word itself feels unstable, like a plank shifting beneath my feet. I remember telling him we’re two adults enjoying our time together, nothing serious, as if saying it enough could make it true. But the words are hollowing out, and I’m left standing on a line that’s already disappearing.
“Oh my,” I type, the words a dare as my pulse jumps. “Was I having fun in the dream?”
“It was fun!” he answers. “I feel like a 16-year-old kid cuz I only get a girl ‘in my dreams!’”
A laugh escapes me, sudden and bright, startling in the kitchen’s silence. I glance at the window as if someone might hear, as if the morning itself might judge me. “You’re such a nerd,” I write. “In real life and in your dreams, lol.”
“I’ll say that you were not prim and proper,” comes his reply. “You were a very active participant. Fun stuff!”
Fun. His favorite word, his constant agenda. It’s his shield, a way to keep everything from getting real. He wants me to be the cool girl who just jokes along, who takes nothing seriously. Part of me wants to resist, to call out the shallowness, but another part—the part starved for this current—leans in and lets it pull me under.
“That means I was great,” I tease, fingers trembling just a little. “So where did this dream take place?”
The typing bubble appears, disappears, reappears. He goes silent for a moment and then, “You gotta delete all this. And then delete the recently deleted.”
The kitchen air thickens. I stare at his words, and the request suddenly feels different in weight, making me uneasy. Delete the deleted. No trace. Like he’s prepping for a trial, or hiding something from a wife, or testing how discreet I am. That he’s already thought through the digital forensics of our flirtation should be funny. It’s not.
My mind veers for a second into the shadows. I think about what he might want to say that would require this much secrecy. My imagination fills in the blanks. Maybe he wants me to play along, to indulge his fantasy in words, then erase it as if it never happened.
Maybe he wants something that crosses a boundary I haven’t even drawn yet. The thought sparks a strange, jarring image: me in leather, a paddle in hand, teaching him lessons for every disobedience. Lessons in power, in restraint. If he’s testing my discretion, maybe he wants me to be the one in control, to punish him for his own daring. The fantasy is a costume, and it doesn’t fit.
Desire without shame. I want to say I’m up for it, but I don’t know.
Though curiosity wins. It always does. “Of course,” I type, and wait.
“We were hiking in the woods,” he writes, and I can almost hear his voice, low and coaxing. “You wore yoga pants and a tank top. My fav. I was holding your hand, and we stopped for lunch on a blanket. I kissed you innocently. You kissed me less innocently. This text chain is turning into a romance novel. Lol.”
Romance novel. I read it once, twice. My nose scrunches. The woods? That’s his fantasy?
The scene he sketches is pure adolescent fantasy: all suggestion and performance. It’s not mine. His woods are a stage for sex, for being seen. My woods are a sanctuary, a place to disappear and blur my edges into the green hush. The thought of turning my refuge into a spectacle makes my skin crawl. But I play along. It’s always easier.
“Everyone loves a good romance,” I type. “So the scene takes place in my favorite environment, lol.”
“Bottom line,” he writes, “we had crazy fun sex. Like carefree and only in the moment. It was well off the trail, so we felt safe. Free to talk, laugh, enjoy each other, and be together. The embarrassing part that I’ll share despite being nearly 50 years old. I woke up close to having a wet dream!”
I set the phone down, then immediately pick it up again. Read the message, then read it again, as if a second pass might clarify the feeling it stirs in me. The image of us in the woods, bodies entangled on a blanket, is so removed from my reality that I don’t know how to respond. It’s not even the sex that’s the issue—it’s the idea of being watched, of existing only as the object of someone else’s pleasure. I’m not sure what that makes me, but I know it’s not who I want to be.
My fingers hover over the keyboard. “That means you were having lots of fun,” I type, and even as I send it, the words taste wrong in my mouth.
“I sure was!” he replies.
The exclamation point lands like a stone in the kitchen’s hush. I read his reply three times, searching for something softer beneath the performance. There’s nothing. The thrill of being desired evaporates, leaving only a familiar hollowness. He doesn’t want me; he wants the woman in his dream. And the old, cold realization clenches my stomach: I am wanted for what I provide, not for who I am.
“You better get your day started,” I write, the words clipped and sudden. “I gotta take care of my agenda. Delete these texts.”
“Deleted,” he responds. “Go kick butt!”
I set the phone face down on the counter and feel the room collapse around me; the silence swelling to fill every corner. For a long moment, I just stand there, staring at the patch of sunlight on the floor and listening to the faint thud of my heart.
I want to be the kind of woman who can play this game untouched, who can enjoy the thrill without it leaving a mark. I want to believe I’m in control, that I’m choosing this—not letting it become another detour, another loop in the road I always end up traveling. But I can already feel the story taking over, writing itself beneath my skin in a language I know too well, a narrative I’ve never been able to escape.
I wonder if Jeff feels any of this, or if he’s already moved on to the next joke, the next day, the next dream.
**
The spa appointment dissolves by text message, four words blinking on my screen. “Fever. Can’t make it.” I stare at the notification while my coffee grows cold, feeling the disappointment settle somewhere behind my ribs. We’d planned this spa day for weeks: the massage, the lazy afternoon of being cared for instead of caring. Now the day yawns open, empty and undefined, and I’m not sure what to do with the sudden space.
Jeff’s follow-up messages arrive in a flurry of apology and concern. He never gets sick, he explains, not with all the airports and hotel rooms he navigates for work. The fever is sudden and unknown, and he’s tackling it with the same anxious precision he brings to everything else. “Don’t want to get you or the staff sick,” he writes, and I can almost hear the guilt in his thumbs.
I should feel frustrated. Instead, I feel that old pull toward wounded things, the familiar urge to bundle him in blankets and feed him soup until the world feels safe again. When his temperature spikes that evening, I press for details through the phone—how high, how long, what symptoms—my voice tight with a worry I haven’t earned the right to feel. It’s the old pattern: mending what’s broken to earn my place.
When he mentions the urgent care waiting room, I imagine him there: slumped in a molded plastic chair, surrounded by strangers coughing into their elbows, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Something in my chest clenches. I want to reach through the phone and pull him out of that place, away from all that dread. After some of the test results come back — viral, not bacterial, nothing serious — I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. My shoulders drop, and I notice how tense I’ve been, as if my body had been bracing for impact.
He messages me immediately, worried he might have infected me. My thumbs move faster than my thoughts. “Maybe it’s just a passing bug. I feel fine. I’ll know if something is off with me. Thank you for checking.”
I pause, watching the cursor blink. I should stop here, keep it light, keep it within the boundaries we’ve drawn. But something pushes me forward, some ancient tenderness I can’t quite name. “How are you feeling?” I add. Another pause. The words that come next surprise even me. “Remember the words healthy and whole. You are not sick or broken. Wrap your mind around that concept. Kind of like the phrase mind over matter. That was my quick prayer for you.”
I read the message twice before sending it. Where did that come from? The words feel borrowed from another version of myself, the one who believed intention could reshape reality and close wounds. It’s the language I used before I learned prayers don’t stop late-night phone calls, that positive thinking doesn’t hold a family together. An echo of a faith I thought I’d lost, now offered to him like a relic I’m not sure I believe in anymore.
“Appreciate the words of wisdom,” he replies. “I’ll chew on that today. Healthy and whole.”
After almost two weeks of low-grade fever, fatigue, sore throat, and swollen glands, he’s better. Finally, a breakthrough. The relief is physical, a loosening in my chest I didn’t know I’d been carrying. So when he suggests a walk through the meadow, I agree because I don’t know how to say no. Because saying no would mean admitting how much I’ve been waiting for him to come back, how much I’ve already let him in.
The spa day still hangs between us like unfinished business, even though he rescheduled it for next month. And although his illness worries me, his diagnosis — a viral infection of unknown origin — still clings to my thoughts, a shadow I can’t quite shake.
We step into Kromer Meadow Preserve, and the world goes quiet. Wildflowers dot the field in splashes of purple and yellow, their patterns so neat they feel rehearsed, like a performance of wildness. We walk along the trail, a perfect circle that promises to lead us nowhere but back to where we started.
“I like it here,” I murmur, and the words feel incomplete. What I mean is that I like how small the meadow makes me feel. A dot among the flowers, carefree and swaying, belonging to no one. I want to say this, but the thought drifts off before I can catch it.
Jeff’s hand finds mine, warm and insistent, leading me toward a weathered bench. A runner passes, a blur of motion and sound. The moment he’s gone, Jeff tugs my hand, pulling me down until I’m settled on his lap. It’s so quick, so matter-of-fact. His arms wrap around me with an ease that makes my breath catch. It’s not the suddenness that shocks me. It’s the ease. The way possession can look like affection if you squint.
His kiss is different this time. Softer. Less hungry, more… what? I don’t have the word for it. Settling in? Getting comfortable? The thought arrives unwelcome: he’s getting used to me. And something in my chest both loosens and stiffens, a door opening and locking at the same time.
Jeff’s beard scratches my neck, his breath tickling my ear. We talk about the meadow, the small pond glinting at the edge of the field, how this route belongs to his running routine, his alone time. His voice vibrates through his chest against my back, and I relax into the rhythm of it, into the solid fact of him. Yet the relaxation feels like a warning I can’t read, a body learning to trust before the mind has signed off on the agreement.
How much later, I’m not sure, but time bends when I’m this close to him. I pull out my phone, telling myself I’m just passing the time, but the truth is more tender than that. I want him to see how I see. Flower photos, dozens of them, the same bloom captured from every angle: light through petals, shadow in stamens, the design of something that doesn’t know it’s beautiful.
“I know it’s weird, all the different shots of the same flower,” I admit, the heat rising in my cheeks. “It’s just… I like to see them from every angle. I’m trying to catch the little details, I guess. The way the light hits the patterns. The symmetry.”
What I don’t say: I keep photographing the same thing because I’m trying to finally get it right. Because if I look long enough, from enough angles, maybe I’ll understand what I’m actually seeing.
Jeff scrolls without comment, though a smile plays on his lips. “I’m trying to grow in my ability to be present,” he says, and the admission surprises me, landing somewhere near my sternum. “Do you have an interest in a professional camera? I’d love to have the knowledge and ability to take quality photos.”
“Oh, I’m fine with my iPhone,” I answer, a little too quickly. The words sound defensive even to me. “I just edit them if I need to. I don’t think I have the patience to learn a real camera, with all the settings and everything.”
Only after speaking, I realize that I’ve drawn a line between us without meaning to. He wants to acquire, to master. I want to remain amateur, to keep my distance from expertise, as if not trying too hard might excuse the longing underneath.
“Yep.” He nods, handing back my phone. “The best camera is the one you have with you.”
Camera. The word echoes, triggering a familiar frustration. It’s like a recurring dream: a man’s face, perpetually out of focus. The harder I try to capture the image, to sharpen the details, the more it slips away. It feels like my whole life is a photograph I can’t get right, a story I keep failing to develop. Perhaps these are illusions—fragments of memory I’ve pieced together wrong. Yet the unease settles in, the sense that I’m always looking at something I can never quite hold.
“Look,” Jeff blurts out, pointing upward. “There’s a plane flying overhead.”
I follow his finger to the silver dart cutting across the blue sky. “Newark or Philly?” I tease, remembering his obsession with flight paths, his need to know where things are going.
He chuckles, the sound moving through him and into me. He shifts beneath me, orienting himself — east, west — like a compass finding north. “Lehigh Valley International,” he answers with certainty.
I envy that certainty. The way he can locate himself in the world, know the origin and destination of every moving thing. Meanwhile, I close my eyes, letting the sun warm my face. I breathe in the meadow air, the grass sweet and alive, and let myself drift toward something less fixed.
“What are you thinking about?” he whispers, trying to break through the stillness.
The sun is warm on my eyelids, the breeze whispers through the grass, and just like that, I’m elsewhere. I’m in a truck, windows down, the wind tangling my hair. Red rock canyons rise on either side of the highway, ancient and indifferent. The sky is a surreal blue, and the road stretches west, endless. I’m chasing the sunset with no destination, no one waiting, no one to answer to.
I describe it to him. The canyons, the sky, the freedom of having no plan.
“Is there somebody with you?” he asks.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, trying to conjure a face in the passenger seat beside me. I search for a hand to hold, a presence to share the endless blue sky. But the seat stays empty. The space beside me is just space. And with a slow, sinking clarity, I understand. This perfect vision of freedom was constructed for one. The aloneness isn’t liberation; it’s just absence wearing a pretty disguise.
“I can’t see a face,” I confess, and the admission costs me something I can’t name.
I could lie. Put Jeff in the passenger seat, fold him into the fantasy and pretend this is a future we could share. But the truth is too heavy. The truck is hauling a tiny house—the one me and Reginald designed on nights when forever still felt possible. Just the two of us, exploring the world together. Growing old.
Another dream shattered. Another setback, another version of my life turned to rubble, and I’m always, always tripping over the pieces.
I open my eyes. The meadow, the flowers, Jeff’s arms—they’re all still here. The trail still loops in a perfect circle, ending where it began. And I’m still here, too. Returned. I just don’t know if this is a homecoming, or just another way of getting lost in the same place twice.
This post is part of a fictionalized memoir. The emotional experiences and themes are drawn from my life, but all names, identities, timelines, and circumstances have been altered, obscured, or combined to protect privacy — including my own. These writings are not meant to diagnose, label, or describe any real person. Instead, they illuminate relational patterns that can occur in emotionally imbalanced or narcissistic dynamics. Any resemblance to actual individuals is coincidental or intentionally obscured. The intention is healing and awareness, not identification. These posts are for storytelling purposes only and do not constitute professional advice.
The images woven through My Journey and The Lessons are my own photographs — moments I captured on trails, in forests, beside rivers, and under open sky. They are pieces of my story and are not to be copied or used without permission.
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