“I used to have this dream all the time,” he said, as he tugged her gently by their interlaced fingers.

There was a beat of silence as she swished a broken phrase around in her mouth. Finally she found an acceptable prompt.

“What was it about?” she asked. Her voice was some other woman's entirely.

“No," He said, and she furrowed her brow at his unexpected rejection, "I mean this." He answered, his back to her, "I used to dream about this,”

“About having dinner together?” her tone bordered on dubious. When there was no answer, she offered an alternative to fill the oppressive silence, "About having me here?"

“No- I mean, yeah." He scratched his head nervously with his free hand, "Not quite,”  His eyes scaled the staircase before him. His feet followed his gaze and her feet followed still, “In my dream," He began, "I was always leading you by the hand," The tension in her shoulders began to dissipate, "Up these stairs,”

She was intrigued, but still unsure. She could not decipher why exactly he felt the need to relate the anecdote.

“I would always be walking up to the bedroom- to my" He corrected himself, "Bedroom- with you in my wake," Her confusion only grew, "With your hand in mine.”

They had reached the upstairs hallway and began toward the door to his bedroom.

“Then what?”

“Then we reach the door, and you go inside, and-“

“And?” she responded to his momentary hesitation.

“And I suppose a part of me went inside with you.”

Another painstaking moment of smothering silence pervaded the space between them. This time, he looked straight at her.

“A part of you?” She said, trying to hide her desperation to understand.

“Well, you know how in your dreams," His words clamored over one another like children, "Sometimes you see everything through your own eyes, and other times you’re sort of," He seemed to search for the words, although they were simple, "Watching yourself?”

“Sure,”

“Well, I’m always myself until that point,” He wants to say 'this point.' He refrains, “And then the door opens, and I know that you and I go inside," They stand together, unmoved, outside of his white wooden door, "but I guess its my perspective that changes. Suddenly I’m outside of my body, watching as the two of you- the two of us,” he catches himself, “Go inside.” He breathes out, wishing he’d never begun, “And then I’m left staring at the door again, and I never know what happens inside. I never get to know,”

The absence of sound is some monstrous thing. She wonders how the absence of something can be just as pressing and just as palpable as its entrance. She wonders how words left unsaid can be so much more substantial, more fleshy, than those that are stated without a quiver of the lip or the drumming of a heart.

“Tonight,” her free hand reaches for the doorknob, “Tonight is not like your dreams,” she improvises, unwilling to allow her apprehensions to pervade her speech.

Not tonight.

No, not tonight.

Tonight is the night.

"Tonight is the night," She turns the nob slowly, practically caressing it beneath her palm, "Tonight, you step inside." She squeezes his hand tighter, "Tonight, you get to know,"

His expression is nearly blank with surprise. She does not speak like this. Is she not herself? Or has she finally conjured the courage to speak as she wishes?

"Tonight will be a new kind of dream,"

She swings the door open and steps inside, her back to the room and her brilliant smile to him, as she leads him by the hand.

He steps in after her. He smiles back.

With his own free hand, he closes the door softly behind them.

2010