3 “Will you listen?”

"She came to me," I say, "and I heard her voice. She's real."

He smiles into the city lights. "What did she say to you?"

My flower heart quivers from an unseen wind. "She says you are not real."

He exhales his restraint and shuts the world away, reaching for my fingers in the dark, clasping them tightly. Lips whisper condolences into my curls and trail down my ears. Familiar cool breath blows clarity into my skin, billowing like the love from the sea foam. "Do I feel real?"

Yes...

I am drowning in you.

The squeeze of my hands is all he needs. He wipes a tear I hadn't realized escaped, turning himself to face me fully, in all his ethereal glory. Did he always have this glow about him?

"What did I tell you?" His voice is flying circles around my head and the petrichor of his skin is intoxicating. He is all that I feel.

"You will stay with me," I say.

His smile is a thousand Christmas lights. "Then you will not worry. I am with you." Clasped fingers and warm nightly embraces from the dark.

He is real to me.