Page 2 of Ascension

“I had that dream again.”

She sighs softly, the sound laced with interest. “Thedream dream?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a beat of silence before she says, “Hold on. I’m making coffee. This sounds like a ‘we need caffeine and emotional support’ kind of conversation.”

By the time I get to her apartment, she’s in leggings, a satin robe, and an aura of calm I’ve never managed to imitate. She slides a mug across the counter and leans against it, studying me the way she always does, like she’s flipping through pages only she can read.

“So,” she says, “tell me everything.”

I take a sip, trying to find words that don’t sound ridiculous. “It’s the same every time. James is there, and so is this woman. I don’t know her, but she’s… God, Lena, she’s unreal. It’s like she knows me. Touches me like she’s memorized every part of me I’ve never even shown anyone.”

Lena’s eyebrow arches, but she doesn’t interrupt.

“I wake up shaken. It doesn’t feel like a regular dream,” I admit, voice low. “It feels like something deeper, like my body remembers her even when I don’t.”

Lena hums, thoughtful. “And that scares you.”

“I’ve never wanted a woman before,” I whisper. “Not like that. I didn’t even know I could.”

She walks around the counter and sits beside me, resting her chin in her hand. “You know what I think? I think you’re trying too hard to explain something that doesn’t need explaining. Desire isn’t math, baby. You don’t solve for X, you feel for it.”

I let out a half laugh. “You sound like one of those self-help podcasts you pretend you don’t listen to.”

She smiles, unbothered. “Maybe. But I mean it. We’vebeen taught to treat sexuality like a box we have to fit into. Straight, gay, bi, whatever label makes people comfortable. But I don’t buy it. I think it’s fluid like water. It shifts, it moves, it finds shape in whoever we let it flow toward.”

Her words settle somewhere deep in me.

Lena leans closer, eyes soft but certain. “Don’t let fear decide who you get to be, Miy Miy. That’s how people end up living half their lives behind walls they didn’t even build. Society’s rules were made to keep men in charge and women ashamed. You deserve to know what joy feels like on your own terms.”

I stare down at my mug, tracing the rim with my thumb. “What if I go looking for it and lose myself instead?”

“Then maybe that’s exactly what needs to happen,” she says quietly. “Sometimes we have to lose who we were to make space for who we’re becoming.”

Her words hang in the air between us, heavy and holy.

I think about the dream, the way that woman looked at me like she already knew the parts I keep hidden, the ones I don’t even name, and I wasn’t ashamed about what I was feeling, if anything, I knew I needed to explore the curiosity of my desires.

Lena nudges me with her shoulder. “Stop overthinking it. Let yourself feel. Life’s too damn short to be obedient to ideologies you never had a say in creating.”

I smile, small and uncertain. But inside, something shifts, a quiet acknowledgment I can’t push away.

Because the truth is, every night I close my eyes, I want to dream again.

So that I find her, if only in my sleep.

I need to know her, ask who she is, ask what she wants from me.

And maybe, to admit what I already know, that a part of me wants her too.

BREAK DOWNS, BUILD UPS

By day, I’m the quiet tech genius who salvaged her father's crumbling empire: Calla Black, CEO of BlackSphere Technologies. The one who shows up at family barbecues with deviled eggs and keeps a Kindle in her purse, reserved, polished, predictable.

And I preferred it that way.

Because the truth? I hate surprises. I hate vulnerability. I hate the way trauma still lives in my bones like it pays rent, and if being soft means being exposed, I’d take steel over softness every fucking time.