Page 144 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

What she was really asking was if I remembered any of it. Or at least that’s how I interpreted it. The answer was no.

As for hard to read, it gutted me, but I kept that to myself. Because again, it was difficult to explain how you could feel so detached from your former self yet still feel the loss and the longing deep in your very marrow.

What a strange phenomenon.

“What did I think?” I tipped back on the hind two legs of my chair and looked up at the sky.

A few wispy clouds skittered past a crescent moon, and the air was scented with honeyed dew from my wild garden and sea salt from the Atlantic Ocean on our doorstep.

From the living room, Morrisey was singing about how much strength it took to be kind and to be gentle, and I made a mental note to add that song to my set list.

I still had my music, and for now at least, I had Cleo.

Gratitude. Beauty. Grace. Joy. And…The Smiths.

What more could a man want?

I smiled. “I think I was the luckiest man in the world.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Cleo

On Saturday morningAnnika called while I was rummaging around in Gabriel’s kitchen cupboards.

It was already eleven thirty and I was just getting around to breakfast.

I was off to a late start this morning, thanks to the sudden inspiration that seemingly struck Gabriel at two in the morning when I was forced to listen to the same chords over and over and his muttered curses that seeped through the floorboards.

The pacing. The guitar strumming. The cigarette smoke.

It was like sleeping above a nightclub. How could one guitar produce so much sound?

I could have banged on the floor or gone downstairs and asked him to stop, but he had an album to write so I let him get on with it.

Finally, around four in the morning, I heard his footsteps on the stairs and then his bedroom door quietly closing behind him.

At that point, he might as well have just slammed the door because I was wide awake and fantasizing about crawling into his bed and us fucking like rock stars until the sun rose.

Ugh. Why did I keep thinking about sex?

I suspected it was due to my self-inflicted ban on sex. The equivalent of Annika’s no-sugar diet and subsequent fall from grace when she inhaled an unhealthy number of cupcakes in one sitting.

Forbidden fruit was always the most tempting.

“Find anything interesting?” Annika asked.

“Four open boxes of Pop-Tarts, Lucky Charms, and Cocoa Puffs. What is he, twelve?” I put a Pop-Tart in the toaster and went through his junk drawer while my coffee brewed. I found a baggie of weed, rolling papers, an assortment of pens and lighters, two corkscrews, superglue, and a strip of…condoms?

“Oh my god, he has condoms,” I shrieked then glanced around to ensure that he wasn’t within earshot. I had no idea where he was.

“At least he’s practicing safe sex. You don’t want any nasty surprises.”

I threw the condoms back into the drawer and slammed it shut like it was filled with venomous snakes.

“Speaking of which, have you had any hot sex?”

“No,” I said flatly. I was still unnerved by those condoms. It was obvious thathehadn’t been living like a monk during our separation.