Page 183 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

I held out my left hand so she could see it better. Her jaw dropped. She took my hand in hers and studied the tattoo on my ring finger.

“It’s a Mobius strip,” I said. “An infinite loop. It symbolizes eternity and transformation. It has no beginning or end so if you travel far enough, time and space become a loop, and you’ll end up where you began.” Not sure if I got that exactly right, but she nodded like she understood what I was trying to say.

No matter how far we journey, we’ll always find our way back to each other.

“I ended up right back here with you,” she said softly, gently brushing her thumb over my knuckle just above the transparent bandage covering the tattoo. “Exactly where I belong.” Her smile eclipsed the tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Let’s make some new memories.” I pulled the camera out of my pocket then leaned in next to her and held the camera at arm’s-length.

No idea if we’d both end up in the photo or how good it would be, but I pressed the shutter and captured the shot anyway.

I wanted to etch our memories onto my heart and engrave them on my skin—the joyful moments, the quiet moments, the passionate moments. The celebrations and the mundane, victories and losses, heated arguments and reconciliations, and everything in between.

I would never get all my memories back but now I was grateful for the ability to create and retain new ones.

The photo was blurry, but we were looking at each other and we both wore big, sloppy smiles so that was good enough for me.

“Why are we doing this in the laundry room?” Cleo threw up her hands. “This is sous.”

She gave me an exasperated look and we burst out laughing.

Once we started, we couldn’tstoplaughing. We were gasping for breath. Clinging to each other as new peals of laughter rang out. Which was when Otis joined the party and started howling.

And I thought,This is what love looks like.

Being so in love that you need to tell the other personright this minute…in the laundry room with your dog swishing his tail in excitement and then circling and circling before finding a comfortable spot to lay down.Right on my feet.

This evening, we would take a romantic stroll on the beach. We would drink wine and feed each other grapes on a blanket in the sand with the ocean rushing to the shore.

And later, we would take a moonlit dip in the pool. Slow dance on the deck under a sky full of stars. Make love until dawn painted the sky red.

Cleo would press her lips over my heart. I would kiss the soles of her feet.

We would laugh about nothing and talk about everything and marvel at our great good fortune that we found each other in this great big, beautiful, fucked-up world.

We would buy an Otis-approved loft on the Lower East Side with a private roof terrace where we would plant an urban garden.

We would live fully and create without boundaries, grow old together, and continue to inspire each other for the rest of our days.

And one day in the distant future, one of us would wake up alone and we would remember all the love and all the joy, and we would feel an overwhelming gratitude simply because the other person had existed.

But right now, right here, this moment was perfect, vibrant and shimmering with life, and I didn’t want to miss a single second.

I framed her face in my hands. Cleo was art and poetry. The music in my soul. My once in a lifetime. And I was so fucking grateful to have her in my life.

“You know how I feel right now?” It was a rhetorical question, so she raised her brows, prompting me. “I feel like the luckiest man in the world.”

Cleo smiled.

And then I kissed her. Slowly. Thoroughly. Savoring the taste of her on my tongue. Sun-ripened peaches and summertime dreams.

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Cleo

Sixteen YearsLATER