D isbelief would be a totally normal reaction to teleportation. Mortification would be reasonable when that teleportation happened in the nude.
Weirdly enough, I didn’t feel exposed, or embarrassed, or even remotely out of place.
I felt...at peace. It was like every fiber of my being had been waiting for this Lisa Frank mood board of a forest, like I had finally found my correct coordinates on the map of the universe.
Leaves pulsed with saturated color—pinks, purples, and blues so vibrant they looked like candy. Everything glowed ever so slightly. The leaves moved—gentle, rhythmic, as if the forest breathed alongside me.
Warm, soft, almost electric, the air was silk dipped in sunlight. My bare skin hummed against it.
I inhaled the scents of ozone and earth, along with something sweet and bright and almost fizzy—joy in scent form. It filled my lungs and settled low in my chest.
Every clump of rock, every twist of root, every curl of mist around my ankles felt familiar.
I'd been dreaming about this forest for as long as I could remember. Night after night, it unfolded before my resting eyes like an enchanted screensaver. It was my default place even though I’d never set foot here in the waking world.
Until now.
Lately it felt like worry had followed me everywhere. I’d spent way too much energy questioning my own sanity. But I didn’t feel that here.
All of my worries seeped out through my toes and into the squishy moss.
If I was wrong, and this was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up.
If I was right, and this was real, I needed underpants. Answers, too. But mostly underpants.
I turned in a slow circle, letting every detail wash over me.
Through the leaves, I caught a glimpse of something that wasn’t supposed to be there. Sticks darker than the trunks of the trees tied together with twine. I squinted, as if that would help me make sense of what I was seeing.
A door? Maybe squinting did help.
I took a step forward.
As best as I could remember, I’d never seen a door here before. What could be waiting on the other side?
Goosebumps prickled across my arms.
Some part of me whispered, don’t touch it.
Another voice—louder, more stubborn—answered, How could you not?
The door’s presence was an invitation. The stubborn voice in my head was right. I had to open it.
I took another step forward.
But instead of damp earth beneath my feet, my soles were met with a hard, even wetter surface.
Linoleum.
The forest and the door were completely gone.
I was standing in my bathroom, in half an inch of water. I twisted toward the bathtub to turn off the spigot.
Someone was there already, kneeling, turning off the water for me.
Carson.
His jeans were soaked and water sprayed his favorite t-shirt—the one I gave him for Father’s Day a few years ago, the one that read Real Men Use Metronomes and was so faded that the only bit still legible read Real Metro.
His hair was cut a little too short, the way it always looked right after he’d trimmed it himself, something he’d started after I left. Cutting hair used to be my job.
I stood there frozen, staring at his back. My lungs forgot how air worked. My heart slammed into my throat as I took in the shape of his shoulders, the slope of his neck, the careful and precise way his fingers curled on the faucet. Everything Carson did was careful and precise.
Deep, aching familiarity coursed through my veins.
I’d tried to scrub feelings like this out of my life since the day we separated.
I tried to forget the way his pulse felt under my lips and the way his hands felt on my skin.
I tried to forget the exhausted yet joyful way he smiled while he took a turn rocking baby Adam to sleep after a long day of teaching.
I tried to forget the way he cheered louder than anyone else for Micah’s preschool soccer games.
I told myself that one day I could celebrate the joys we’d shared without feeling the pain of loss entwined with them. It felt impossible.
He turned his head toward me and blinked, like I was a surprise. “I didn’t hear you walk in.”
Because I hadn’t walked in. I’d appeared here. Right?
His eyes set on my face, in the way he did when he didn’t want me to notice that he was taking me in completely.
And then it hit me.
Somehow, I’d completely forgotten that I was buck naked.
I reached for a towel and wrapped it around myself, ignoring the flush of heat crossing my skin, ignoring that he’d seen me naked countless times before but this was the first since our split.
I took a breath and pretended I was in control. “You’re in my bathroom.”
“The door was open. I saw the water from the hall.”
“You’re in my apartment.”
“I knocked first.” His brows furrowed ever so slightly—confusion, concern, recognition. “You knew I was coming.”
I searched my brain and tried not to stare at that little wrinkle of skin above his nose. “Micah’s retainer. Yeah. I knew.”
Except I’d completely forgotten.
Carson had called ahead. I’d told him to come by. And then the information had slipped away like sand through a colander.
I swallowed any further explanation and focused on what I was supposed to be focused on—locating the missing item.
I’d seen Micah’s retainer when Carson had come to pick them up the other day, but somehow it didn’t make it home with them. I hadn’t found it, and I had no idea where to tell Carson to look.
I glanced toward the threshold to the hall, where instead of flooding the entire apartment, the water seemed to have stopped.
Thank goodness. I stared at the edge of the water, afraid that if I looked at Carson I’d have to see his disappointment in me.
He wasn’t dumb. He knew that I’d forgotten he was coming.
“I should get dressed,” I said.
“Sure. I’ll clean up the water.”
“Thanks.”
I got myself dressed and headed straight to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine. Then we met in the living room after, me with my glass of wine, Carson with his loaded expression.
“Do you want a glass?” I hadn’t poured him one since I already knew his answer.
“No thanks.”
I downed mine, needing the courage and the calm to handle whatever conversation we were about to have. I sat in the uncomfortable side chair, the farthest seat from where he sat on the sofa.
“What happened with your bath?” His voice was gentle, not accusatory.
Sometimes I wished Carson wasn’t always gentle. I wished he had faults I could cling to, so I’d feel less deficient.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” I couldn’t believe what had happened. Come to think of it, I could hardly believe much of anything that had happened to me recently.
Carson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and turning more fully in my direction. His hazel eyes assessed me like he was hanging on every word I had yet to speak. “Try me.”
“I was in the bathroom.” Having just stripped naked. He knew that part. He’d seen the naked parts. Heat carried up the back of my neck. I forced the memory away and tried to refocus. “I was about to get in the bath, and then I wasn’t here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was in a forest. I guess it was in my head, but it felt so real.”
He narrowed his eyes and crinkled his brow.
“I know. It sounds like same old Erika, with the spacing and the losing time.”
He squeezed his hands together. “It doesn’t.”
I stared at his hands, and let the earnestness of his tone linger in my chest. I knew how this time felt different to me. But, how could it feel different to him? “I don’t go places usually. I just white out.”
He nodded.
The way he leaned forward, the open curiosity and concern in his eyes proved that he believed me. The rock of doubt in the center of my chest transformed into a warm knot.
“You weren’t in the bathroom when I got here,” he said.
So I wasn’t standing around naked, drooling. That was good. But I still could have stumbled in while my mind wandered an imaginary forest.
“Any other details you remember?” he asked.
Vibrant color. Fleeting joy.
I shrugged. “There was a door.”
“Open or shut?”
Why did that matter? It seemed like a strange detail to hold onto, given everything else. “Shut. I didn’t open it or anything. It happened really fast. Then I was back here. And you were here. And the bath was overflowing.”
He pressed his lips together. His chest rose. It fell. “Do you think I pulled you back?”
“I have no idea.” My mind spun like I’d just stepped off a tilt-a-whirl. “I don’t even know for sure that I went anywhere. Maybe this is what always happens, only this time I was dreaming instead of blanking.”
He narrowed his eyes again. “Maybe.”
It didn’t sound like a real maybe . It sounded like an I-don’t-think-so .
Uncertainty made me nervous—his, mine. If Carson believed me, how could I not trust myself?
It was safer to shut down this conversation, focus on why he was here, focus on things I could control.
“I could have trance-walked into the bathroom. It doesn’t really matter, though. We should look for that retainer.”
“It matters to me.”
His words hit me like a roundhouse kick to my sternum. I knew he said it mattered to him, as in the truth mattered. But it felt like he was saying I mattered. And that was the most dangerous territory we could verbally cross.
I shot up to my feet, plastered on an I’m-totally-fine smile, and headed toward the kitchen.
He followed me without a word. I didn’t dare check what his expression might be saying now.
I checked the countertops and under the table. I checked inside the fridge and the freezer. “The retainer was around here when I found it before.”
Then I headed down the hall to the boys’ room. This was where I’d dropped the retainer, along with a bunch of dirty socks, right onto the floor. There was no sign of the retainer or the socks now. I dropped down to my hands and knees and scanned the dusty carpet under the boys’ beds.