"That doesn't matter." She moved away from me, dropping my hand to lean against the wood headboard next to the large window. There was moonlight peaking in through the glass and I thought, idly, that Will was born to bath in that light. A goddess living in shadows that kept hidden the secrets no one was worthy to unveil.
"So? The monster? That asshole keeps you up at night?" The half-smile was quick, only twitched her mouth into something that resembled a smirk before licked her lips, moving her attention onto the traffic out on the street and the group of kids passing a half-empty bottle between them. "What's the monster doing to you, Will? He giving you the blues?"
"Not so much. It's not the dreams themselves. It's not what happens to her … "
"Her?"
"The girl in my dreams."
"So there's a girl and no monster?"
"The monster is the … the voice. It tells me to pay attention. It tells me that everything matters-the fire … the screams and the … God the emotions. The emotions are the worst."
She mentioned the dreams like she knew I'd had a few of my own that kept the insomnia at bay. Willow couldn't know what had happened to me the night she'd tugged me into her apartment. I had never mentioned it. But as she spoke, the spell of her thoughts, the reminder of her dreams, weaving something ethereal and holy into the room, I realized she had known about my dreams. She'd known and had kept the knowing to herself.
"Will … that shit isn't funny." I slipped from the bed, tugging on my shorts as she watched me, feeling my chest tighten and my face heat.
"You know I'm right. You … I hear you, Nash. When you dream. Sometimes you scream. Sometimes … sometimes I know what you'll scream before you make a sound."
The black t-shirt in my hand fell to the floor when my grip loosened and I watched Willow, trying not to think too much how she looked unreal, supernatural sitting against my headboard with moonlight soaking into her skin. If I'd ever believed in angels, it had been right then. But I didn't believe in angels. I believed in facts and figures and a lot of logic.
"That's not possible."
"And yet here we are. Feeling … things." Willow got to her knees, grabbing the sheet to wrap it around her shoulders. There was something about her expression that left me feeling nervous, curious but I couldn't speak. Not with how she looked at me. Not when I knew she had something to say. "Every night for a week straight I tried to rescue … " There was a name bouncing on her tongue. It was right there in her features, in the way she frowned, how the smallest line between her eyebrows tightened the more she concentrated on not uttering that name. Then, Willow sighed, leaving the bed to rest against the cracked paint window, head back, face tiled up but she tightened her eyes closed. "I tried hard. Every night … every night I fail."
I didn't know what she meant. I only knew that I'd had dreams that felt like memories. I'd dreamt of Sookie and Dempsey and D.C. and love that went on and on, emotions that threatened to drown me. But there was no way Willow had dreamed the same dreams. It was impossible.
"I understand that you think certain things are possible … like reincarnation." I sat next to her, pulling her hand against my palm. "A lot of people think that's an easy way to explain déjà vu or the sensation of knowing someone, being somewhere that you've never visited."
"And you don't?" I hated the way she frowned, how her fingers straightened in my hand. "It's not as simple as past lives."
"What do you mean?" She dropped my hand, slowing her movements as she looked at me, crossing her arms like a shield in front of herself.
I'd heard the explanation a thousand times from classmates at MIT and during a few student worker lab jobs I had to help pay my tuition. But I didn't think Willow knew anything about genetics or theories that hadn't quite been proven.
"You walk into a place you've never been or see someone that you know you've spoken to before but never met. It's natural to wonder about because sometimes it isn't as simple as coincidence. But it's not your memories. It's not déjà vu. It's called epigenetic memory." Willow moved her eyebrows together and I knew the question she wanted to ask just by the confusion that twisted her expression.
"My mentor at Howard was a scientist. Roan. He was a chemist, but he had a lot of interests, he liked to dabble. Genetics was one of those softer sciences, according to him, that he liked to mess around with. Some things stuck." She went on watching me, arms still crossed and for a second I wondered if she'd already forgotten that I'd just left her screaming, that I'd touched her and held her and changed our worlds with a few touches. I wanted to get that Willow back, the one that didn't hesitate to touch me. The one that felt and let those feelings move her. But she'd asked, so I pressed on.