Fat Rabbit suddenly starts running for them, jumping on the couch, trying in vain to leap his little legs high enough to lick them.
“Abort mission, I repeat, abort mission.”
“Nooooo!” Lucinda yells, trying to reach for the dog.
Dex pauses her in the air. “So you’re saying you want to land on Planet Vogsphere, even though there’s a giant, ferocious, fart-blasting beast poised to attack?”
“Yes!” She giggles.
“Okay then.”
He puts her down on the couch where she’s immediately overtaken by Fat Rabbit again, laughing as the dog wriggles all over her.
“You have quite the brave daughter, Rebecca,” Dex says as he comes over to us. “He’s been stinking up the place all morning.”
But despite the fact that he’s talking about the dog being a fart factory, I think I’ve somehow fallen more in love with my husband. No, not think. I have. I never think it’s possible, yet it’s been proven time and time again to me that there are many layers to our love.
I’m willing to keep falling, as deep as I can.
“What?” Dex says, leaning against the island, his head cocked to the side as he studies me. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
I try to shake the probably sappy expression off my face, but before I can, Dex comes over to me, making the grabby hand motion.
“No!” I yell, trying to make a run for it while Rebecca eggs him on.
Too late. He grabs me by the waist, his arms slipping around me, lifting me off the ground, higher and higher. His muscles strain as he does so, and yet he does it with so much ease that you’d think he was a strongman for the circus or something.
“Put me down!” I tell him, even though I’m laughing, my legs kicking out.
“If you say so,” he says, carrying me to the couch and effortlessly swinging me over the back of it so that I’m plopped beside Lucinda and the dog. “Prepare to be attacked.”
Both Dex and Lucinda start tickling me, the dog getting in on the action too.
I laugh and laugh.
And for the rest of the afternoon, I forget what happened in that restaurant.
I forget what I saw.
I just feel what it’s like to be normal.
And completely in love.
Four
I’m dreaming again.
It’s often the same dream.
I’m forced to relive the moment I found Dex dead.
I walk down the stairs into the basement in a house that should have never existed, and I know what I’m going to find, know that it’s going to rip my life in two and bring me to my knees, suck the soul right out of me. I try to keep myself from going down the stairs, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m powerless and compelled to see my worst nightmare come to life.
I follow the trail of blood against my will, walk across the cold stone floor, surrounded by black charred walls, and that’s where I find him.
Where the trail of blood ends.
Dex is lying on his back, eyes wide open, a sword sticking out of his throat.
As I always do, I run to him. I can’t stop myself. I run to him and collapse on my knees, and I cry and scream and shake him.
But it does me no good.
Because he’s dead.
He died that day.
And even though I refused to give up on him, even though I went to Hell to find him, even though I brought him back to life again, it still doesn’t erase the fact that the man I love more than anything else in the world died.
He fucking died.
Sometimes I find myself in my dreams, wondering if this is my punishment for never really dealing with it, like I’d so easily swept it under the rug. The fact that I saw my beloved die, something no one should ever see.
I rarely talk about it during therapy. I’ve talked about my mother’s own selfless sacrifice, how she jumped in front of that train to save us all. But I never talk about what it was like to have Dex do the same thing…how it sticks with you. The horror of that night settled itself into my veins like ink, mingling with my blood, never leaving me.
And now, as I stare at his body in my dream, looking at his lifeless eyes, I’m struck by how much sick conviction he must have had to take that sword and plunge it right into his throat.
Dex killed himself.
Literally took that sword and ended his own life.
And I don’t think I’ve ever really talked to him about it either.
“Dex,” I whisper to him in my dream, my fingers stained with his blood, tears running down my face.
His eyes move to the side, look at me.
Completely black.
I scream.
And then I’m awake.
I’m awake.
Sitting up in bed in the darkness, a cry caught in my throat, sweat trickling down my back.
Dex is beside me, rolling over in his sleep.
“Baby?” he whispers, his voice ragged from dreams of his own. “You okay?”
Am I okay?
No.
I look down at him, his eyes slowly blinking open, the room faintly lit by the streetlights of Fifth Avenue that seep through the curtains.
“You died,” I whisper.
His brows knit together in confusion. “You had a nightmare?”
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes, I did but…Dex, you died.”
I lower myself on my side, facing him, my fingers gently pressing into the hollow of his throat where only the faintest scar remains, so faint that you have to look for it. “You killed yourself.” My voice breaks.
I feel like my heart is shattering all over again.
He’s watching me closely, eyes glinting in the din. “Baby,” he says to me, licking his lips. He reaches out and cups the back of my head, bringing my face closer to his on the pillow. “What’s done is done. I’m here. That’s all that matters.”
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, hot and threatening. “But it does matter. You willingly took your own life, Dex. You did that.”
He presses his lips together, searching my face. “I made a sacrifice. You would have done the same.”
Would I have? Would I have had the courage to drive that sword into my throat and end my life for the greater good? I’m not sure if I would have been that strong, that selfless, that brave. I’m not like my mother.
“You would have done the same for me,” he repeats, his voice hard, moving closer to me until I’m pressed up against him. He holds me tight, and I bury my head into his neck, trying to fight back the images of him dead and lifeless, trying to convince myself that he’s here, he’s real, he’s alive, and he’s mine.
I hold back the tears somehow, taking a deep breath, his smell so achingly real and familiar that it feels like home. I press my lips against the soft, warm skin of his neck, feeling his pulse underneath.
He’s alive, he’s alive.
But, god, to think of what he went through when he had to make that choice.
“It wasn’t all bad,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head, picking up on my thoughts as he sometimes does when my emotions are high. “I died knowing how fucking lucky I was. How lucky I am.”
He runs his hand down the back of my head, down my back, pressing me to him even harder. “You know I’d tried to kill myself before,” he whispers, his voice thick and rough in the quiet of the night. “Back then, when I didn’t know who I was except that I was someone I hated. It was nothing like that. Not even close.” He shifts my head back, resting his forehead against mine. “Perry, you made my life worth living. And you were worth dying for. Please believe that.”