In My Dreams I Hold a Knife

by Ashley Winstead

I wanted them to see perfection. I ached for it in the deep, dark core of me: to be so good I left other people in the dust.

no matter how much I tried to cling to the shining jewels of my accomplishments, it never took long before my shadow list surfaced. Everything I’d ever failed at, every second place, every rejection,

I started looking up from the floor to people’s faces when they spoke to me, because for the first time, I felt I might be worth the attention.

I finally opened Coop’s fortune. Seven strange words: Today, something starts that will never end.

“I understand everything about you.

“I’m telling you upfront. I need more. I need you over and over. So this is your out. Take it. Otherwise you’re mine, the way it should have been.”

I wanted things to be normal again, good and upright. I wanted to live in the sunlight.

He took my face in his hands and looked me in the eyes. How terrifying, to be truly looked at.

Time, making fools of us all.

“I don’t trust anyone.” “That sounds lonely. You have to let people in. Let them love you for who you are, the good and the ugly. Then you know it’s real.”

there were some truths too ugly to see the light of day. Some that would ruin love, if they were uncovered.

I’m scared college was the last time I was really alive, the way you’re supposed to be, and I’ll never get it back.”

Happiness? That was a luxury I’d never been able to afford.

What, exactly, was I capable of? Who was I, really, underneath all the layers, when no one was watching? Where were my limits?

It felt like waking up on a Saturday morning when I was a child, bedroom full of sunshine, no cares in the world, nothing to do but play. Sometimes I wished I could dial back time, be a child again, stay forever in the before.

And in that moment a wild wishing came over me. I wanted to stay here, submerged forever. Above the surface, all the days of my life were waiting like a promise. There was nothing but a blank slate, and anything goes, and what if. My life could mean anything, I could become anyone, as long as I didn’t break surface, as long as I stayed here, suspended, in this beautiful, infinite now.

A woman who wanted was an ugly thing. I knew it made me childish and vulnerable.

That was the core of her value: she was loyal.

promise, I will make you happy. I will love you for the rest of my life. I’m going to do it anyway; I accepted that a long time ago. But please. Do it with me.”

I had someone who loved me, for the good and the bad.