In Dreams by Erica Orloff

again. I will not fall in love with someone who can’t be a part of my world. My real world. How much of her life has she wasted in sleep? I know she loves Morpheus, but really? A few stolen moments in twenty years? I can’t do it. I am not that girl.
“I will tell you about me, then.” He smiles. “Everything you want to know.”
We walk on to the Degas exhibit, ballerinas in tutus at the barre.
“I was born in the dreamworld of Hypnos, Epiales, and Morpheus, with my allegiance to your father. But the way I was born is not the way you were born. I was part of the dreamworld. I was born of the figment of your imagination, the spark of a child who needed a protector from her nightmares.”
I stop.
“No,” I breathe. What he is telling me cannot be possible. I feel nauseous. “I made you up?”
“You are very powerful, Iris.”
That word again. Powerful.
“I’ve spent my life in your dreams.”
“But you have no mother or father? You’ve never been to school?” I almost laugh because I know the questions are ridiculous. His life has been nothing like mine. I remember the dream, the tree-house dream. One moment he was a little boy. The next he was the guy standing in front of me. The man.
He shakes his head. “No. My world is the hallway, behind those doors, those endless doors. My voice was the one telling you to run in dreams when you were in danger. I was protecting you. From Epiales. My world is you, Iris.”
I swallow. “Why does my uncle hate me so much?”
“You have the power of a demi-goddess. But you have a mortal life. You laugh. You cry. You bleed. You . . . love. You have what he can never have: the power of the gods and the power of the mortal world, all in one.”
I touch his arm, as if to reassure myself that he’s here. “I couldn’t have just dreamed you up.” He’s too perfect.
His cheeks flush. “You were the spark, but just the spark. I was born into the netherworld, on the fringes of the Underworld, with the beasts that go bump in the night . . . and the worlds behind the doors that make you feel as if you must be in heaven. And until you finally found me, I assumed I would stay here forever.”
“And now?”
He looks away. “I would like to come to your world. With you. In your waking life.”
“But that would mean you lose your immortality. I couldn’t let you do that, Sebastian.”
I think of my grandfather. Someday he’s going to die. Just the thought of it, just for a second, when I’m alone in my room, will make me dizzy. I would give anything for him to be immortal. But the times he’s spoken about getting old, he’s only said that he’ll be happy to be with my grandmother again and that he hopes she’s making a big pot of gravy because he’s tired of takeout.
“Immortality is not necessarily a gift. Humans only think it is.”
He comes close to me, until we’re standing chest to chest. A tear escapes my eye, and he leans down and kisses it. His scent makes my head spin. He moves his mouth to mine and nibbles my bottom lip, then runs his tongue along it, feather soft, before kissing me fiercely. I kiss him back, and then put my hands in his hair, wrapping them in his curls. He slides one arm around me at the small of my spine, as if it were somehow possible to pull me into him, to entwine us like the swans. He takes his other hand and slowly moves it under my shirt, until he is cupping my breast. He presses against it, and then I feel his finger tracing the center of my breastbone up to the hollow between my collarbone. I feel as if I can’t breathe, as if the museum has disappeared and we are the only two souls in the entire universe.
And then I hear it. That pounding. We both open our eyes at once. I don’t know how long we’ve been here. It has felt like an entire day. But I think Epiales’s minions have found us.
“You have to go.” Sebastian slides his hand out, pulling away from me, his breath ragged. I see the slightest of tremors in his hands.