Explorations 3.0

Explorations 3.0

A note from the author:

This is a work of fiction. All people, events, and specific places exist only in my mind, and on these pages. Events portrayed are between consenting adults over the age of eighteen. Although it sets a label for the theme of this story, the title "Explorations" primarily refers to the exploration of scenes in my imagination and my ability to translate those into a story that can be understood and enjoyed.

This story will probably make no sense to those who have not read Explorations 1.0 and 2.0 and know the characters involved. If you haven't read them, please do so before continuing.

Also, I'm sorry. You'll understand why.

Thanks for reading.

Chapter One.

The armrests of the padded chair where I was seated were a little too high to be comfortable, so I kept my hands folded in my lap. I gazed at the paintings of calm rural scenes hung on the walls of the spacious office. I wondered absently if they were real places or just the artist's impression of idyllic country life. I glanced at the woman in the matching chair positioned across from me. She was patiently waiting for me to continue my story, with an encouraging expression on her face.

"I moved my things into Melissa's apartment a few days later and spent the night with her a couple of times when I had the day off. After the two weeks were up, I started work at the Duluth store and lived with her from then on. I think the only word to describe the years that followed is heavenly. I wouldn't have changed a single thing."

"Tell me more about how your family reacted," said the woman, Dr. Clarke. "Did your father and brother ever come around?"

"Dad? Yeah, he just needed a little time to process it. After that, he was as good with it as Mom was. The thing with him was, years before, before anyone knew what had been going on with Melissa's dad, he'd known that something was wrong. I'm not sure how, but he knew. After Melissa left home, he would call and check in on her. He paid to have her car fixed and even paid the deposit on her apartment. He always went out of his way to make her feel like she had people that cared. I think he loved her as if she were his own daughter, so the whole thing with the two of us was kind of a shock. When Melissa and I went to my parent's place for Thanksgiving later that month, and he saw firsthand how happy she was, it wasn't an issue."

"And your brother, Stephen?" Dr. Clarke prompted.

"That same Thanksgiving, I ended up knocking him down with a punch to the face. He said that Melissa's family were all degenerates and that Melissa was just bringing that degeneracy to our family now. That was the last time I ever saw him." I forced my clenched fists to relax and laid my palms flat on my thighs.

"Have you ever thought about reaching out to him? People can change a lot in twenty-four years."

"No," I said firmly. "It was his choice to ostracize himself from our family, and I want nothing to do with someone capable of being so deliberately malicious. He knew that she was just beginning to heal the trauma that had been done to her, and had said what he did specifically to hurt her. Someone capable of doing that will always be capable of doing it."

"You might be surprised by how much people can change," She said, as she scribbled a few lines in her notepad.

"Maybe," I said, brows furrowing. Those words had made their way into Melissa's nightmares. My fists clenched again as I remembered all the times I was awoken in the middle of the night by her sobs. I remembered how helpless I felt being able to do nothing but console her and hold her until she fell back asleep.

My knuckles were white, and my fists trembled slightly. I saw Dr. Clarke glance down at my hands, but she did not indicate what she was thinking. Therapists must make superb poker players.

"Some things just can't be forgiven," I said quietly, forcing my hands to relax.

"Again, you might be surprised. We can talk more about that next week." She set aside her notepad and glanced up at the clock on the wall behind me. "Now close your eyes, and concentrate on your breathing. Take a slow deep breath, imagining all your negative emotions as a tangible thing. Now breathe out slowly as all those emotions evaporate and exit your body like smoke. Again, deep inhale, and out. Good. Feel your mind become still as your breath carries away the pain. Once more, in, and out. Good."

For some reason, this technique worked for me. If left alone, my thoughts naturally gravitated to the bad memories, and each one brought two more with it until I became overwhelmed. I would become mentally gridlocked to the point of not being able to function in everyday life.

"When I say the word joy, what is the first thing that pops into your mind?"

My eyes were still closed, and I smiled. "Melissa's face when she first saw me that weekend at the cabin."

"Good. Keep up your breathing exercise. All the pain is gone, only the joy remains. Describe the scene for me. What else do you see? What do you smell and hear?"

A single tear rolled down my cheek. I'm not sure why I started to cry, whether it was joy in the image of her, so happy and full of promise for the future, or sorrow because that future is gone. I would never again see her smile.

"Sunbeams cut down through the trees, lighting up smoke drifting from the fire pit. She passes through one, and her hair glows like golden fire. I smell the white pines, strong in the soft breeze, and the smell of burning oak. A loon call echoes up from the lake, and all around the cabin yard, there is the quiet burble of conversations and laughter." I wiped the tears from my face with a flannel shirt sleeve and looked away from Dr. Clarke. I still felt embarrassed to cry in front of another person.

"That sounds lovely. Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." She glanced at the clock again and stood.

I stood as well, taking a tissue from the box on the coffee table to dry my eyes.

She walked me to her office door. "Thank you for sharing today, Charles. I think you are doing very well." As she opened the door, she asked. "Have you gone to the aromatherapy shop we talked about last week?"

"No," I said dejectedly. "I was going to, but..."

I had meant to go, but sometimes certain things were just impossible to make myself do. Going into an unfamiliar place and talking to a stranger was one of those things. Sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn't. This hadn't been a particularly good week, and the thought of talking to someone new, someone who would ask questions about why I was there, questions that would bring up painful memories, was simply unthinkable. Yesterday, I had made it all the way to my car and had the key in the ignition, but then I just sat there, unable to make myself go through with it.

"That's ok." Said Dr. Clarke.

I knew she knew why I didn't go, and I had gotten to the point where I felt safe sharing my feelings with her, but I couldn't help but feel a sense of shame.

"Addy is very good at what she does, and she has helped many of my clients. She's a friend."

I nodded and started moving through the doorway. Ending conversations always seemed so awkward. I never knew what to say.

"Thank you for being so open today, Charles. See you again next week."

She was looking at my eyes, and I met her gaze briefly before looking away. In recent years, I had become very uncomfortable making anything more than the briefest of eye contact with people, especially women, so I was usually at a huge disadvantage when it came to reading people's motivations and emotions. In that brief glimpse though, I caught the impression of empathy and a real desire to help. It felt really good to know that someone cared. I gave her a genuine smile and left.

I left her office with the intention of going directly to the shop she had recommended, but by the time I was in my car, I just... couldn't. This is what my life had become. I could go from being on the verge of drowning in a sea of sorrow to feeling positive and optimistic in an instant, then back just as fast. But mostly, it was what I called 'the gray'. I am self-aware enough to understand how it began. Instead of dealing with certain traumatic events, my brain decided that it was easier and far less painful, just to push them aside. The problem is, that those things don't just go away. No matter how hard you push them down, they keep bubbling back up, and you end up pushing everything away in the effort. Then one day you realize that living in the gray was the only way to survive because every little bit of emotion, good or bad, could open the gates and let all the pain come rushing in. I had pushed everything and everyone aside for the sake of self-preservation, and it was killing me. I knew I needed help. I knew that the person I was, wasn't really me. The problem was, I had been in the gray so long, that I couldn't remember how it was before, not really. I knew that I had been happy once, that I had hopes and dreams. But that was all gone, lost in the gray.

Chapter two.

The next day turned out to be one of the good ones. I was able to get myself out of bed, dressed, and in the car. I decided that I would finally make it to this aromatherapy shop Dr. Clarke wanted me to go to.

I turned the key in the ignition, and my geriatric Honda Civic purred to life. I quickly released the emergency brake and shifted into reverse. I backed out of my parking spot with a sigh. There, I did it. The hard part was over, and now that I had started the task, it would be easier to go through with it. Don't ask me why that makes sense, I wouldn't know how to even start explaining.

I enjoyed my drive across town. It was a beautiful day in Duluth. Down near Lake Superior, it was a little breezy and a comfortable 65 degrees, perfect for driving with the windows down. Climbing the hill on 194, the farther I got away from the lake, the hotter it got. By the time I got to the shop, it was nearly 80 degrees, and I had begun to sweat. A typical July day in the Twin Ports. I've always said, that this was one of the things I loved most about living in Duluth. It could be hot as hell up on top of the hill, but if the wind was right, it was always cool near the lake.

I shut the car off and set the E brake. I wiped a bit of sweat off my brow, and it occurred to me that I was wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday and that I hadn't showered. Hit with a sudden wave of shame and embarrassment about meeting someone new in this state, I almost just left to go back home. With an effort of willpower, I opened the car door and stepped out. Task begun.

I walked in and was greeted by a smiling older lady that I assumed was Addy.

"Hi, um, Dr. Clarke sent me."

Addy's smile widened. "Oh, come in, come in. I'm Addy."

"I'm Charles," I replied, meeting her eyes for the briefest moment.

"Pleased to meet you, Charles. How is Rose doing these days?"

Dr. Clarke's first name was Virginia. She had grown up in Virginia, Minnesota, and I think she was still annoyed by her unimaginative parents, because she liked to use her middle name, Rose. I almost exclusively used 'Dr. Clarke' when speaking with or about her.

"I've been seeing her for a couple of months now. She's nice." I never seemed to know how to answer questions like that. I grimaced inwardly at my awkwardness.

"She's a sweetheart, and good at her job. I saw her for years." She led me over to a glass counter filled with hundreds of small labeled bottles. "So, are we looking for something to help you relax?"

"Something to help me remember." I paused briefly, trying to find the right words. "Well, remembering isn't the issue." I felt a rush of awkwardness and a little bit of embarrassment in talking about something so personal with a stranger. My cheeks flushed, and I looked at the bottles in the case to ensure I didn't accidentally make eye contact. "I want to be able to focus on just the one thing."

"Tell me about it."

I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. "There's smoke from the campfire, mostly oak. Maybe a tiny bit of something acrid, like someone had thrown a plastic plate in the fire."

As I spoke, I could hear Addy selecting a few bottles from a rack within the display case.

"Pine trees. Even with the smoke, the pines smell strong."

"Spruce?" Addy asked politely.

"No, White Pine. The needles and sap are everywhere."

"Anything else?"

I took another deep breath but didn't reply.

"Sometimes there's things around us that have a scent, but we're either too used to it, or it's faint enough that we don't remember without smelling it. What else was there? Is this a campground?" Addy asked in what I recognized as being in a deliberately unobtrusive way.

"It's a cabin," I replied, searching the mental image for things that may have a scent. "It's an old log cabin, surrounded by white pines. There's a log pile. My brother had been using the chainsaw earlier. My truck is parked in the driveway, it smells like gas because the tank leaks a little bit. Someone had mowed the little patch of grass in front of the cabin."

"Is there anyone there, wearing perfume or aftershave?"

I nodded my head in the affirmative.

Addy gave me time to answer.

"She..." I struggled to find words to describe Melissa's scent. How do you describe such a thing to someone? How do you describe a sunset to a blind person, or describe to a deaf person the emotions evoked by the Moonlight Sonata? She smelled like love, and I still smell her on the clothes I keep in her dresser.

"You know how strawberry plants don't smell like strawberry? Not like the fake strawberry candy scent?" Of course, she did, but I went on. "A strawberry blossom. Delicate, faint, with just the promise of sweetness."

"She was someone special," Addy said, in more of a statement than a question.

"I ended up marrying her. She-" A tear rolled down my cheek. "Nine years ago-" I just couldn't force the words out of my mouth. I could tell Addy the exact date and time. I could tell her that we had just gone to see The Martian in the movie theater and that the night was clear and cool after the late August thunderstorm earlier that afternoon. I could tell her what song was playing on the radio. I could tell her the look on Melissa's face when the headlights crossed through the median in front of us. What I couldn't say, was physically unable to, was that nine years ago, Melissa died.

"It's okay, dear," Addy said. She had a grandmotherly voice, full of kindness and understanding. For the briefest of moments, the power of that gentle voice made me believe that yes, everything would be okay. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll have something for you to try."

I nodded and wandered away from the counter, absently browsing the candles and incense as I tried to compose myself. As I looked through the shop it occurred to me how posh the place seemed. High-dollar products are meant to be sold to people who have the luxury of ignoring price tags. I did not have that luxury. I felt anxiety and a general shame of the complete fuck up I had become. If this costs more than about forty dollars, I wouldn't be able to afford groceries this week.

"Charles, it's ready," Addy called from the other side of the store.

I walked over and closed my eyes as she extended a small glass bottle filled with clear liquid. I breathed deeply and conjured the scene in my mind. The scent of Addy's mixture hit me like a lightning bolt. It was like reading a book in the dark, and then someone turned on the lights. Everything came into sharp focus like I was there. The smoke, the pines, and- My breath caught in my throat. Buried deep within the mix there was something light, something so tenuous you hardly knew it was there. It was Melissa. In my mind, she threw herself into my arms, and I could smell her. I could smell her.

"How?" I asked, looking her in the eyes for the first time since my initial glance.

Addy smiled warmly, and I could see genuine care in her face, not just the politeness of a shop owner to a customer. "If she had been wearing perfume, it would have been harder. We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front."

Dr. Clarke was right, Addy was good.

"Your idea about the strawberry flowers was good. They're very faint and don't smell like much at all, definitely not strawberries. But when you know that you have strawberry flowers, and you smell them, your brain brings up the memory of strawberries. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory."

Addy put a rubber stopper in the bottle and carefully placed the bottle in a velvet pouch with her shop's logo on it. She held it out for me to take. A tear dripped off my jaw, and I quickly wiped my face on a sleeve.

"How much-" I started to ask, again acutely aware of my wrinkled clothes, my general lack of personal hygiene, and the depressingly small balance of my bank account.

Addy cut me off with a raised hand. "Rose is a friend of mine, and any friend of hers is also a friend of mine." She pushed the velvet bag into my hands.

"No, I can't-"

Addy stopped me again. "Most of my clients just want something that smells nice in their bathroom, or to cover the smell of weed. I'm perfectly happy to take their money." She placed her hands on mine, still clutching the velvet bag. "It's very rare that I get to help someone. Take it as a gift, with my thanks."

I was speechless, and fresh tears rolled down my face. I couldn't remember the last time someone was so altruistically kind to me. "Thank you." Was all I could say.

Chapter Three.

On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone.

One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work.

He answered after a few rings.

"Hi, it's Charles, from work."

"Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?"

He sounded happy to hear from me.

"Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back.

"They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is."

"Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months.

"So, what's up?" Carl asked.

I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background.

"Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go.

"Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go."

"Mind if I come with?" I asked.

"Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six."

"Cool, I'll see you there."

"Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again."

And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye."

"Bye."

I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered.

I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my butt. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm breasts, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out.

I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower.

I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember.

My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair?

I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person?

In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered.

I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube.

Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late.

I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here.

I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far.

I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place.

I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger.

I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously.

After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes.

I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up.

"Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here."

I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift.

"Hey," I said. "What's up?"

"One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?"

"No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends.

"Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter."

"Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut.

"Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me."

"Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered.

"Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna-"

As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair.

"You get stood up too?"

I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender.

"Huh? Yeah."

"Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?"

In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe.

"Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals.

"Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered."

"Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her.

Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline.

Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked.

Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..."

My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..."

She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person.

"Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear.

"Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening.

This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar.

"What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening."

She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands.

She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me.

"What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?"

"You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee.

"When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years.

"Well, I know you, Charles Larson."

"How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier.

"If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now.

"How?"

"Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real."

My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood.

"If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost.

"I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa.

Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?"

I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question.

"Your second cousin, the one you married."

Shocked, I replied. "Melissa."

She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up."

"How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe.

"Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams."

"I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are."

She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life."

Chapter Four.

"You're older than I thought you would be."

Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby.

"How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning.

"When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago."

A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene- What dream are you having over and over?"

I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it.

Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then-"

"Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly.

"I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears.

We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts.

Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?"

She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think-" She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen."

My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone.

Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car.

Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone."

Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob.

I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay."

I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa.

I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar.

"I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was.

Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them.

"None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!"

Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago.

The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's.

I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway.

Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me.

"It looks exactly how I remember."

I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing.

She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We- You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..."

I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt.

"Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind.

A small part of me was surprised as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass.

Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her.

Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch.

Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar.

"You do look like her," I said softly.

"Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me."

I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart.

"This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it."

Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine.

"Through the years, I began to love being her."

My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent!

"I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you."

My thoughts were muddled like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was, still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be.

"I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob.

"You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved."

I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them.

"Do I?" I asked.

"Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially."

I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew."

She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long.

"I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it."

The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be.

Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power?

"Are you my Melissa?"

A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?"

She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face.

"Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism."

She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa.

"The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night."

She stopped fidgeting and looked at me.

"When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out."

She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding.

"What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you."

Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster.

"I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her."

I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt.

Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory.

My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her.

I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar.

"Maybe we shouldn't-"

She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered.

Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality.

Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed.

Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts.

Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her.

I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it.

But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem.

There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth.

I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer.

The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading.

I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag.

I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever."

Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance.

"Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge."

Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam.

"You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment.

We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed.

"Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember"

Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!"

A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid.

"We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory."

My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world.

"None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you."

The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled.

"I love you. I love you. I love you..."

A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars.

"Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..."

The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility.

"... and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!"

I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark.

My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go."

Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you."

Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..."

I floated alone.

The self, the other, and the one were all gone.

Joy and sadness were words without meaning.

Light and dark had no definition.

Space had no direction.

Time held no sway.

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The story continues in Explorations 4.0