109. Sealed Shut

I hear the sound of a jet nearby. It wakes me up.

And here I am, sitting in a seat on a plane.

I know I’m dreaming, because Jocelyn is sitting next to me.

“You can’t stay here,” she says.

I look at her and feel myself blushing. I feel like a kid next to her. I am a kid next to her.

“Where is here? They use planes and airports in my imaginary heaven?”

“This isn’t imagined and this is not heaven. This is just a place in between. Otherwise it’s too startling.”

There’s that expression again. But shouldn’t it be space in between?.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“About what?” she says.

“About the pastor. About my uncle. About Iris.”

“I can’t tell you those things, Chris. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Then how does it work? When is any of this going to make sense? And—and why do you look grown up?”

Jocelyn only smiles. “Does everything need to make sense in your world? Did everything make sense when you lived in Chicago?”

“A lot more than now.”

“Like with your parents splitting up? Your father abandoning a career after finding faith? And all the countless little moments you chose to ignore on a daily basis?”

“No.”

I don’t want to acknowledge what she said, because I can’t.

There’s no way she can know that. There’s no way my dreams can even know that.

“You’ve felt something all your life and yet have done nothing about it,” Jocelyn says. “And it’s only since coming here that it’s come to the surface. This empty feeling deep down. Those fears. The questions.”

“Stop,” I tell her.

“We don’t have a lot more time.”

I fumble with my seat belt and then stumble out into the walkway.

“I need to wake up.”

“Yes, you do,” Jocelyn says.

“And you—you—whatever you are—whatever thing you are. I want you to leave.”

Jocelyn watches me with eyes that haunt and hurt. She remains quiet.

“I don’t want any more maybes in my life,” I say. “Any more might-have-beens. I’m tired of them and tired of thinking. Tired of wondering what might have and should have and any of that. I’m just mostly tired, Jocelyn, and I don’t—I can’t—keep seeing you here, or keep showing up here, or keep doing whatever it is that I’m doing to get here.”

“Chris—”

“No. No. Please. Just let me leave. Let me be. It happened and it was magical, and then someone ripped it away from me and the world crumbled. And I don’t want to wake up every day going through piles and piles of crumbs to try and find something. I’m tired of it. I want something that I know. I want something that is real. I want something that doesn’t make me sick with sadness.”

She looks at me and nods. No anger or frustration or confusion on her beautiful face. She nods and then looks out the window next to her.

I don’t want to say anything else because there’s no use.

I start walking away, not sure where I’m going or what I’m doing.

You know more than you think you do.

But it doesn’t matter.

You understand more than you believe you do.

It does not matter.

You have to make a choice.

I want it back. The part of me that doesn’t care. The part of me that doesn’t fear tomorrow.

I just want to move on with it.

“Got it?”

I keep walking and hear the sound of the door to the airplane seal shut behind me.