Page 120 of Ex Somnis

Her mom is gone. Her dad has been gone. The boyfriend who only ever tolerated her is gone, too, and good riddance, but gone.

The soul goes where the love is strongest.

And Lennon’s strongest love has been pulling her the wrong way this whole time.

But we aren’t. We’re here. All three of us. And we’re not going anywhere.

That’s the whole answer, isn’t it? If the pull from elsewhere is strong because the love is strong, then we just have to be stronger. We have to love her so loudly that waking becomes the place she reaches for without thinking.

That I can do.

That I know how to do.

I’ve spent my whole life being the one who stays. The one who shows up, carries it, keeps the lights on so nobody else has to. I never once thought of it as worth much.

Turns out it might be the most useful thing about me.

I hold Paul’s gaze and nod.

Together, we’ve got her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lennon

Tessa was right.

Sometimes, you can hear people in waking life when you’re asleep. Not clearly, more like catching pieces of a conversation through a wall.

When Lucien made Nevan jump from that window, his dreamscape collapsed, and I screamed myself hoarse, only stopping when I heard them. Three distinct voices. Three men who decided to sit beside my sleeping body and emotionally devastate me even more.

Nevan talking about his mother telling him he’d die young.

Paul admitting things he normally keeps locked behind cardigans and therapist qualifications.

Ridge making jokes about things that shouldn’t be jokes at all.

And now I’m once again trapped in my subconscious comfort zone—my dream kitchen—and I can’t stop thinking about them. They don’t deserve the horrible things life has dealt them.

I need to think about something else. Immediately.

If I don’t, I’m going to go insane for real this time. Because knowing they’re out there hurting while Tessa is somewhere in here hurting, too, while her body is struggling out there, and my body is…

No.

Think of literally anything else, Lenny.

I look around my kitchen, which at some point, stopped feeling like a kitchen and started feeling like a waiting room, but I don’t want to cook anything.

It’s empty without someone to share it with.

Maybe I should build something instead. Create like Ridge does in his dreamscapes.

Gummy bears.

If I were in waking life, I would absolutely be reaching for the biggest bag of my emotional support sweets right now. I’m also willing to bet Lucien is somewhere in the distance watching, waiting for me to have some sort of existential meltdown.

He’s right. I am.