“Do you know what sleep paralysis is?”
I glanced up. It was springtime here in Los Angeles—that narrow window of a week or so when the hillsides are still green from leftover winter rain, when the world still has a heartbeat, however weak—before green collapses again into brown and the fires roar. We were sitting on a park bench, side by side, her hand over mine.
“I don’t think so.”
She looked into my eyes, her bangs brushing against the tops of her eyebrows. A cool breeze whipped past us.
“When you’re asleep, your body is paralyzed so that you can’t act out your dreams.”
“Makes sense.”
“But with sleep paralysis, your brain starts waking up, but it’s not fully awake yet—so you’re half asleep, half awake, still dreaming, but also lucid. And you can’t move.”
“Sounds scary.”
She said nothing. We watched as an old grandma led a toddler by the hand. His eyes were bright, his cheeks rosy and round. I smiled at him and waved as he looked at me.
“Once, I almost lost my soul.”
I looked over at her. She was staring at her feet, turning her toes inward and outward. A soft smile was on her face, that sad smile that I’d gotten used to seeing—one that never kissed the corners of her eyes.
“What?”
“Do you believe in souls?”
“Of course.”
She scooted closer to me and lay her head on my shoulder, that sad smile still playing across her lips like a ray of sunshine dappling through water.
“I was in my bed. Maybe thirteen, fourteen or so; I don’t remember anymore. Then, there was that feeling I always get—like my whole body’s turned electric, buzzing with static, like the pins and needles you get when your leg goes numb. My eyes were open, and I felt like my body was lifting up off the bed; my soul—my soul was floating away from me, drifting away like a balloon, gold and glowing. I had to fight, to cling to it; I couldn’t move a muscle, so I could only will it to come back, will it as hard as I could, with all the strength in my heart.”
She looked up at me, her chin on my shoulder, her lips by my cheek.
“It was so close. I almost lost my soul that night, but I fought and forced it to come back.”
I turned my face and planted a gentle kiss against her lips, my fingers stroking her cheek.
“I’m glad.”
“Me too.”
She swung her legs for a while before tracing circles in the dirt with her toe. She was hunched over, intent and focused on this task; I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Once, I was with my mom in China when it happened again. I could hear my mom in the other room, shuffling around, cleaning things up; I knew I was awake. This time, though, all I heard was screaming—a child screaming, a mother screaming; my ears were brimming with agony, and all I could do was lie there and stare at the door, trying my hardest to whisper ‘Help me, help me’ in hopes that my mom would hear—but my throat was tight, locked up; all I could do was wheeze.”
I hadn’t realized that my heart was pounding. I placed an arm around her and squeezed her tight.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
She lay her head on my chest, the curve of her head a perfect fit against the curve of my chest.
“I never have a clock by my bed, so I don’t know how long it lasts. It could be ten seconds. It could be an hour. I don’t know.”
I didn’t know what to say in response. So I held her close and stroked her back, and her smile told me that that was enough.
We made love that night. It was tender, gentle; her moans were soft, sweet, nectar. I felt my heart swelling with warmth and love as she trembled against me, beautiful sighs escaping past her lips, her slender fingers clutching at the bedsheets.
I got up afterward and rolled off the condom, tied a knot in it before tossing it away. She lay under the sheets, silent, as I cleaned up, and said nothing as I slipped back under the covers with her.
I drew her into my arms, surrounding her, embracing her, and she snuggled closer to me. I could feel her smile against my chest—a happy smile.
“I love you,” I whispered, my nose against the top of her head. Her hair smelled like shampoo and sweat: her smell, that sweetness that no perfume can approximate.
She traced her fingers along my back. “I love you too.”
She drifted off to sleep soon afterward, her breaths slow and deep against my skin. Moonlight filtered in through the blinds, threads of silver laced through the blue-black of night. Her skin was silky, soft as sunlight; I cupped the curve of her backside in my hand. Such a perfect shape.
I glanced down at her sleeping face. Her hair cascaded over her cheeks. Hidden, half veiled.
I felt a sudden pressure in my chest, heavy and squeezing, tight, as if my heart were contracting. This beautiful woman—I’d held her countless times like this, asleep and so vulnerable; how many times was she being gripped by those nightmares, that paralysis; how many times was she struggling, half-lucid, fighting to keep her soul, fighting to keep the dreams at bay; how many times had she struggled alone despite being safe in my arms?
I could almost feel her heart fluttering, could imagine her breaths becoming shallower, could imagine that dark anxiety crawling over the sheets and the floor like a spider monster, eyes gleaming in the dark. Anxiety and nightmares that I couldn’t fight for her, that I couldn’t even join her and stand by her side to fight off; anxiety and nightmares that I could only pray for God to send an angel by her side to protect her in ways I never could.
There is an ocean that separates us sometimes: vast and endless, dark, an ocean without shores. We are two points on that sea, two boats that can see the distant point of light that is the lantern of the other, but never truly coming close enough to share that light. There are parts of her I will never understand, waters that I can only dip my fingers into, waters whose depths I’ll never know. And there are parts of me that she will never understand, a dark sky that curves above us and touches us both, empty save for the air we breathe together.
A hand crushing my heart. I held her closer, squeezed her tighter in my arms, engulfed her and shielded her the best I could. I felt her eyelids flutter open against my chest, felt her look up at me.
“Baby? What’s wrong? You’re trembling.”
A heart consumed by the fires of love.
“I want to protect you.”
“You do, baby, you do.” A kiss. “I’m always safe with you.”
We slept then, in each other’s arms, quiet and peaceful like waves lapping at the shore.