Page 166 of The Professor's Wife

Daisy opened her eyes again.

“You weren’t there.”

The words entered me slowly. “What?”

“In the dream.”

She finally looked at me.

Her expression was open for only a second, but I saw it. Fear. Hurt. Something close to accusation.

“You weren’t there, Tristan.”

I couldn’t speak. I had spent weeks wanting proof that she needed me, and finally, there it was.

I fucking hated it.

She had been frightened somewhere inside herself and had looked for me.

I had not come.

It was only a dream. I knew that. My body didn’t. Something violent moved through my chest as I imagined Daisy trapped in some dark place, searching for me while I existed nowhere inside it.

I wanted to ask where she had been. Who had been there instead. What had happened when she realized she was alone.

But she had already turned back to the window.

Still. She had told me the dream existed. She had told me I was missing from it. A few weeks ago, she would have carried both things alone.

I shifted onto my back and stared at the ceiling because looking at her had become too much. “You were looking for me?”

My voice sounded wrong. It was rough.

“Yes,” she said. “I was.”

The need inside me turned wild. Not sexual, though it wore the same teeth.

I wanted to pull her over me. Press her against my chest. Feel her heart beating above mine. I wanted her so close that the next time her mind built a nightmare, it would have no choice but to take me with her.

I wanted to be there before she looked.

Already inside the dark.

Already reaching for her.

DAISY

I didn’t tell Tristan the rest.

I couldn’t make sense of the feelings the dream had left behind. I lay beside him, breathing quietly, staring through the window at a sky that felt like it was closing in on me more each day.

His hand remained around mine. I held it tightly, thinking of how I had searched for him.

I think these dreams are preparing me.

But for what exactly?

I dreamed I was underground. The air was damp and still, and the walls of the cave pulsed as though they were breathing. I couldn’t see the sky. I couldn’t see myself. There was only the sound of dripping water and the dull thump of my own heartbeat.