Nothing! Everything!
"Are you pregnant?"
The words are enough of a shock to make my head snap up. "Seriously?"
But my roommate only crosses her arms over her chest. "Pregnant women are always sick."
"I've never even had sex!"
"Oh." Nia shrugs unapologetically. "Sorry." Then she looks down and raises a brow at me, asking, "What's wrong then?"
I hold my hand out, and Nia rolls her eyes even as she takes my hand to help pull me up.
"Professor Lucious and I had words," I tell her reluctantly.
Nia suddenly looks intrigued. "The dirty kind?"
"Nia!"
The other girl's expression turns disappointed. "It's not then?"
"No," I growl. "It's not."
Nia throws herself back on her bed. "So you had a fight."
"Not exactly." I also throw myself on the bed and regret it right away, with the sudden movement making my headache worsen.
"Then what?" Nia insists on asking.
"He pissed me off," I admit reluctantly, "and I ended up saying something stupid."
"Like?"
I mumble my answer in a low-key attempt to make my words incoherent, but it's no use. Nia's ears seem to have a sixth sense for the juiciest stuff, and hearing her gasp subsequently tells me she's heard me just fine.
"You said what?" But it's a rhetorical question since she's already started laughing her head off.
"It's not funny," I growl.
"Belong! To! A! God!"
She's gasping the words out like she's run out of breath, and when I take a peek at her, my roommate is actually rolling around while clutching her stomach. ROFL in the flesh, except she's in bed, and she laughs even harder when I tell her to shut it.
Grr.
I grab one of my pillows and cover my face with it.
Whatever.
The chest-thumping gorillas inside my head have just tripled in number, and I have no energy left to snarl and snap at my good-for-nothing roommate. I just need a bit of shut-eye, I think wearily as my eyelids start to droop.
Just a quick nap, and once I wake up, I'll have a clear enough mind to think about the consequences of saying what I've just said.
Just a really quick nap...
It's my last thought as I find myself shutting down, and in my exhaustion I forget that there's a god waiting for me at the other side of sleep.
I'M DREAMING AGAIN, and this time I find myself seated on a rug, inside a stone cabin of enchanting beauty. A chandelier with arms bearing actual glittering candles, heavy, intricately woven rugs laid over gleaming wooden floors, and luxurious cushions of dark brown leather positioned in front of a cozy-looking fireplace. There's a golden lyre poised next to a grand piano in one corner, a rolling ladder resting at the edge of book cases reaching all the way up to the cabin's high ceilings, and equally tall windows that perfectly frame a beguiling vista of lavender clouds and luminous butterflies circling around moonlit trees.
It's very, very romantic...except for one thing. I'm not sure if there's any divine power responsible for directing this whole fantasy-like setting, but—-
"Why do I always have to be naked when I'm dreaming?"
A chuckle tickles my ear, but before I can even look up, a wind blows in from nowhere, and the entire cabin plunges into darkness as all the candles go out.
If we had to bother with clothes inside your dream, I might as well have visited you in your world.
"Can't you?"
I feel the sofa behind me dip, but all I can see is a large shadow settling down just before strong hands gently clasp my shoulders to pull me back until I'm leaning against the sofa and my head is resting on the god's knee.
It is not yet time for you to see me.
The god starts stroking my hair, his touch so gentle that it helps soften the sting of his refusal.
I have the kind of face that makes girls cry.
I don't answer right away. This time, I can't stop thinking about how elusive this god is, with the way he keeps everything about him a secret. His name. His face. And even his voice. This is the third time he's visited me in my dream, and yet he still insists on spelling his thoughts out in my mind instead of speaking to me.
"Do you have something to hide?" I ask finally. "Have you done something so terribly inhumane in the past, and that's why you don't want me to know who you are?"
No.
He answers so readily and firmly that, stupid or not, I find myself instinctively trusting him.
It is not like that at all.
The fingers on my hair drift down until he's cupping my chin, and he's lifting my face until I can feel our gazes meeting in the dark.
I have already told you before, do you not remember?
I want you in the way a man desires a woman.
But it is also as I said: it is not yet time for you to see me.