  He comes to me like this sometimes, a fog through the windows of a darkened room. Quietly he steps over the low, rusty railing and onto the balcony, pushing the french doors open wider so as to allow himself in. His hands are tan against the white curtains and I can see his skin glistening at the nape of his neck. His linen shirt has two buttons undone, and the rest of it is messily untucked... careless, wrinkled. His body moves slowly, quietly, and I can hear his nervous breath as I awake. Frightened for a moment as his huge frame looms above me, I wonder if I'm still dreaming, as his shallow breathing becomes more audible. "Jason? " "Yes...It's me. " "Is something wrong? What are you doing here? " "I needed to see you. " He sits at the edge of the bed next to me and as the breeze sends his smell over my pillow. Immediately the memories return and I am overwhelmed by their strength. The first time I laid my eyes to rest on him across the room, in that navy T-shirt and baggy jeans, laughing with his friends.
His laughter stops and his eyes widen. The open mouth eventually twists into a grin as I look. Something in my head tightens and I hear a voice tell me "You're going to marry this man. " Like a ton of bricks the realization falls onto my shoulders. The fourth of July later that year, with his legs wrapped around me he sits behind me in the boat, rubbing my shoulders. The embrace, the shivering, I was cold on the outside but so very warm inside and everywhere else. As the finale is going off over the lake I vaguely recall our friends at the wheel, laughing and drinking their Bud Lights.
They didn't exist as he brushed my hair behind my ear and whispered "I love you. I love you more truly and deeply than I've ever loved anyone in my life. " His hand now moves toward my face in the night, and I begin to remember the other times... The crying, the pain...the thought that dying would feel better than this. And finally, the emptiness that he left when he was gone. "What do you want? " I ask him. He doesn't say a word, but with both hands takes my head and looks at me. He can look into the very deepest part of my soul, as no one else can, and I feel my body tingle with the touch of his palm on my face. He kisses me, deeply, and knows that I am his. I always will be. As he lifts the sheets slowly to gently enter them, I pull his body towards mine.
I can feel our hearts beating and his strong arms underneath my back, pressing me against him and him against me. I can't believe that he is back...I want to show him with my body what I can't say to him with my mouth. "I love you, I need you, I start and I end with you. " And then I wake up. 
