Dream Thang

Fali’s eyes flickered open. Morning sunlight slipped softly through the curtains, washing Mele’s bedroom floor in gold.

Like the past few nights, her arms were wrapped around him - her body pressed to his back, her head resting just behind his shoulder. Each exhale from her lips brushed down the back of his neck, warm and feather-light, sending shivers along his spine. He didn’t dare move. If he did, she’d wake.

Two options presented themselves: stay still and wait for her to stir, or drift back to sleep. He chose the latter, letting his mind sink into the hazy quiet of half-conscious thought.

Yesterday replayed in pieces - the shopping, the beach, the swimming. The laughter. The way she’d hugged him from behind when they’d gone to bed. He must’ve fallen asleep soon after. He smiled faintly. He was getting used to this - sharing a bed, sharing space, sharing warmth.

His thoughts drifted to their conversations. The first had been about moving. It had started as a joke, but by the end of the night Mele had grown serious. She liked the house, she’d said, but not the village. He’d pointed out that things might not change much elsewhere, but she’d been determined anyway.

From there they’d wandered into talk of opening a shop together. The idea made them both laugh - they had no clue what they’d even sell. That led to a whole list of priorities that neither could settle on. When that talk faded, they’d drifted toward creative things - Mele’s frustration at struggling to play guitar without her ring finger, his own aimless search for a hobby. That one had ended in laughter, too.

He smiled again. Since she’d started sleeping beside him, his nights had changed. Before, they were filled with nightmares - gunfire, faces, guilt. He used to wake up gasping, drenched in sweat, biting back the sounds of panic. But now? Now he slept easily, like a child, whenever she held him.

He wanted to tell her that - to thank her - but she stirred before he could.

Her breathing shifted. Her arms loosened. As the pressure against his back faded, he rolled gently to face her. She rubbed her eyes, groaning softly, and he couldn’t help smiling.

“Good morning.”

She blinked blearily, then smiled back. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

He nodded. “Thanks to you.”

She looked at him, puzzled for a moment before her expression softened. “That’s good. So what’s the plan today?”

He reached out, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face. “Whatever you want.”

Her smile melted him from the inside out. For the hundredth time, he wondered how he’d gotten lucky enough to wake up beside a woman like her.

“My love, my love, my one and only…”

Mele’s sweet voice drifted gently through the house, a quiet melody threading between the walls. She strummed carefully, her fingers dancing across the strings with deliberate precision. Playing without her ring finger had forced her to change some of the tabs, but somehow the song sounded even more soulful for it.

Fali sat nearby, laptop open in front of him - not on work, but on a real estate site. He’d been half-heartedly browsing houses for sale, though his attention was more on her than the screen.

“Put your arms around me, I know you’ve cried…”

Her voice filled the room, tender and raw. The song had taken shape over weeks - one she’d started writing back in the hospital. He still remembered the look in her eyes when she’d first told him, “I want to write a comfort song for people like me.”

“My love, my love, my one and only…”

He smiled, tapping a rhythm on the table. Every now and then a note twanged off-key, but he didn’t mind. Each small mistake was human, intimate - proof of her trying, and of the courage it took to play again.

“We’ll go where none have seen, and hide… hide from what?”

She stopped mid-verse and glanced back at him, brow furrowed in thought.

“What do you think?”

He shrugged, muttering random rhymes. “Lies… sighs… cries… fries…”

She burst out laughing. “Fries?”

He grinned. “Sure. Hide from the fries.”

Her laughter filled the space, warm and unguarded. For a moment, she didn’t look like someone carrying invisible weight. She just looked happy.

“As much as I’d love to say ‘fries,’” she giggled, “I was hoping for something a little more serious.”

He nodded, thinking again. Then his thoughts drifted - briefly, darkly - to his own nightmares. The faces. The eyes.

He snapped his fingers. “Eyes.”

She looked up. “Eyes? …Oh, that’s actually perfect.”

She tapped quickly on her tablet, adjusting the lyrics. “Hide from the eyes… yeah. I should’ve thought of that.”

He leaned back, mulling over the phrase. “You know, those words might hit harder than you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said softly, “a lot of soldiers talk about remembering the eyes of the people they’ve killed. That line… it might mean a lot to them.”

She paused, the idea settling in, and smiled. “You might be right. I’ll rework it a bit, make the whole song about that.”

It would be the eighth time she’d rewritten it. Some lines she kept because she loved them. Others she changed endlessly, searching for the version that felt right. He adored that about her - how she wouldn’t stop until her heart said perfect.

Just like him.

Because sometimes while she strummed and hummed, he was scrolling through another kind of search: engagement rings.

When she wasn’t nearby, he’d compare prices, styles, colors. But one thought kept plaguing him: How would he even put it on her?

The first question - the where and when - was easy. He’d already decided. He’d combine two moments from their bucket list: the “kiss under the sunset” and the ring. A perfect two-in-one.

But the second question cut deeper. How do you place a ring on a finger that can’t feel it?

Sure, he could slide it onto her other hand, but that broke tradition. And if she couldn’t feel the ring, would it still mean the same to her? He didn’t want it to feel symbolic - he wanted it to mean something.

And worse, he couldn’t ask her about it. He wanted it to be a surprise.

He sighed quietly, pressing a few keys to flip through his open tabs until the jewelry site returned. His list of “maybes” grew longer by the day, but nothing truly fit her yet. Nothing captured her warmth, her resilience, her quiet fire.

He sighed again, dragging his mouse across the screen, caught somewhere between admiration and frustration.

They really were alike, he realized - both perfectionists when it came to the things, and the people, they loved.