Note: while I hope you'll enjoy this story without reading all of the previous parts, I also hope it is good enough to inspire you to want to read at least some of the previous parts.
Chapter Thirty-three
As the pandemic dragged on and things refused all of our efforts to go back to normal, even though we were no longer on lockdown, there were still some things that we couldn't do. I was still working from home and my opportunities for socializing were limited so, although I wasn't spending an unhealthy amount of time on them, social networking sites continued proving to be useful. There was one spontaneous dream visit that didn't allow for much in the way of planning but was inspired by social media.
I'd met Heidi and her mom many years before on a message board for people taking cruises, on a thread for people in our local area. The three of us and a few other people messaged each other for a while before someone suggested meeting in person. Heidi was a bit younger than me but was married to a guy my age so he and I got along great. My age was probably somewhere between hers and her mom's. As we all got to know each other better and would occasionally hang out, Heidi's husband and I started doing things together, like meeting up for beers or to watch football and I eventually ended up teaching him how to homebrew. I liked Heidi, too, and the three of us enjoyed hanging out together sometimes but I didn't have any inappropriate feelings for her.
A few years prior to the pandemic, Heidi's mother-in-law died unexpectedly and it took a real toll on her husband. Inexplicably, he abruptly cut me out of his life and, when I reached out to Heidi to figure out what was going on, he then ended up accusing her of cheating on him with me. As painful as it was, I eventually just had to let go of both of them, though I still remained friends with her mom on social media. More recently, I learned via Heidi's mom that her own husband had been diagnosed with ALS. It wasn't too long after that when he passed away. I expressed my condolences to Heidi's mom and, by extension, to Heidi but there was no direct contact with her even then.
When Heidi's mom shared one of those "you have memories" things on social media and it was a cruise they'd taken when Heidi's dad was still alive, I was scrolling through the photos and started to wonder what had ever happened with Heidi and her husband. After some consideration of whether I actually cared or not, I decided that I'd just pop in and see if he was even still in the picture. There was no plan for this to be a dream visit with Heidi; it really was just me being kind of nosy. What I found resulted in a couple of things happening on the fly that really worked out very well for both of us.
I'd been to their place many times but never had any reason to go upstairs where the bedrooms were so, when I popped in, it was on the main floor, which was quiet and empty. I looked around to see if there were any clues to suggest whether Heidi's husband was still in the picture but I didn't find anything definitive so I headed upstairs. There was a sound that drew me to one of the bedrooms where I found Heidi curled up in the fetal position on the big bed, hugging a pillow and crying. She was obviously awake but her eyes were closed so I just stood there for a couple of minutes, feeling like I couldn't just walk away, figuratively of course. After contemplating the best course of action, I figured I could do an impromptu dream visit if it seemed like she was on the verge of sleeping but I'd have to take some steps to make sure that she was clear that I hadn't just showed up at her house and climbed in bed with her. I was just drawing a blank on short notice of where I could whisk her off to that would make sense. I wasn't even thinking about a sex dream at that point; I just wanted to try to cheer her up and maybe figure out what was wrong.
When she'd quieted down and seemed to be possibly on the verge of dozing, I went from standing near her bed to lying with her in her bed but we were both wearing some wild pajamas, there were candles lit all over the room and the ceiling looked like the exterior sky, inspired by the enchanted ceilings in the Harry Potter books and movies, of which I knew she was a fan. I took her hands as I appeared and all of these changes occurred, which caused her eyes to open immediately.
"Why so sad, my friend?" I asked as her gaze darted from me to the candles to the ceiling and to my pajamas then down to her own.
"What the heck is happening?" she asked, taking her hands from mine and propping herself up to look around better.
"You tell me," I said, "Is there something you need to talk about? Some reason why it would be me after all this time?"
"I've got to be dreaming," she finally determined, "I've cried myself to sleep."
"But why?" I asked, "Why are you crying so hard?"
"I miss my dad," she said, flopping back onto the bed, "and I'm tired of being alone. My marriage was a total bust and we never had kids so I've got nothing. I can't even go on a cruise to help me feel better because of this stupid pandemic."