This is the fifth and final part of the story of Mia and Paul. For now...
***
This changes everything.
Those were her exact words, and I didn't know if I should be celebrating or grieving. She looked happy, ecstatic even. Unless her face belied some other state of mind, the tears trickling down her cheeks were tears of joy. But the words she chose felt ominous.
This changes everything.
I wasn't sure what "everything" had changed. And since the "everything" that had recently transpired between Mia and me had made me the happiest man alive, I did not want to even consider that changing, not even a little.
We had professed love to each other. Despite the pain that would wait for us down the road -- me growing old before her eyes, she remaining youthful and powerful, destined to live other lifetimes without me -- we had chosen, together, to risk the pain to share the fulfillment of a life of joy and wonder. I had never felt so happy, so bursting with confidence and optimism. I had felt a primal need to show her my happiness. I had seen the remarkable power of gratitude less than a day before and it was awe-inspiring. And that gratitude was a mere fraction of what I was feeling for Mia now. That was gratitude -- this was love, more powerful and honest than I had ever thought myself capable of.
She needed to know it. I had told her, but she needed to really know it. To feel it. So with what little I had learned from Mia about directing my own personal energy, I tried to show her. I poured as much love as I could into her. I watched as the intensity of what I was sharing grew. It was effortless. Every old cliche about how easy love is when you find it reverberated through my head. I had shared the purest positive energy I had -- something that mere weeks ago I hadn't known or could have imagined was possible -- and I did it virtually without thinking. Mia was helping of course, and the energy she added to our exchange further amplified the impact on both of us.
What is it they say about good intentions? I could feel my own road to hell yawning out ahead of me. The prospect that I had inadvertently ruined a fleeting encounter with true love was making me feel physically ill. She had said, "Oh Paul. What you did. You have no idea." There was no room for misinterpretation there. I had done something. And that something had, according to Mia, changed everything.
The stress of Mia's reappearance and the thoughts stampeding through my head were almost too much for me to bear. But I was granted a reprieve, although in hindsight it was pretty heartless of me to look at it that way. Mia was still gazing up at me with that radiant smile, when her eyes fluttered and rolled back into her head, and she slumped weightless in my arms. I scooped her up and hurried into the house. All too often Mia had simply moved us from one room to the next so I was still a bit disoriented wandering the halls of her mansion. Mercifully, candle sconces seemed to always be burning in the halls so after a couple of wrong turns I found her -- our -- bedroom and laid her on the bed. Even after fainting, if that was what had happened, she was still smiling her peaceful smile. I took that as a good sign. I was willing to grasp on to anything even remotely positive at that moment.
I sat on the bed next to Mia and waited. Her pale orange shimmer had not diminished; from the moment she reappeared, through her swoon, and now lying on the bed, asleep or unconscious, she still appeared to be softly radiating energy. She looked perfectly normal. So I waited.
The events of the day must have caught up with me because I hadn't realized I had fallen asleep until I was awakened by an arm wrapping around me and the feeling of warm breath on my neck. Mia. I couldn't be sure if she was waking up or simply moving in her sleep so I remained still. Part of me was afraid of what I might see or hear when we were both awake so for the moment I stayed quiet, trying to shake off the sleep and gather my thoughts.
"Hi," I heard a soft sleepy voice whisper in my ear.
I rolled over and faced Mia. "Hi," I echoed. "How are you feeling? You gave me a scare when you fainted." Not to mention when you disintegrated into a blizzard of white lights, I thought.
"I feel wonderful, Paul. Wonderful. I can't imagine ever feeling any better than I do now." She was smiling again, that dreamy beatific smile. If I hadn't known better I'd have thought she was high on something.
"Do you know what happened to you? Do you remember anything?" I asked.
"Sort of, and yes," she said. "I think I understand some of what happened, and I remember every blissful second." That sounded promising, or at least less ominous.
"What happened?"
"I'm not even sure how to describe it. I guess the easiest way to say it is I went... somewhere. Somewhere new and foreign. I wasn't there physically; I was just 'there.'"
"Like when you shed your body and just exist as energy?" I suggested.
"A little. But when I've done that I've always remained here, feeling everything around us. This was different. I was gone. I didn't feel the familiar energy of the garden or the ocean. I was aware of it, but I wasn't connected to it. Imagine looking out the window on a blisteringly hot day. You can see the heat rising off the streets and the sun beating down, but since you are inside you aren't actually feeling the heat. That's what I experienced. I was aware of the physical world, could 'see' it, but did not feel it."