we became friends through my ex, meeting during that strange period of my life at the start of the millennium. and she helped me through the breakup, reaching out to me when she could see that things were going all wrong. after that, we quickly became friends, bonded by a shared sense of, man, what the fuck.
she'd come over to visit from time to time, stay the weekend. my parents always suspected there was something we were hiding (& perhaps hoped? she's tall, funny, very pretty), but there never was. just friends.
last night in my dreams it was summer — miles from the cool, frosty weather outside. i couldn't say where but i knew i was east of here. we walked through some government building, scanned various badges and showed them as well to military personnel; then we walked outside to a fall scene, standing on a huge wooden balcony overlooking a forest. there was a cushioned bench. we brushed off the leaves, sat down, turned to each other to talk again.