A few months ago, this peculiar story slipped quietly into Williams nights like a thin mist over the Thames. It was a dusky evening when William found himself rumbling back from Heathrow, his mother softly snoring in the passenger seat wrapped in a tartan scarf. Somewhere past the glow of the M25s endless curves, a lone girl stood shivering on the verge, her hair rain-slicked and glinting oddly under the orange streetlamps. With the improbable logic only dreams possess, William decided at once to invite her in.
He offered her his navy jacket, the one with brass buttons, because she looked soaked down to the bone. Between the purring of the engine and the jitter of wipers, she confessed in that slanted, dream-accent way that her own father had cast her off, anger sharp as a knife. She pleaded with William to drive her to Paddington Station, to pass the night in the humming light and maybe decide on tomorrow, as if the world rearranged itself at sunrise.
But William, with the drowsy kindness that comes in dreams, couldnt leave her stranded in this liminal space between rain and road. He asked her to stay at his flat, the one above the old bakery in Camden that always smelled of sourdough and burnt sugar.
Days flew by in strange logic; three months stretched and curled like the vapor off English breakfast tea. Suddenly, something tipped the ordinary on its side: the girl, now named Emily as all dream-girls are, felt faint and flushed as dawn. Without warning, she discovered she was pregnant. Williams mind spun and stuttered, stories darting through his thoughts: at first, panic then, sharp English resolve. No ending it, he declared to the patternless wallpaper. No question.
He knelt awkwardly, ringless, and asked her to marry him. Ghosts of old traditions flickered around them a teacup, a white dress, honeycomb cake from M&S. Strangest of all, William told everyone how marvellous her roast dinners were, how splendidly she hosted the neighbours, her laugh ringing brighter than crystal.
Yet, as he drifted from scene to scene, there was a secret folded somewhere in the lintels of his ribs: he had never truly known how to love a woman. He clung, not even to his own longing, but to the faint echo of compassion. He did not know how many days this dream-marriage would last, but so long as he glimpsed Emilys smile in the mornings soft light, happiness swirled in the air impossible to hold, yet utterly real, in that way dreams always are.
