Phantasie ist wichtiger als Wissen

attachment theory, chapter 22 The Wayhaven Chronicles Nate Sewell/Holland Townsend rated M

Excerpt:

You looked very far away. He had been. He was still, maybe. He stood by the counter, watching the steam rise from the mugs of steeping tea, and tried to pull himself back from the future in which he’d been trespassing—one where this time together, this easy domesticity, was not a temporary reprieve, but rather a permanent state of being. One where her boots were always by the door, the lingering scent of her perfume a faint constant in the air; one in which the quiet rhythms of their lives had merged into a single, shared composition. It was a dangerous kind of daydream, he knew. A beautiful, treacherous landscape to get lost in, full of mirages and false horizons. Because the truth of it was, he still didn't quite know if she wanted the same things he did. He knew she loved him: of that, he had no doubt. But he also knew how wary she still could be, how carefully she guarded the most vulnerable parts of herself, including the capacity to keep herself to herself. She had let him in, yes, had given him pieces of herself he suspected she’d never given anyone else. But there were still rooms she kept locked, doors she would only open a crack. And he couldn’t blame her—he had his own locked doors, rooms he rarely let himself even walk past. He couldn’t begrudge her hers. Still. He couldn’t help the wanting.