“The angels visited me again last night,” I say, barely lifting my head from my arm. “They called me seraphim and played with my hair.”

“Mmm,” he says, kissing my bare shoulder. We’ve slept in, and he’s found a place tucked behind me as I lie on my side facing the early afternoon light. My squinting eyes filter the rays into starbursts of light through my eyelashes, a daytime fireworks show displayed just for me. He traces his palm along the valley before my hip, and I look over my shoulder, watching him watch me.

“Do you think they could be right?” I ask.

He looks at me, bemused, as if wondering whether to play along or put an end to the discussion altogether, having heard plenty of the dreams that have plagued me for the past year. He plays along, and I am glad.

“No doubt, it’s a fascinating thought, my love. But do you serve whom you are supposed to serve as a member of an angelic court?”

“No. I serve only my own interests and those of my heart. But I love my fellow man as purely as one can and without prejudice. And I will profess to do so until my eyes cease to shine and my shallow breaths fade away into silence. Are those not the qualities of an angel? To extoll love as the highest of all virtues?”

There is silence between us. I lay my head back on my arm and pull a fistful of covers to my chin.

“I think I’d like to be an angel,” I say. “At least I’d have a mission instead of flopping around hopelessly like a reeled carp.”

His fingers press below my shoulders, outlining where my wings would be. He listens without judgment, knowing that these trips of fantasy are all part of what keep me grounded when my head is a constellation of confusion. He kneads the crux of my shoulder blades, where I harness my worry and fear, and inhales deeply as my muscles unwind.

“If you are an angel,” he says, pausing for a moment to curl my hair around his fingers, “you are a fallen one at that. Somehow I think your King would frown upon this…” With that, he kicks his leg under mine and flips me over so we are nose to nose. His hand on the back of my head and my hair enveloping his face, he pulls me to him for a kiss to erase the players in my dream. I ponder resistance, but today I let him. Because for today, he is right.