James returned to his body, and he wondered for a moment how he had fallen asleep so soon after waking up. He hadn’t felt particularly tired, and even if he had, he was not in the habit of dozing. He took another sip of his still-hot tea, letting the liquid warm his insides on its way down and trying to make sense of the dream he had just had.
He had imagined himself as Anton. James shook his head and laughed quietly to himself, surprised that he had much more of an imagination than he had thought all these years. Not only had he been seeing through Anton’s eyes, his mind had conjured up emotions that Anton might have been going through, and reasons for him to have come to Las Vegas. It was all ridiculous, of course. James knew that Anton had come to this city out of concern for his daughter, whose life had admittedly been on the brink of spiraling out of control. All of the thoughts of running away and fondness turned to fear were then simply products of his imagination.
James clearly needed to find something more interesting to read in the morning than class syllabi.