The Lying Game

43.

Your life is as good as your mindset.

E M A N I

The dream comes and it's the same as the night before.

I get from laying in the grass. I had just taken a nap in the sun and was ready to go back inside the house. I had never been to this area The place and area is unfamiliar to me in real life but in my dream it felt like home and I knew the place inside and out. I enter a two story farm house with its white shingle walls and mint green shutter windows. I enter inside and walk past the dining and living room to be in the kitchen. I take out food from the fridge to make lunch and lemonade powder from the cupboard for a nice refreshing drink. It doesn't occur to me in the dream that I'm the only person in the house, but I still continue to prep food for four people.

"It's your turn Emani."

The voice startles me and I catch myself before dropping the glass pitcher. At the round table sits a man with green eyes and brown hair. He has a face that I know and don't know at the same time. He's wearing a baseball cap to shield from the blazing sun and wears a light t-shirt and shorts, as if he just came back from running. His face has light stubble on it shadowing a beard. But he smiles at me, the way Will does, and I smile back. He waited for me.

I stop what I'm doing and walk to the table to take a seat. He motions for my cards that are still there. I take them with the cards facing down. The game is simple but still fun and that's why we play it. In my dream it's what we do to pass the time. The person wins if they draw the highest card. It can be a short or long game, but it's still nervewracking.

I draw a 7 ontop of his 3. He taps his cards against the table and bounces his leg, the same way Will does. Everything he does is just like Will but it's not him.

It's his chance to make a comeback. He reluctantly draws and places his card on top of mine and it's a Jack. Damn. I draw without any care thinking it's a lost cause but the card is a Queen. The man pauses and draws his card and it's a King.

"The house always wins Mani." He says before winking at me. The last thing I see are his green eyes before everything going dark and my chair falling back and I feeling like I'm falling fast and about to hit something hard. I wake up mid fall and jolt up from my bed as if I fell onto the bed itself and bounced back up. I check my surroundings and all of Will's room reminds me that I'm not dreaming anymore.

I sit up breathing hard trying to catch myself. Will soon sits up and rests his hand on my knee.

"It happened again?" He asks. I nod my head with no verbal reply. He rubs the tiredness out of his brown eyes. He inches closer and brings my body into his chest and lays back down. I close my eyes to make him think that it helps but I don't go back to sleep. I get a deep feeling in my chest everytime after these dreams. The other night it was drowning. The house flooded with me inside it and no way out.

It's either falling or drowning. The worst part of it all is that even in my dream, I know that no one will save me.

W I L L I A M

With her tray in her hand Emani goes to the next table and offers some family some more food. They deny any more and thank her for offering. She nods her head and rubs the back of the eldest lady at the table who I think is one of her aunties. She makes her way, while dodging kids running past her, to the next table and does the same routine.

"Relax your face Will, you've got your eyes on Emani like you might lose her" Somebody hits the back of my back and laughs. Emani's three older brothers surround me. I fake a grin and Keith, the shortest one of them at 5'6", hands me a beer.