Cardinal

Chapter 3 Her

"Where are you?" I heard the high-pitched voice ask from the other side of the phone. The sky was bright and cloudless, perfect for outside activities and creating memories.

"I don't know, you may not see me, but I see you," I exclaimed, walking across the gas station parking lot. I saw her standing in front of the JoyBoy building that her and I worked at. Her long, black hair flowed beautifully with the wind as she stood by the crosswalk, holding her phone to her ear.

"Well, that's not creepy at all," she chuckled, looking around as I continued talking to her.

"It's only creepy if you make it creepy," I joked, in which she started laughing alongside me. Finally, she turned towards my direction and waved to me. I don't know why, but I felt the sudden urge to want to mess with her a little. "Who are you waving at?" I asked, as she continued to wave at me with a huge grin on her face. From a distance, I noticed she rolled her lovely brown eyes at my question before talking into the phone again.

"Harrison, I know that's you," she exclaimed, before furthering her point. "Who else has messy brown hair and wears all black clothing in the heat of July?"

"Man, whoever does that is a weirdo," I said, walking onto the sidewalk. She began crossing the road, but our destination was behind her. "Why are you going that way, we need to go the direction you were at."

"Harrison, I know that's you," she said, still on about my joke.

"It's not me though, why are you walking towards that strange guy?" I asked as I stepped onto the cross walk. The crossing signs were doing their dark red countdown, like some sort of bomb. Suddenly, she hung up the phone, in which I followed by placing my phone in my pocket. As we walked closer towards each other, I saw her arms stretch out, preparing to embrace me kindly. I prepared to hug her back.

The world around me slowed as this happened though, as if something was causing time to slowly enter a halt. Both of our smiles were wide as we approached each other, and I could almost feel her arms wrap around my neck as we prepared to hold each other warmly in the middle of the road...

***

My eyes slowly opened, as I was surrounded by darkness.

"Huh?" I stammered silently, before sitting up in my bed. I rubbed my eyes as I thought about the dream. The dream felt so real, so perfect to me. Once I finished rubbing my eyes, I silently sat there, trying not to allow the memory of the dream to escape me. I didn't want to let it go, lost forever to time and space.

The memory of that day was now the only thing that resided with me as I sat there in the loneliness of the room. My blanket just barely made up for that loneliness, wrapping around my legs with warmth and comfort in the colder temperature of October. Modestly, I looked over to the digital clock that sat on my nightstand. The light green numbers said 4:26 AM, early enough for me to fall back asleep. But how could I?

I wanted to remember this dream as much as I could, but there was no reason to. I reached for my phone that was sitting on the charger in front of my clock, and double tapped the screen. The screen lit up, revealing a picture of a plague doctor in steam punk like clothing. There was only one notification, that being a reminder of a new deal they have at the taco place I enjoyed going to. Other than that, it was devoid of any life.

I silently swiped upward on the screen, unlocking it to the message history I had with Jacob. I however, exited the app and entered gallery. The app pulled up with a black screen with multiple squares that represented different categories of pictures. There were screenshots, pictures from my camera, and a few others that were from within an app or that I made a custom folder for. Clicking on the camera gallery, I began scrolling downward a little before stopping.

From there, I gently pressed down on the picture of someone. She had dark skin and wore a yellowish dress. Beside her was myself, my paleness being a complete contrast to hers. I wore a black hat and had mostly black on, aside from the picture of the green alien holding a vacation drink on my shirt. Our smiles were wide, wide enough to where anyone that looked at the picture would grin with us in the same amount of joy we seemed to have.

Looking at the picture brought a sense of calmness, like nostalgia almost. A slight smile formed across my face as I stared at our expressions of joy. At least, what I remembered being joy. The girl in the picture was the most beautiful person I had ever seen, and the loveliest I had ever met. After a few moments of thinking and remembering, I closed out the app and placed my phone back on my nightstand before lying back down.

As I lied there, alone in the dark room, I stared into the ceiling. The only thought that ran through my head were the images of that dream. Or rather, that memory.