To Be A Prize

Chapter 13

It's a couple hours now since Dream found me crying in the stuffy darkness of my bedroom.

He'd bent down and said nothing, just pulled me into his arms, letting my tears stain his shirt. His hands had combed through my hair comfortingly as he gently rocked from side to side, the swaying motion easing my sadness.

He didn't ask me what had happened, didn't try to find answers. He just held me.

When my sobs finally began to quiet he'd suggested we go on a drive to clear my head, and I now found myself sat in the passenger seat of his car.

Driving down a random highway, his left hand grips the steering wheel, his right fidgets awkwardly on his thigh.

"Nervous?" I ask, with a questioning look to his twitching hand.

Dream chuckles, "no, just realised I don't have a single fucking clue where we are." His eyes crinkle as he turns to look at me and I mirror his emotion, laughing for what feels like the first time in years.

When the laughter ends, an awkward quiet creeps into the car.

The elephant in the room is buckled into the back seat, stilling the air between us as neither I nor Dream know how to approach the topic of 'the game'.

I kneed my eyes, still puffy from crying, with the palms of my hands and sigh deeply, "why, Dream?" I ask.

Although my question is vague, I know he understands what I mean as the muscles in his neck tighten and he draws his shoulders back, clenching his jaw.

"At first I just thought you were some kind of hyper-fixation; my brain does that sometimes, it latches onto people and suddenly they're all that fills my mind, I think it's a part of my ADHD." He begins.

I can't face him as he talks, instead I stare straight ahead watching the cat eyes that dot the road disappear under the car as we hurtle over them. My seatbelt digs into my collarbone, trapping me into the seat, and I run my fingers along the edge of the taut fabric to try to gain a little bit of slack.

"But very quickly I realised it wasn't just that because I've experienced that before. You don't know him but I have a friend called George. For I while I was fixated on him, he was the only thing I thought about and I wanted to be the only thing he thought about. But with you, I don't know, it's different."

Dream's voice is soft, almost like a whisper as if he wants only me to hear what he's saying and avoid hearing his words himself. The speed at which he talks is difficult to keep up with; he transitions from talking at such a rapid pace that I find myself actively concentrating on keeping up with what he's saying, to talking so slowly I truly believe he's fighting with himself to get the thoughts out of his head and into the silence that settles in the car like fog. At each pause, I wonder what version of his storytelling I'll be met with, and which one of us will be left in a quiet, contemplative, loss for words.

"With George it was superficial, I liked him for who I believed him to be, and for what I knew I could make of him. I was fixated on the potential I saw in him. My brain created this fake person who I became obsessed with. But with you..." Here he pauses, turning to look at me, tracing the sharp lines of my jaw but I refuse to make eye contact.

"With you it was like I was excited by what I didn't know and the more I discovered, the more I longed for you. I wanted to be with you before I even knew you." He drifts off from talking and turns back to face the road.

I remain in silence, stunned, too confused to know what to say.

Finally, I turn to look at him and as calmly as a I can I say, "are you out of your fucking mind?"

Dream looks genuinely taken aback by this, and his necks snaps round so that he can meet my stare. There is nothing but bewilderment behind his eyes and his lips part in disbelief.

"You decided that I was made for you without knowing anything about me? Do you know how fucking objectifying that it? Did you practice that soppy speech in the mirror? What did you expect? Me to fall at your feet and thank you for taking an interest in me? Thank you for taking it upon yourself to plan out our future together? I hate to break it to you, Dream, but I was not made you. I'm a real life person with feelings, and wants, and interests, not just some blank canvas that you can build your dream woman around."

I'm angry at this point, in fact I'm furious. My hands start to shake so I shove them under my thighs and sit on them.

"You don't even know me, how could you 'long for me'?" I say this mockingly, nothing but spite and hurt in my voice, "you might think things are different from when you liked George, whoever the fuck he is, but it doesn't sound any different. You need to figure out the difference between a hyper-fixation and love, because believe me, what you just described, yeah, that isn't love."

Blood is rushing behind my ears as I finish my outrage and take a deep breath. I knew men thought that women were 'made' for them and they we owed them something for their affection but I never thought they could reach the levels of self-righteousness that Dream just met.

Still processing what I've just said, Dream's mouth bobs open and closed like a goldfish searching for air expect he's searching for a way to reply to the reality check I've just served him.

Sick of looking at his stupid, condescending, arrogant face, I utter the last words I swear I will ever say to him and tell him to drive me home.