The Blue In Your Eyes

The nightmare

I was lying on the ground. The dirt soft, wet and dark. Green plants spreading around my body, crawling over my limps. Holding me tight. Dragging me down. Into the black underground. I could smell sun and rain and flowers. I could feel the heat on my skin. The air so heavy with humidity it was hard to breath. So hard to breath. I tried to move, but the plants was like robes, holding me so, so tight. I couldn't get away, I couldn't move. I would slowly drown in the fat moist dirt.

I woke with a startle. Trying to control my breathing. My heart beating so hard in my chest. It was not a new nightmare. It had followed me for five years. No matter where I was - or what I was doing. The nightmare was there. Waiting patiently to attack me in me sleep. I sat up and turned on the light. The sound of my pulse still pounding in my ears. I picked up my phone. Clicked on the photo app. And began to scroll. I know it was stupid. I Knew it would break my shattered heart, but I also knew that it would bring me some brief seconds of joy.

Oliver. He was always smiling at photos. Not like me who most of the time just looked really weird. His brown eyes full of light, the black hair behind his ears, and that big white smile of pure happiness. A new kind of pressure was building in my chest. The pictures, so many pictures, and still not enough. We were hiking, we were in the car. Several of him sleeping - and more of him smiling at me from the other side of the table at a restaurant. It was to much. As it always was to much to look at the pictures. I pressed the phone against my heart.
"Don't worry. I have a plan. I am gonna find you. I promise you," I whispered in the quiet room.

I couldn't sleep. The nightmare still messing with my brain, and the pictures of Oliver now messing with my heart. I got op and opened the door to the patio. The night was still and cool. Comforting with its black sky full of stars. Maybe, somewhere in the world, Oliver was looking up at the same stars in this exact moment. The thought gave me a rush of happiness, that dissapered with the speed of a shooting star. Hope was a very dangerous thing. Five years in a mix of hope and despair had taught me that.

A sound made me stifle. There was something or someone in the pool. It was in the middle of the night. Maybe an animal? I tiptoed down the stairs, not unhappy about the distraction, and then I just gaped.

Swimming in the pool, with long powerful strides, there was Grant Shelby. I just couldn't wrap my brain around it. The drunken ashen man I knew as my boss, now swimming as an athlete in the blackness of night. Was it even safe if he wasn't sober? And was it my job to stand gaurd in the shadow, should something happen to him?

Grant Shelby didn't notice me. He just kept swimming, lane after lane after lane. Was he preparing for the role he didn't want - trying to get in shape but not telling anyone? Or was this the way he spend his nights? Swimming like a maniac, drinking, and then sleeping all day. Fuck, how should I know, and more important, why should I care. He could do what ever he wanted, as long as he kept signing those big paychecks.

I turned on my heal and went up the stairs and back to my apartment. Somehow the very strange image of Grant Shelby swimming in the pool in the middle of the night was pushing the anxiety from the nightmare and the hurt from thinking on Oliver away. I fell asleep the moment i put my head on the pillow. So I guess... thank you Grant Shelby?