Hidden In Plain Sight

Inside a Dream

To the beat of the crashing drum kit behind him, Mary stomps his left foot and strikes a pose, lifting his white Fender American Stratocaster onto his left hip and bursts into a blistering guitar solo. His long talented fingers dance over the fretboard in a frenetic frenzy as he executes each note with practiced yet fluid precision. His melody is flawless. His timing is perfect. He and his guitar are as one. He is on another level.

The crowd around you jostles and pushes while the people closest to Mary gaze up at him in reverence, totally spellbound by his godly guitar skills. You’re pressed up against the stage and are so close to him that you can see the concentration in his eyes and you watch a singular bead of sweat run down his forehead and drip down his nose. His dark hair is tousled and teased and he wears a sleeveless black t-shirt. The muscles in his right forearm flex as he sweeps his plectrum across the guitar strings at the speed of light. His grey jeans are practically beat onto his long legs and a silver studded belt circles his hips. You’re rooted to the floor as you gaze up at him in adoration.

He catches you looking at him, grins and gets down on one knee while pushing his guitar out in front of him. You can almost touch it. He locks his vivid green eyes onto you as he finishes off the last phrase of his solo. The crowd is wild: cheering in appreciation and some are even fawning over his boots, touching him and grabbing his nearest ankle. But he only has eyes for you and he ignores them all.

As he holds the soaring final note with his strong fingers bending the top E string on an impossibly high fret, it echoes around the venue. He shakes his left hand gently, coaxing a smooth vibrato out of the note which holds and sustains for an eternity. Mary’s eyes still haven’t left yours and you gasp in awe of him and his intensity. His band kicks back in, granting a swift and euphoric release to the highly strung tension Mary created, and together they finish in a flurry with an over-the-top drum roll, flashy bass run, and kamikaze whammy bar dive on electric guitar.

The house lights blacken and the crowd roars.

When the lights go back up, Mary is standing in front of you and all you can see is his boyish face gazing back at you. Nothing else exists in this moment and you're not even sure if you're still in the music venue standing in a huge crowd or if you're backstage or somewhere else entirely.

Mary's eyes are huge, beautiful, and mesmerising. There's a softness in them that you've never noticed before. He doesn’t say a single word but you feel like you can practically read his thoughts. His eyes and his grin definitely scream that he wants you and that he is crazy about you. You feel drawn to him and somehow connected to him. It feels like you belong together, so it doesn’t seem remotely crazy when he pulls you in toward his lips. His body pressed against you feels incredibly right. You press your mouth against his and you wait for him to kiss you, and-

BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!

“Ugh!”

Blearily Sadie looked at her phone: 06:45 am.

Fuck! What the hell was I dreaming about Professor Goore for?

She noticed her heart was racing.

Why do I feel funny? It was just a dream. Wasn’t real.

She lay in bed for what felt like two seconds, enjoying the soft hazy afterglow of the romantic dream. Even if it did involve one of her lecturers. Angrily her snooze alarm sounded, reminding her that five minutes had actually passed and she realised she better get up and shower if she wanted to make it to college on time to secure her spot in the free car park before it filled up by 8 am.