Spaceship Situationship

02 - Xander

6:25 - Z-64 Dorm 1
61 Cretan Days to Landing
Xander Z-64

Lately, I keep dreaming about the same scene: a light blue sky layered with fluffy waves of white cloud, a soft breeze, and the faint scent of an early morning rain.

When I'm dreaming I can feel the warmth of the sunlight against my arms and the calm beating of my heart. I'm lying on a concrete rooftop on top of a blanket depicting a superhero I can't remember the name of anymore, and soft piano music is playing from my wristwatch.

Every time I have this dream, my uniform starts feeling stuffy, so I sit up and take off my blazer. It's still stifling, so I loosen my tie.

Right as the music takes off, I hear the creak of the rooftop door, and am joined by another person. I've seen this dream so many times I already know exactly what she says, "Hey, you. Why aren't you at Open Day?"

I turn my head and am face-to-face with the front of her black shoes. She mocks kicking me with her shoe, then says, "Look away, I'm trying to sit down."

I make a face. "You realize that you're not wearing a skirt, right? That's a skort."

"Whatever!" she sits down cross-legged beside me and flicks my forehead. We stay there silently for a while, soaking up the sun. It's supposed to be a happy dream, but I always feel an air of melancholy there too.

"Anyways, why are you here?" I ask, breaking the silence. Every time I say this in the dream my voice cracks near the end, and every time I'm mortified.

"Oh, I don't have a family anymore," she fiddles with the blue ribbon tied around her wrist. Her nails are painted a pretty light pink, and her fingers are long and slender. "There's no point in me going to an Open Day where no one will visit me."

My heart hurts, quickening its pace. My mouth suddenly feels dry, and I'm afraid of speaking, but I finally say, "Me too."

This part of the dream I've never seen before. The nervousness I feel in the dream is the same as the nervousness in my head now, watching this all unfold.

"My mom hates me," I continue.

"That can't be true! How could anyone hate you?"

No.

I don't want to hear this, but my mouth moves on its own, in such a hurry the words seem to blur together. "Well, the last time I saw her, she tried to throw our TV at me."

She inhales, sharply. "What?"

"I haven't seen her since."

The girl is stunned. She says nothing, so I fill the silence, the sentences scrambling out of my throat as if trying to escape the confines of my body. "She told me that she wished I had never been born. I always had a feeling she thought that way, but she never said it out loud so we pretended it wasn't true."

The girl says something to me, but I can't hear it clearly through the foggy pounding of my heart. It drums against my bone, heavy as lead.

My head hurts as the image of my mother flashes in my mind. Unlike the blur over the name of the superhero on my blanket, or the blur over the name of the Academy on my blazer crest, the memory of my mother and her hateful features are sharp. I don't want this dream to continue.

I don't like this. I don't want this.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Suddenly the girl grabs my hand and squeezes it reassuringly. I feel a pulse of energy coming from the warmth of her hand. I try to look up and see her face, but it's blurry, as if the very image of her has been erased from my mind.