Dream of Me

November 23

The conversation drifted, much like the silhouette leaves, the afire insects, the warmth of radiating mutuality of solace. Nothing needed to be said, nothing was left out, nothing prompted an unreasonable response. It was free of the common barriers of normal conversation. I no longer felt ashamed, embarrassed, unintelligent by what I said, and she mentioned she felt the same. I didn't regret anything I said, nor did she. It was pure life, pure light, pure comfort and understanding. We thought about the life that seemed so distant from this land of movement; the life that we had lived for decades, but almost entirely forgot once submerged in the energy of this place. Time passed unnoticed. For the first time in almost all of my life, I didn't feel tired. My mind was clear, my body wasn't aching, my brain wasn't clouded with other thoughts of anxiety or misunderstanding. It was clear. It was perfect in all standards that I had ever known.

"How many girls have you kissed?" she asked, not to embarrass me, but just to know. To understand me more. Normally, in groups of intimate friends, enthralled in mere conversation amongst themselves, the question was always asked and everyone knew where it was leading. But the way she asked it, I didn't feel ashamed, or as if I was about to be shamelessly judged, or even afraid of the escalation of topic that the conversation would head to. I didn't feel at all uncomfortable, which was strange, because this always made me uncomfortable.

"Six, I think."

"You think?"

"Yes. After Irene, I mean, I think there were five. I don't remember all of them very well. I went through the hard party phase of freshmen year. There could be more, but I can't think of it." She didn't judge me, scoff, or reveal any sign of reproach. She simply understood, silently acknowledged my growth from that time, and continued.

"And which one made you want to stay there forever?" she smiled, almost giddy, her hopeless romantic side that she desperately tried to hide peaking out from behind the glimmering eyes. I thought back to my previous kisses, as well as I could remember them.

"I'm sure they all did, at the time. But right now, I can't say I'd want to go back to any of them." I shocked myself at including Irene in this statement. For years, I had longed to go back to her, to hold her one more time, kiss her again. But now, as I looked inside myself for the first time in a long time, I realized that I didn't need to go back there. I needed to move forward. My face must've betrayed that realization, because Ember noticed something.

"Even Irene?"

"Yes," I answered, shocking myself again, "even her. I guess..." still working on putting it all together as the new understanding rushed my head, "I guess I haven't really... I don't know. I think I'm finally moving on. I don't think I've ever had a kiss that's made me want to stay there forever, even thinking about it months after." She looked up at me, almost saddened at my response. Her arms were overlapped in front over her, resting on her crossed legs like a pretzel.

"I'm sorry," she confessed.

"It's fine. It's honestly fine," I repeated with confidence, "what about you? Have you had one?"

"Yes. I've had two. But I only felt that way, like I wanted to stay there forever, for a short time. After, everything started going downhill, like relationships usually do. The feeling doesn't last. The kiss is enough to make you want to explode, being with the person is enough to make you want to only ever see him and no one else. But eventually, like all the other ones, it fades away and you're alone again. And I don't mind being alone. I like it, actually. I have to remind myself that I don't have to be alone all the time, even if I feel like it. I like being alone with people. Some people can come into your life and not seem like an extra, or a burden after a few hours. They feel like an extension of yourself, so when you're with them, it's like you're alone, but the most comfortable alone you've ever felt." She looked up at me, and, like a miracle, I for once knew that a girl was referring to me and not to someone else. I smiled at her. She smiled back. This girl that I'd only known for... well it felt like years, and perhaps it was already years. I had no concept of time here. Before I knew what happened, not aware of who leaned in first, her mouth was on mine, mine on hers, and they stayed there for quite some time. My hand rose to her cheek, our bodies not even touching besides lips, cheek, and hand. I saw us there, together, as if a camera was hovering around us from above, taking in the pink and purple, the darkness of the horizon, the light that illuminated our private forest lake, my hand on her face, our lips sharing the warmth of our unspoken words. Then it was over, as if nothing had ever happened. We sat there, looking at each other, at the horizon, at the surroundings.

"I don't want to go back to the real world," she whispered.

"Me neither," I agreed. But then I caught on to something that I had been overlooking during my every moment with her. "Wait," I hurried, "what real world?" She gave me the same skeptical, almost sarcastic look that she gave whenever I didn't make sense to her.

"The real world. Earth. That place with air and sun and clouds, I'm sure you're familiar."

"Yes, I am. But how are you? This is my dream. You're not real, you're something I made up in my mind. From someone I saw on the subway, probably. You're not a real person, so how do you know what the real world is? Who told you about earth?" She stared at me, still with the skeptical look as if I myself wasn't from earth at all, but a foreign creature speaking a foreign language.

"This is my dream," she opposed, "my dreamed up reality. I'm in my bed right now, dreaming all of this. What are you? Where are you from?"

"Vancouver," I answered, my hands starting to sweat, my heart rate increasing. The word sounded so childish in this setting, talking about dream worlds and reality and earth as if it was a concept that didn't actually exist. "Where are you from?"

"I live in Seattle. I go to school in Seattle. I'm a real, earth person from Seattle."

"So..." I thought, frowning, trying to make sense of this, wondering if what I was beginning to wonder was a possibility in this tangle between dream and reality, "so, we could meet then. In real life. In the real world. You and I could meet. I've never met another person in my dream that knew anything about the world, other than facts they're supposed to know if they're tracings of real people I know. I've never met you, I've never been to Seattle. We can meet." I couldn't believe the insanity pouring from my mouth, but I knew we had to try. If it was possible, we needed to meet each other in the real world. I couldn't go another several months wondering if I would ever see her here again.

"Yes," she agreed, warming up to the actual possibility of such an unorthodox idea. "I think we could. Where should we meet?" she asked, starting to show visible signs of excitement, her cheeks getting pink, her smile uncontrollable. "I can drive up to Vancouver this Sunday," she gushed.

"Yes! We can meet Stanley Park. Will you be able to find that?"

"Yes, of course, I'll just look it up. Okay. So this Sunday."

"This Sunday."

"I'll see you th—"

Chapter 15

I woke up at the hospital, my neck screaming at me for keeping it in such a terrible position for so long. I blinked, looking around, trying to figure out what the hell was going on and where the hell I was. It took me several minutes to remember what had happened in the previous days, why my father was lying on a hospital bed, why I felt like I hadn't slept in weeks. Then it all came rushing back, and for a second I felt crushed under the weight and remembrance of my current situation. It was early morning, and as I squinted to try and take in the room, learn more about my surroundings, I reached a wall in my memory. Something very important had happened while I was sleeping. It wasn't with my father, that I could tell, for he lay in much the same position as he had been before I fell asleep. It wasn't with Addison. She was lying in the chair next to me, finally asleep, in a position equally as terrible as mine had been. I pulled her blanket up from where it had fallen on her lap back to rest on her shoulders, tucking it under the weight of her head on her shoulder. Something of extreme importance was hiding somewhere in my mind and I needed to find it. I walked out the door of the room, strolling around the hospital floor, walking around a small conservatory in the nearby quarters. What is it... What am I not remembering. I had often felt a surge of forgetfulness after waking up, but had almost always remembered soon after and been able to write down the dream events in my journal. The last time it took so long to remember was with Emb... Ember. It had to be her. I saw her again—there? The galaxy place? What did we talk about?

I couldn't remember. It was tearingat my insides. I knew it was important, more important than anything I haddreamed of. Except you, mum, I whispered to her ghost.