The Dream Trotters

Chapter 12

It had been four hours since the attempted kidnapping and Phillipa was paranoid.  Never before had she thought that anything like that was possible. She had heard stories of it, but never had it felt real.  I guess, until you experience something, it’s just a dream.  This dream was no longer a nightmare, it was reality.  Spinning around her constantly, making her second guess the integrity of everyone around her.   

That man walking down the street, was he a bomber?  The mailman who was walking towards his van, did he kidnap kids?  Questions and worries spun through her head, destroying the innocence she had once had.  But the thing that disappointed her most was her own reaction.  

After seeing a life-time worth of action movies, she had just assumed that she would have been able to signal someone, or just pull off a complicated karate move, instantly disarming him.  Instead, she had stood their, tongue tied, unable to even move her fingers.  Not only did she harbor resent and hate against the man, she harbored it about herself.  

And as the man was shoved into a police car, she imagined what could have happened to her if Finn wouldn’t have punched him.  She sat on the velvet couch in Finn’s living room for hours, trying to start over the day, and become the hero of her own story.

Finn had sat on the top of his messy for just as long, thinking about the incident.  If he would have just been braver, it all could have been avoided.  It was his fault that Phillipa sat on the couch like that.  Finn knew that these were all lies that he was whispering back to himself, yet he felt like he deserved to believe them.  

Finally, after a lifetime of sitting still, he had put on jeans, a blue collared shirt and a corduroy jacket, hoping that changing his outfit would change his feelings.  Yet the fancy clothes seemed to pour lemon juice in the mental wound.  He didn’t deserve to go to D.C to get an award.  He could barely even protect himself against a common criminal.  He pulled his new shoes from a box, breathing in the smell of newly tarnished leather.

The smell awakened him from his pity party, making him realize that Phillipa, the person who had really been hurt by the incident, still sat down stairs.  As he walked down the stairs, what he saw hurt him even more. Phillipa sat on the couch, her pale complexion contrasting vividly with the couch.  She rubbed bruised wrists.

“Pip, are you going to go get ready?  We have to drive to the airport in twenty minutes?”  Finn asked.  He didn’t know what to do. She wiped away the remnants of tears and managed a small smile.

“I’m going to go change, I’ll be back in a second.”  Phillipa whimpered this out with threads of courage and left to her room.  She pulled out the black and violet dress that Finn had first picked out and pulled it on.  Daring to look in the mirror, she saw sorrow.  

She grabbed a washcloth and wiped off the sadness and trails of mascara and pulled her smile slowly back together.  The dress was beautiful, and she was able to braid her hair and herself back into a charming configuration.  She slipped her violet vans on, wanting to feel comfortable, yet finding solace in the fact that they were hidden beneath the length of the dress.  She wished she could hide.

“Pip!  We have to go now!”  she heard Finn yell from the kitchen.  She didn’t realize how much time had passed as she had gotten dressed.  It seemed, that when you wanted time to speed up, it slowed down.  Yet when you wanted to enjoy life for a little longer, time seemed to vanish.  Finishing up the last aspects of her outfit, she straightened up the guest room and exited the room.

“I’m ready Finn.” The ride to the airstrip was a long one.  Well, longer than all the others.  This time, it wasn’t awkward, it was sad.  Finally, they both swallowed the sorrow and broke the silence at the same time.

“Finn...”

“It’s fine, you first,” said Phillipa.

“Thanks.  I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.  I could have done, well something at least.  I felt so useless.  I’m so, so sorry.”  He spoke with his head down, barely even to look Phillipa in the eyes.

A solitary tear snuck down Phillipa’s pale cheeks.  She was surprised.  What she had been expecting was a rant, a monologue from him about what a wimp she was, how she could have been stronger.  Yet, she realized that he was just as scared, feeling just as pathetic as her.