Dream Catcher

Chapter 5 - I Love Him, Right? (Part 2)

"A year," I replied reflexively. It was true.
Maybe a little longer, but that was close enough.
"A year!" the nurse exclaimed. "You've been
dating the kid for a year and he hasn't even
kissed you himself? You need to get yourself
another guy!"
I stood shocked and surprised at the nurses
outburst. Why would she say such a thing? I
turned to face her, my cheeks still sticky with
blood, and stared open mouthed. Then I
narrowed my eyebrows and glared at her,
crunching my mouth up.
"Hmph." I moaned, turning and walking
towards the mirror again to see if I had made
any success with my scrubbing.
"What?" the nurse said. "It's true."
I saw my reflection again, but my scrubbing had
done nothing except make my mascara and eye
liner run, and cause my cheeks to glow red,
flustered. I turned back to the nurse and sighed,
wiping my eyes to remove my make-up, which
came off without an effort, unlike the blood.
"Here," the nurse said walking up to me, pulling
a fresh wipe out of her many pockets and
proceeding to gently remove the blood from my
cheeks. From the corner of my eye, I could see
in the mirror than she was making more
progress than I had.
"Yeah, I thought about that a lot," I sighed
under the nurses hands. "But I don't want to
break the poor kid's heart. He's so sweet.
Maybe if I set him up with another girl first..." I
trailed off thinking.
"Hey now," the nurse said, cleaning up the last
spot. My cheeks were still red but it was better
than the blood. The nurse put her hands down
on my arms. "He's still young. If you're going to
break him, it should be now. Then he can learn.
If you don't break him, he never will and he'll
get more hurt."
I sighed again as the nurse threw the fresh wipe
into the garbage bin. Then I realized that was
the third thing she had pulled out of her pockets
since I met her.
"You have everything in those pockets, don't
you?" I said, a smirk breaking dimples into my
flustered red, lemon-fresh cheeks.
The nurse held up three fingers. "Be prepared."
she said proudly.
It took me a few minutes to make the
connection. I laughed when I got it.
"You never were a Girl Guide, were you?" I
asked chuckling.
The nurse shrugged. "I was," she said smiling.
"Still am."
I just looked at her. My mouth contorted into a
confused squiggly line and one of my eyebrows
raised. I shook my head to loose the expression
as I walked out the door, causing my hair to fly
around my face. It was less tangled now but it
was still frizzy.
When I got back to my bed, I stared at it for a
moment, then turned to the nurse, who was
holding the blanket behind me.
"Do I have to stay? I feel fine. Trev can walk me
home."
"I'm afraid you do. The doctor would like to see
you before you leave. But since we went to all
the trouble to make you look presentable, why
don't you talk to Trevor for a while, then I'll
send the doctor in. I'm sure he'll let you out
when he's through."
I sat regrettably back down into the bed, and
the nurse handed me the blanket. I wrapped it
around my shoulders and she tapped me on the
leg.
"I'll send him in," she told me with a smile. I
smiled brokenly back.
While I waited for Trevor, my gaze returned to
the bed next to me. But when I looked, I had to
look twice. The boy was gone. Vanished.
"Lucky," I muttered under my breath.
"Managed to sneak out with out getting caught."
But then I noticed something. I had gazed at his
perfect form long enough before to remember
the way the blankets had been lying across his
body. The blankets now lied not in casual
disarray, as though someone may have gotten
out of the bed, but exactly the way they had lied
on his slender body before, as though someone
had pulled him out from under them quickly
and they had fallen to the mattress without
being moved.
But it wasn't just the blanket that tipped me off
as on the strange side. Where the boy had once
lied, now showed a thin scattering of a tiny gold
coloured dust, matching his form. I quickly
identified the substance as sand.
Before my mind could ponder the peculiar
situation any further, I could hear Trevor
calling my name outside the room.
"Eli?" he called softly, tentatively.
"In here Trev!" I called.
Trevor poked his shaggy, blond haired head
through the doorway. "How'd you know it was
me?"
"You know I'd know your voice anywhere."
"Even in your dreams?" he asked, trying to fight
smiling shyly.
"Even in my dreams." I smiled slightly
internally chuckling. Then I frowned, being
reminded as to why I was here.
Trev sighed as he sat down on the edge of my
bed cross-legged. He was short, but I liked him
that way. It made him cute. And he had the
sweetest jade green eyes. He dressed as casually
as I did without much care for what people
thought. And in truth, I still did love the poor
kid. Just perhaps not as much as I had when he
asked me out so long ago. He had fallen hard
for me over the year we had been together and
was starting to become a little clingy.
I looked him in the eyes as I frowned. Then I
sighed and looked away. I felt soft fingers
lightly caressing my legs that I had pulled up to
my chest, and I looked down at them to see
Trevor's fingers. It was a bold move for him, he
was so shy and careful. He must really be
worried.
"Are," he started. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah," I swallowed loudly. For some reason,
tears began to well in my eyes. "Yeah. I'm, um
yeah, fine. I'm fine." I finally stuttered out, my
voice breaking in the middle of the sentence. I
sniffled and wiped my nose on my arm that was
wrapped around my knees.
Trevor moved his hand from my leg to my hand
on my knee, curling his fingers under mine,
holding my hand there. This wasn't too bold, we
had made it this far in 365 days.
"No, you're not fine." he said simply, his other
hand lifting my head under my chin gently so I
would meet his eyes. He shocked me with that
move for the second time today. But the
emotions digging under my senses were
becoming too much and the tears spilled over in
my eyes as I shook my head, my mouth tightly
shut in a hard line. I gasped out a shaky breath
and Trevor released my hand to open his arms
to me for a hug. I shuffled closer to him and
wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my
face in his shoulder. He rubbed his arms up
and down my back as I sobbed, his face buried
in my hair. I could feel his nose rubbing my
head slowly above my ear as he murmured into
it. He rocked me back and forth as I let out
shaky breaths, gasping for air through my tears.