Restless

3: Always Longing for the Deeper Ground

AN: Thanks for the positive feedback! I can't wait to reveal my master plan (muahahah)...  Read on! I'm thinking of exploring Michael's dream a little more this chapter.

"I am the raindrop, falling down, always longing for the deeper ground"

She was drowning, slowly falling out of my reach, and just as I could get a hold of her, she'd just laugh and swim deeper... It was as if she didn't know she was falling, sinking, down, down... The water filled my lungs, so I swam to the surface and gasped for air. There I saw her, alive as could be, painting on the bank of the river. Her hair shone in the sunlight of the day, kept sparkling, like her smile. Her hair glinted in the sun... from a golden brown... to yellow.. to red! She was burning! I grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into the water to douse the flames. I realized my mistake as the dream started all over again. Sinking, burning, sinking, burning... an endless cycle, always resulting in death.

I shuddered. The dream had returned yet again tonight, actually causing me physical pain. Her name echoed in my mind... I knew it was Lissa, though she never spoke. It was her eyes, I decided. She spoke with her eyes, and her paintbrush. She never painted the same thing twice. 

I felt like I knew her, it had always been Me and Lissa. But with Lissa came death. And nightmares. I just couldn't handle the pain it caused me. When I tried to save her, I ended up killing her, but then she was fine to begin with. What does that say about me? Do I cause these problems? Or fix them?

My phone rang, and I picked it up. I always picked up the unknown numbers. To me it felt like the lottery. Maybe I'll meet someone new. Maybe it will be today. Someone to distract me from my troubled mind.

"Hello? This is Michael speaking," I said, confidently.

"Um, hi? This is Laura. I think I know your dad? I thought this was his number." Oh, Laura from Maryland. Got it.

"Laura from Maryland? Yeah hold on a sec, I'll get him on the line."

"Thanks, babycakes." Babycakes? What the hell... I called out to my dad. He was on the porch, looking out at the beach.

I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and leaned out the screen door. "Hey, dad? Laura from Maryland." He lazily reached in the general direction of the door and grasped for the phone. He wasn't even close, so I hopped out barefoot onto the hot porch, crossed it like it was lava, and handed the phone to him. He nodded his thanks and shooed me away. I gladly went back to the cool, indoor floors of the cottage. 

I had nothing to do on this lazy summer afternoon, so I decided to make a pitcher of lemonade. I rode my old, too-small bicycle that I always kept on the boat to the Country Market and picked up fresh lemons and sugar. As I was walking out of the swinging doors, I bumped into a girl. A specific girl. I made a fool of myself, so I hurried to my bike. I hooked the handle of the plastic grocery bag over the handlebars and rode home, my knees bumping into the swinging bag the whole way.

As I stirred the ingredients, I pondered the importance of my dream,  and the store today. Did I know this girl? I read once that the human mind could not make up faces, so faces in dreams were always the faces of people you knew, or had seen on television. So how was it that I had never seen this girl before? And never heard of the name Lissa? If I had practically grown up with Lissa, I should know the name. But I didn't. Completely unique.

The lemonade was perfect, as homemade always was. It was a favorite of mine, because it tasted like summer. Martha's Vineyard looked like summer. It even felt like summer. But it didn't taste like summer until I had an ice cold glass of lemonade with it. The perfect flavor.

I didn't tell anyone about my chance encounter at the store, though.

-

Girl's POV

We were moving. The other day, when I said I wasn't ready to vacation in the coast? Yeah, My mom probably took that as "Let's move there. That'll solve things." To Maryland it was, then. We would live on the Bay and eat lots of fish, I presumed. Practically two steps from D.C., too, I bet. A long train ride to New York, a short flight to Florida. It was smack dab in the middle of all the action, and yet there was nothing but fish. Even the 'two steps' to get to D.C. meant leaving the state. What was there even to DO in Maryland? I felt like shaking my mother and asking her why the heck she even wanted to move there.

She didn't have a reply. That was mom, always the enigma.

"Alice? Time to move the last box. Flight's in six hours. To Maryland!" She raised her orange juice glass,  and drank it in one gulp. Noted: teach mom manners before she makes a bad impression. New city, new rules. Heck, we may even meet the president. As. If.

"Sure mom, yeah. Whatever." I was still groggy. It was seven in the morning, what did I expect?

-

The move was done in three days. Maryland, here to stay.