Romantic getaway? I don't think so

Hallucinations. Or are they?

"Mike, did Dominic tell you anything about our accommodation?" Michelle asked while they waited for the traffic light to turn green. She's been silent for so long that her voice came out rough.

"Of course he did," he said, looking ahead. Looking at her was too much of an effort, she guessed. She couldn't blame him. However, she had expected him to give her a complete answer to her question, but it never came so a half a minute later she tried again.

"Don't you want to tell me?"

"No. Dominic said it was a surprise."

"A surprise?"

"Yes. Do you think it's strange, coming from him?"

She didn't. Dominic always looked after his employees.

"No, not really. But it's not like him to keep me in the dark."

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that I know you'll like the hotel? Again, it's Dominic we're talking about, and he knows you well."

"Well in that case I'll be patient."

She didn't look at him, but she felt that he smiled. She knew his face so well that she immediately imagined dimples forming on his cheeks. She had decided to believe him that their hotel was a comfortable one.

Even if the hotel was below the standard, she would have felt like a princess. She had always wanted to travel abroad, but the possibilities of that happening were always next to zero. Since thinking about that has caused her recurring pain, she had learned to focus on anything other than that.

Right now, the realization that she would be able to walk through the city and see the places she only ever heard about from others was almost overwhelming. She would finally see it for herself and get to tell someone that, for a while, she was a part of that world, too.

She would no longer have to be jealous of them, at least not in that sense. While she knew that being jealous wasn't the most noble of feelings, it was still the only one that she could come up with. She was jealous of the opportunities that have been constantly given to others, where they should have been given to her, too.

She battled her heart with the need to be polite and obedient, and at the same time the burning desire for her life to change. She wasn't asking for more than a few little glimmers of a happier life. Daring to hope for more would be a crime she wouldn't force herself to commit, and she had learned to hope for smallest increments of happiness that she could easily deal with. She wanted to find them and keep them in whichever form they came into her life, until they are snatched out of her hands.

When that happy little moment, whatever it was, would end, she would learn to accept that there surely was something like that somewhere along the road, waiting for her. Definitely far from life changing, but significant enough to make her happy for a few moments. Then the process would repeat itself once again.

She wanted to believe that she was powerful enough to break the cycle. She tried to ignore the reality that has been continuously punching her in the nose, with not as much success as she had hoped so. Not at all would be more accurate.

She was irritated by the fact that she wasn't privileged in any way. Then again, she probably wouldn't feel comfortable behaving like a spoiled brat, anyway. However, a regular girl in a regular, normal family has already had more life experience than she did. Whereas the majority of young people of her age traveled the world at least once in a while, and experienced getting drunk, fear of pregnancy and a satisfying amount of sex, she felt like she was forced to live in a convent.

"Michelle?"

She twitched a little bit in her seat at the sudden interruption of a gentle voice into an already firm silence. This time she gave in and met Mike's eyes. She was expecting to see the look of teasing or irritation, better yet her mind was refusing to believe anything other than that, but the soft tone of his voice matched his worried, dark brown eyes.