Crossroads

Chapter 1: The Dream

My dream was exactly what I expected it to be, since I've been having the same recurring dream for the past five months. Except it was more like a vivid memory.

I was walking down a slippery, narrow pathway. Right beside me was her; Nina. I could still remember her scent, a subtle scent of peppermint and an even stronger scent of tobacco. Looking around, I felt a sense of familiarity. The sycamore trees, the dim streetlights, and the icy air that made my own breath visible. More importantly, I felt at home.

Nina reached inside her pockets and pulled out a packet of camels and a lighter. Watching her light a cigarette, I couldn't help but roll my eyes, knowing that she promised herself that she'd quit smoking over one hundred times.

"What?" she said through the cigarette in her mouth.

"I didn't say anything." I replied.

"I can feel you judging me." she said while stomping on a small puddle.

"What happened to your cigarette-fasting?" I reminded her. She shrugged in reply.

"You're a better person than me, Monty. I guess I love smelling like tobacco." she said before kissing me on the cheek.

Nina and I used to share the same addiction to cigarettes. Rather than racing to see who can die first from our addiction, we challenged each other to see who can last the longest without smoking a single cigarette. I won the challenge every time, to the point where I overcame my addiction. Nina, on the other hand, was still struggling. The dream was just like any other normal day for us. Walking hand in hand, bickering over the smallest things, and the usual gross couple PDA.

The last thing I remember before waking up, was running into a crossroad. I turned to my right side to say something to Nina, only to realize that she disappeared, and I was all alone. The rain had stopped pouring, and it was eerily silent. I felt as if someone was watching me, and the sense of familiarity that I felt had gone away completely. "Where am I?" I thought to myself.

Before I could figure out where I was, the dream faded away, and the annoying sound of my alarm clock beeped loudly.

~

As I was walking down the crowded school hallway, the dream kept replaying in the back of my head. Why is this happening? Why do I keep dreaming of her? The dream was never like any of the other dreams I've ever had. It was vibrant, and colorful, yet everything that she said and everything that she's done felt like deja vu. I remembered the exact moment perfectly, and revisiting that old memory felt like an open wound.

I had to tell someone. There's something about having the same recurring dream about the girl that you loved over and over again that brought a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Conveniently, my friend, Sam, managed to bump into me.

"Woah! watch where you're going, Slick. You could've made me drop my chemistry project!" Sam said while fixing his weird ball-shaped project.

"What is that?" I asked him.

"It's a model of the element Sodium. As you can see, it has three rings and eleven protons and-"

"I'm sure it's news-worthy. Listen, I need to talk to you about something." I said.

"Something that's more interesting than my chemistry presentation?" he asked.

"Anything's more interesting than your chemistry presentation."

"Shut up, so what's going on? And holy smokes, what happened to your eyes?" he asked me while examining my entire face. "You look like you haven't slept in years."