Dreams That Do Not Matter (gmw fanfiction)

Girl Meets High School part 2

Verity's POV

I hear the door to our room open and I look up from the book I've been not so successfully trying to read for a while. 

Missy enters and her eyes immediately travel to where I am. She looks really worried but smiles anyway and asks, "Was it the same as lately?" referring to the state I found this house in, which took me quite a lot to put into somehow normal state again. 

I cannot bring myself to look at her and say, "No, it looked the way it did in the morning here. Maybe it's getting better." I manage a somehow reassuring expression, but my line wasn't delivered correctly as my voice was way too quiet. Startled, I realize this is probably the first time that I can remember ever having lied to Missy. I feel bad for it, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell her the truth and shatter whatever small hope she had at the moment. 

But it seems she doesn't need any words to catch on to my lie. It's only natural. She walks closer until she's standing in front of me and looks at me with compassion shining through, "You had to work hard to put it back together, right?" I just nod,  unable to add anything to her statement. "And after what you went through today too." She sighs and joins me, sitting down on my bed next to me. 

Yeah, my life would be a living hell without Missy, that's for sure. 

Although the silence that envelops us seems natural, I still try to search my mind for something else to say, some change of topic. There's no point in dwelling on negative things at the moment. "So how was the rest of your first day of high school?" I ask tentatively. 

She looks thoughtful, but smiles, "It was actually pretty good. We have most of our classes with Daniel and Lucas. And did you know you can take optional ballet classes at this school? That's exciting." Her face lights up a bit. "Maybe you could try as well. It would be definitely fun." Then she stops for a moment, remembering something, "Are you going to come to school tomorrow? Because if not, it's fine. No one would blame you."

"I wouldn't miss it." I start feeling a bit more optimistic after hearing that her day went well despite everything. 

Next day

Lucas' POV

I couldn't sleep at all, not being able to close my eyes for even a minute. I couldn't stop thinking of Verity. I'm sure my exhaustion is very visible on me but I don't care at the moment. 

After Verity left, not listening to my pleas to let me go with her or do at least something to help, the rest of the day went by in a blur. There were classes that I barely registered coming to, not to mention having no idea what kind of classes they were, teachers explaining things I had no idea about and couldn't bring myself to listen to and then somehow getting home. I'm so lucky that Daniel had the same classes as me and dragged me along. Otherwise, I'm sure I'd probably be standing at the exact spot I was left by Verity until now. 

I feel so helpless. I've seen Verity looking very vulnerable before, that's true. There was the time I went after her last year on New Year's Eve and saw her break down after comforting a dying girl. I tried to comfort her the best I could, although to tell the truth, I had no idea what to do. At least I could do something. Then there was her riding Tombstone the bull instead of me and collapsing afterwards. But then, I at least had the comfort of knowing that it was a highly unusual situation and unlikely to happen again. But this time, she was there, the way she always is. Except that suddenly, she wasn't. I lost her, if only for a matter of seconds. I had to stand there and see her brave and always selfless, encouraging and sweet self disappear. 

It seems so sudden. At first, all I could see was her being strong and despite knowing that her life is far from easy, the possibility of her breaking seemed almost unrealistic. Then, as I started to see more of her, I slowly started to see more of the real picture of her. I saw her weak and I even saw her break down. And I feel like it's starting to amass slowly. There is nothing I can do about it, I cannot help her no matter how much I would want to. 

She always does everything to keep us from worrying about her and I'm starting to get why maybe she didn't want anyone to see. Because now, I'm scared. I'm so scared. I've been lead to believe that she'll always be there. That although I don't know as much about her as I would like to and she doesn't trust me at the moment, I have all the time in the world to change that, to fix whatever went wrong. I didn't count on the possibility that maybe she won't be here. It wasn't supposed to be like that. That's not the way this world is supposed to work. Why hasn't anyone taught me this?

I feel inexplicable anger. Why were we raised believing that if we do the right thing and keep true to ourselves, things will always go our way eventually? That we will always have someone to help? That if we try hard enough, we can achieve anything? That there's always a next time, a new chance? That's such a cruel thing of adults to do. I wasn't prepared to the shock of realizing that nothing is in fact secure. 

I wait anxiously in front of the school for Verity and Missy to arrive. Will she even come? I desperately want her to, even though I know she would definitely do better to stay at home. 

I'm way too early, the first one to be there and I don't know what to do, what to think while waiting. Finally, I catch a glimpse of the two of them and then they are there. 

My eyes meet with Missy's and she gives a small nod and tells Verity she will head to her locker now, knowing that I need a moment to speak with Verity alone. 

After Missy has gone inside, Verity takes a few hesitant steps closer to me, but keeps her head down. I move my fingers to her face and carefully lift her chin up to be able to look at her and see her eyes. After worrying sick about her, I need to feel her still being here. I search her face for any traces of her not being well, but I don't find any, as usual. I think she hides it so well that I would probably have no chance of noticing it until too late. That alarms me, but I cannot do anything about it either.

"Are you alright? Shouldn't you have stayed at home?" I ask in a strained voice although I don't know how I would survive it if I didn't get a chance to see her today. 

Her face turns to a cheerful one that I would no doubt have mistaken for a genuine one had this happened any sooner and had I not known what led to this moment. "Yeah, everything is okay. I just got a little light-headed yesterday, I guess."

I look at her seriously, "Why won't you let us worry about you? Why won't let us help you? Let me help you?" I feel like hitting myself with something, that's not how I wanted this conversation to go, I just blurted it out without thinking. I didn't want her to feel pressured. 

She looks shocked for a moment and starts, "I just-"

But I don't let her finish, unable to stop myself from finishing saying what I need to get off my chest, "I'm scared, okay? So scared. I'm scared of losing you."

She seems somehow incredibly sad for a matter of seconds, but then she regains her cheerful composure, although still somehow sounding serious, "Don't worry, you won't lose me." 

Verity's POV

"I'm scared of losing you," he says in a very strained voice, as if he was speaking through a lump in his throat. 

This is very bad. He's hurt now and it's all my fault. I speak the first thing I can think of in reassurance, "Don't worry, you won't lose me."

It's my fault for letting him get closer to me, setting his hopes up way too high. I don't want him to suffer because of my own mistake. 

Everyone is subconsciously scared of losing the ones they cared about. I know that first hand after already having lost people close to me. But perhaps it's not too late yet. I might still be able to fix what I messed up.