Dreams that never come true - A Short Story Collection

Rosewood (Part 1)

Ten years ago

"Rosewood girls don't have lovestories. We have tragedies." My mother used to tell me every night before I fell asleep. Her words echo in my head. Why couldn't I have been born into any other family?

My family line is magical ; all the women are seers. But every single time one of us falls in love it ends in heartbreak. Rosewoods aren't made for romance. We're made to break.

As soon as we turn seven, we get prophetic dreams. Once we turn thirteen we get dreams of our soulmates and then they never end. Even if your soulmate dies, you still dream of them. Even if you reject them. Even if they leave you. Mother said it drove Aunt Jackie mad. Not that I would know, she died 17 months before I was born, 3 months after her soulmate died.

We're cursed. Mother said that hundreds of years ago, Rosewoods were friends with the Darkmoons - a line of witches which were centuries old, until one of the sons who was destined to become a sorcerer turned dark. He became a demon and one of the Rosewoods, Sybil, started having prophetic dreams about him. He was going to be soulmates with her unborn child. She didn't want her prophecies to come true - a demon with her child could mean that her branch of the family line would no longer be pure blooded, it would become spoiled.

Driven mad by her dreams, remembering how she barely escaped a greater demon years ago, she poisoned him with belladonna and he died on the night before a full moon. The Darkmoons, upon discovering his death, cursed us the next night so that all of our mates would be dark and until we could learn to accept all, we would never know true love.

Or at least that's what the stories say.

Mother locked me inside the basement ever since I got dreams of him.

My soulmate.

Every night he tortures me in my sleep ; every night had been restless since.

Mother died 2 years ago. My Aunt Rosa sent me to school a few months later, when I was still grieving and I slowly grew depressed.

I had no friends.

No Mother.

Only him.

And he doesn't even know who I am.

I watch him sometimes at school. He isn't nice to anyone. At first I thought 'Maybe he's misunderstood. Maybe I can change him.'

Oh, I was such a fool to think that anyone could ever change such an insufferable little b-

"Heads up!" Someone yells, and I freeze.

Pause. Yup, I'm in school right now. Aunt Rosa told me to stop doing internal monologues because it would be my downfall, but my heart yearns to write.

Unpause.

SLAM!

I fall to the ground, after something heavy hits into my back. Winded, I wheeze.

Welcome to the high life.

"Oh, Jimminy Cricket." I mutter under my breath, and stand up, picking up the object that took me down. A 700-page book on war. A few inches higher and I would've wound up in the nurse's office with a concussion and bruised ego. "Sorry!" The same person yells. I turn around to look at them.

Adrian. One of the less annoying boys, but Hell that boy cannot take a hint. "Yours?" I ask him, holding out the book.

"Isabella's. I was returning it." He says, shaking his head. "Sorry - turns out that I'm not as athletic as I thought I was."

"Next time," I whisper to him. "Don't try to impress your crush with pure athletic skill." I gesture to Isabella who's talking to her friends, Faith and Rain. They seem nice.

They've never been unkind to me at least. If I had any friends, I'd be friends with them. They're the only ones who seem happy.

I've watched so many people fall apart, but they're a constant. I don't know why Adrian's even attempting to separate them, even if his intentions aren't horrible. He blushes and mumbles a quiet 'thanks' and runs off.

I turn around only to see something that breaks my heart.

Him.

He's perfect, damnit. With his stupid silver-blonde hair and his idiotic pale green eyes which I know all too well. Those eyes haunt my sleep every night.

Ace. Such a perfectly terrible name, sure to lure me to my imminent death. A demon. The kind that my family looks down upon.

His arms are wrapped around a different girl and his lips-

Well. They're kissing her. And she's kissing back.

*sigh*

It's a different girl every week.

I haven't been getting a lot of sleep recently. Every time he sleeps with one of them, I feel pain physically. Bruises litter my torso and all the places where he touches her.

It hurts so much.

Aunt Rosa took me to see a kind eclectic witch called Sophie, her friend's niece, before I joined the school. She casted a spell onto me ; one that changes my scent and my eyes until... Until he figures out who I am. But then it will be too late.

Eyes truly are the window to the soul.

My Rosewood eyes (brown/red) are now hazel, and my hair is black with loose curls. My skin is pale from all the time I've been kept inside and my expression is permanently sad-looking.

I'm no match for him. Well, they do say that opposites attract.

But I'm definitely no match for his next bimbo. Not that I'm upset about that. They may have botox, but I have sickly looks that get me free lollipops and vitamin gummies whenever I see the school nurse.

I walk off to my next lesson, which is PE. It's dodgeball, which should be easy enough because I've been dodging things for all my life.

After getting changed, I walk into the sports hall, a sense of impending doom and dread falling upon me. There is no way that throwing things at students and having students throw things at each other will ever help society move forwards and all it does it cause physical injuries and pain, in a brutish show of violence, and in utmost severe cases death.

Our teacher picks two (male) students to pick the teams.

How sexist. Normally I wouldn't mind, but our PE teacher has never picked a girl to lead a team, and he only picks girls to help take the kit back (unless it's heavy - then he picks the boys). I need to remember to ask Sophie to curse him.

The team leaders are Caspian and Ace. Ace, the boy who holds my heart and doesn't even know it. Just looking at him makes me forget how to breathe. He's so beautiful it hurts.

I'm the last one to get picked.

In the end, Caspian takes me, after losing to a game of rock, paper, scissors. Caspian approaches me and then stops, centimeters away, folding his arms.. "You better not make me lose this game Selene." He says to me angrily. I can see Ace watching us. He looks angry. Why, I don't know.

"I wouldn't dream of it." I say with gritted teeth, staring back. He turns away and walks off and I follow him slowly, to our side of the hall. I hide at the back, ducking occasionally and holding out. I'm already failing in PE, so hopefully I can just get this over with and do better than normal.

Soon, there's only a few other people left on my team. Everyone else is watching from the sidelines. It's only until a girl on my team accidentally trips me over that Ace pays me attention. For a second, I think that he's going to get me out until I realise that I'm bleeding.

He can smell my blood.

It takes me a few seconds to realise that the spell's broken. I need to leave. I need to run and never look back like Mother told me to. Otherwise I'll end up like her and Aunt Jackie.

Ace looks into my eyes, his orbs now onyx coloured, looking positively murderous.

He knows.