Orange

Twenty-Two

I remembered the dream.

I found myself walking around the park, Rosewell, unsure of where exactly I was going. Everything was in complete disrepair, even more so than it normally was. The swings where I spent tender moments with both Blaise and Orion was crushed in on itself, the swing seats themselves broken in half as they were stuffed halfway into the dirt. With every step I took, dandelions leaned in, grasping at my boots with sentimentality, as if begging me to stay with them. I pulled my knees up with every step. I didn't want to hurt the dandelions for some reason. Upon the horizon, where the sun was either setting or rising—I couldn't really tell—sat a tall tree. There definitely was no tree like this one in Rosewell, I knew, so I climbed my way up there to investigate.

There, Orion rested against the bark of the tree. His eyes were closed, wearing that lackadaisical smile on his as he was humming a tune. An orange rested in his palms. I looked up to the tree, only to see it coated in the fruit, each and every one of them huge and enticing. I felt my lips saying his name but couldn't hear my own voice. Still, Orion must have heard me, because he opened an eye and looked up at me.

With a chuckle, he offered me the orange. I held my hands to my chest, a bit surprised at the gesture. For some reason, I felt like crying. Not sure why; it was just an orange. He smiled up at me, those oceanic eyes swirling with a strange mixture of confidence and bashfulness, waiting for me to accept his offer. Just as my hand grazed the fruit, I heard another voice call my name.

I spun around, and there stood Blaise. He was dressed in a suit for some reason, wearing a bright red tie as he stared me down. Slowly, his tense expression shifted into a confident smile, that blazing grin that made my heart ache more than I knew. I was fully facing him, now, unsure of what to do. Blaise took his time reaching into his pocket, not breaking careful eye contact with me as he retrieved a similarly shaped item. A giant pomegranate was extended towards me, even bigger and seemingly juicer than any of Orion's oranges. Something in me told me to run. Turn back to Orion. Accept Orion's offer. But my hands were moving on their own, and next thing I knew, I was breaking into the red fruit, popping a seed into my mouth.

A terrible sensation trickled down my throat. I spit out the seed, gasping as I looked down at the fruit that rested in my hands. I could hear Blaise laughing, a wickedly distorted smile on his face as I stared down in horror. The fruit was oozing blood, covering my hands in the sticky substance. I dropped it. I'm sure I was screaming. And yet not a single sound of my voice reached my ears.

My head shot up towards Orion, only there was no Orion to speak of. He was gone, the fruit that once resided in his careful hands now slumped in the grass. I all but lunged for the fruit, mouthing Orion's name over and over again until my throat hurt. I ripped off the skin of the fruit, and bit into it, only to spit it out. The fruit had hastily begun to rot in my hands, turned brown and mushy as mold grew spontaneously around my fingers. I screamed, throwing the fruit away.

My fingers raced up my cheeks, covering my face in mold and blood. What was going on? What was even happening? Suddenly I couldn't breathe. It felt like I was being choked. I looked down, thinking to see a pair of white fingers around my neck, only to be proven wrong.

They were my own hands, wrapped around my trembling throat.

I fell forward.

Just as I was about to hit the ground, I bolted away, gasping for air as I held my throat. Orion was sitting beside me, holding me steady in his arms as he wiped my sweaty forehead.

"Easy, easy, easy, it's okay," he spoke softly, arms cradling my body as I struggled to regain my composure. "It was just a dream. Just a real nasty dream. You're okay now."