The Girl in My Dreams (15 page)

“Do you know what she told me the night of the dance? Before she went over to your house?” Leah asked.

“No, what?” I asked.

She choked back tears, putting her finger up for me to give her a second and closed her eyes terribly hard as tears escaped from the edges.

“She told me she was in love with you and she knew that you were the one. She told me how kind, loving, supportive, and, most of all, selfless you were,” she said.

“He doesn’t need to hear this right now, Leah,” Paul said.

“I’m telling him because of that last part. The one thing she loved about you, Theo, was that you always did what you needed to so that she’d be happy. You never tried to hold her back or keep her down, instead picking her up and letting her do what made
her
happy, even if you didn’t want to do it. She knew you disliked some of the social functions and games she had to cheer for, but you went anyway because of her. You can’t beat yourself up for letting her go that night, Theo. You have to cherish the times you did have together,” Leah said.

A flood of emotions came over me as she talked, while my frazzled, weak brain tried to comprehend and remember every word. I knew I wouldn’t, from a lack of both sleep and nourishment, but I tried my hardest to do so anyway.

“I just want you guys to know that I’m always here for you. If you ever need anything—”

“We know, Theo. We know,” Paul said, nodding.

“Is she, you know, in there?” I asked, pointing toward the casket.

Paul nodded as Leah cried, and I walked away, leaving my parents to give their condolences. I walked up to the casket, where her sunken, lifeless body lay.

She was dressed in a bright white dress with a lace bottom, and her hands, which were on her stomach, held a small bouquet of wildflowers. Her skin was still tanned, her makeup just like it always was, and her hair was slightly curled and laid out around her.

I stared at her, almost wanting to yell at her to wake up and stop messing around, even though I knew she’d never hear my cries. Strangely enough, my crying subsided as I stood in front of her, as if the shock of seeing her beautiful face was enough to hold my tears back for just a few more minutes. Boy, was she still beautiful.

As I stood there looking at her, knowing that this was the last time I’d ever be near her, I leaned in, not knowing if I was allowed to, but doing it anyway. I kissed her forehead softly and closed my eyes.

Our lives flashed before me in an instant and I saw the two of us as toddlers, growing up together, doing everything from the pumpkin patch to the apple orchard. I remembered birthday parties and even our dance just a few days ago. It all was there, and somehow, it brought me comfort in what was likely the darkest moment of my life. She was always the light that broke up my storm clouds, and this time was no exception.

My lips left her forehead, and I stood up straight again.

“Good-bye, Belle,” I whispered, praying that she’d hear me. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

•••

The sun came out for the funeral, as if Belle was above giving a sign, but the frigid temperatures brought us all down. She had a beautiful resting place atop a hill. The spot had been in her family for a few decades.

There were oak trees nearby, providing shade during the warmer months, and her headstone, which was large and shiny, stood guard at the base of her casket. I didn’t pay too much attention to the service, or at least to what was being said, but instead sat with my own thoughts and my parents on either side of me. I still wanted to be convinced that I was in a dream—a nightmare, really—and that I’d wake up and she and I would go lie underneath the nighttime sky once more like we had so many times before. As I felt the pain of the cold wind against the tip of my nose, though, I knew that I wasn’t in a dream. In a dream I wouldn’t feel pain, but out here, I had to face reality.

Before I knew it, her casket was being lowered into the hole. I heard noses being blown and saw the priest performing a blessing, and knew it was all over. If there was any doubt in my mind about her being gone, it had quickly vanished.

Paul stood to make an announcement. “Thank you all for coming today. It means a lot to Leah and me that you are here with us on this most difficult of days. We’ll be serving food and beverages inside, so if you’d like, please come in and join us as we remember our dearest Annabelle,” he said.

“Do you want to stay?” my mother whispered.

“We should,” I said.

“And you’re sure? I don’t want you to do anything that will make you uncomfortable,” she said.

“The boy said yes,” my father interjected.

“It’s fine,” I said, as I could sense my mother becoming upset. “We’ll stay for a bit.”

With her hand on my back, we walked back inside the church. The meal, served buffet style, was steaming and fresh. I took a small plate and sat down at a table with my parents. I pushed the lasagna around with my fork but only took a few paltry bites.

We didn’t talk much, not even to each other, as I sensed that people were avoiding us like the plague. None of our classmates said a word to me, instead talking to each other as if I didn’t exist. I knew this wasn’t about me, but it would’ve been nice to get one person saying sorry. Oh well.

After half an hour we decided to go home, as I felt the fatigue setting in. I’d already lost a couple of pounds, and my energy wasn’t as high as it normally was. We said our good-byes to Paul and Leah, with each of them hugging me harder than they ever had before, and we got into the car, its windows frosted, and set our course for home.

My only solace now was sleep, those few precious hours when I could escape from my sad reality.

•••

“Theo!” Belle said from across a courtyard café.

“Belle!” I shouted as café dwellers ate scones and sipped tea.

When we finally reached each other, we embraced, and I smelled her rosy perfume and felt her warm body against mine. She looked as beautiful as ever in a navy-blue dress with a white lace belt around her waist. I pulled back, looked at her, and smiled from ear to ear. I couldn’t contain my excitement to see her.

“I’ve been waiting for you all morning,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I was out, but I’m here now. What should we do?” I asked.

“Anything you want, so long as I’m with you,” she replied.

I could see the immense happiness in her eyes, a type of joy I’d never seen before, as the two of us held hands and stood in the center of all the city madness around us.

As we gazed at each other, though, I noticed something, something dreadful, that began to take shape over her. She was deteriorating. Not only her, but all of our surroundings, cracking like porcelain.

I heard my name being called, and I looked all around to see nobody talking. Instead, they were all breaking apart, and as I moved to touch Belle’s face, she shattered.

“Theo!”

I woke up, my eyes breaking open, as I gasped for air and shot upward. My mother was sitting there, her hand on my shoulder, as I looked around my room and started to regain my composure.

“I came in here to check on you and you were making noises,” she said.

“I saw her,” I said as I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

“Who?” she asked.

“Belle. She was in my dreams,” I said.

“I’m sure that’s normal, dear,” she said.

“No, it wasn’t like a dream. It was a dream, but it wasn’t like a normal one. It was almost as if it were really her. Like she was somehow still alive, still talking to me. I could
feel
her, everything about her, from her touch, to her warmth, to everything,” I said.

“I just don’t want you to get too worked up, sweetheart. You’re in a vulnerable spot right now, and you’re bound to think and dream about her,” she said before getting up. “I’m going to make you some breakfast.”

I know what I felt and what I saw, and that wasn’t a dream. I may have been asleep, but that was more real than almost anything I’d experienced before. She was there, talking to me, and I knew that it wasn’t just my mind playing tricks on me. It couldn’t have been. She was there, and she was trying to communicate with me.

I took a few sips of water and put my head back and took a few deep breaths. My mom came back with a bowl of cereal, and I forced myself to eat it, albeit slowly. I had to go back to school today, because the office was saying I could be charged as truant unless I had a doctor’s note that I was sick and needed to be away after all this time. It wasn’t worth the trouble, even though my mother said we could probably get one, and I decided that I’d need to go back eventually. Why push it off more and more until the point where I didn’t recognize any of my schoolwork? I had no intentions of repeating this year.

After my shower, I looked at myself shirtless in the mirror as I wiped the condensation from the fogged-up mirror. I’d lost probably five or ten pounds since Belle’s passing, and it definitely showed. I didn’t even have the weight to lose in the first place, and after I pulled on my pants, I had to tighten my belt to make sure they didn’t slip off my now bony body.

As I got in my mother’s car for the ride to school, I felt a bit nervous about how other people would react to me once I was there. All the deaths, not just Belle’s, were fresh in people’s minds, and Martin told me that people had asked him where I was and how I was doing. I appreciated the concern, I really did, but part of me hoped they’d just forget about me like they used to and that I could fly under the radar.

My teachers had all sent my work home while I’d been out, and some of them even let me skip some of the work that would’ve been too difficult without being there for the lectures. I appreciated it, knowing that the climb back into normalcy wouldn’t be a mountain, but rather a large hill.

“If you need anything, anything at all, please call me,” my mother said as she pulled up in front of the school.

“Thank you. I will,” I said.

I heard whispers as I got out of the car and walked inside the school, as my feet shuffled instead of walking normally because of the lack of energy. I kept my head up, not looking at anyone, as I walked to my locker and put away my things.

“Doing okay?” I heard as I turned around to see Martin standing there.

“Yeah, I guess so. Still feel a bit under the weather, but I think I’ll be okay. The office gave me a pass on gym until I get my strength back,” I said.

“Hey, man, that’s worth its weight in gold. I’d die if I got one of those passes,” he said.

I saw him instantly freeze as he tried to backtrack.

“I didn’t mean to say that. It just slipped,” he said.

“I know you didn’t. It’s okay,” I said.

The warning bell rang and we said good-bye. I walked through the hallways, slowly, before I reached
the
hallway that I was dreading the most. It was the hallway Belle’s locker was in, and I had to travel through it to make it to class. I took a deep breath, knowing that it had to be done, but as I got closer to her locker, I saw something that knocked me down and made it near impossible for me to get back up.

There she was, her face. Tons of pictures of her were taped to her locker. There were notes, flowers, and everything and anything that had to do with her. I felt my knees buckle and I dropped down to one. It was the first time I’d seen her face since the funeral.

“Hey, man, are you okay?” someone asked as they knelt down beside me.

“Theo, do you want me to call the nurse?” another asked.

“I’m fine. I just tripped is all,” I said as I tried to push myself back up.

“Let me help you,” the guy beside me said.

He put his arm around me and helped me to my feet as I tried to hold back the salty tears that I’d shed so much of over the past week.

“Do you need help getting to class?” the guy asked.

“No, I’ll be okay, but thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it,” I said.

“No problem at all,” he said before going off to class.

I walked into my class just after the bell rang, and the other students gave me a solemn look, which read more like pity than anything else. I sat down in my seat, finally taking a load off, before pulling out my things and working on some last-minute homework.

When the class was only about twenty minutes in, I could feel myself beginning to drift off as my hand kept my head up off the desk. My vision started to become blurry, and my last view was of my teacher at her desk before it all went blank.

When I opened my eyes, I could hear laughter in the distance. I didn’t know where it was coming from, or where I even was, but I knew the laughter like I knew the back of my hand. It was her—it was Belle.

“Where are you?” I called out.

I heard the laughter again as I turned around in all directions to try to find her. Nothing. I began to walk through the open field I was standing in as the wind blew and tangled the beds of golden wheat that filled the horizon.

As I stood on top of the hill, looking out over the plains, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to see her standing there.

“Well, hello there, stranger,” she said.

“Belle,” I gasped.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

“I miss you so much,” I said, and I could feel tears springing to my eyes.

“There’s no crying in here,” she said, smiling.

“Where is here?” I asked.

“You mean you don’t know?” she asked, with a tone of confusion in her voice.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t. I don’t even know how I got here,” I said.

“You’re dreaming, Theo,” she said.

“So all of this, the field, the breeze, and most importantly, you, aren’t real?” I asked, with a heavy sense of disappointment.

“I didn’t say that. You might be dreaming, but I’m definitely real,” she said.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“There are a lot of things in this universe that don’t seem possible, but sometimes if we open our minds, the craziest things can become real,” she said.

“So you’re not just a part of my mind? You’re actually you?” I asked.

“I’ll always be a part of your mind, but that doesn’t mean I
am
your mind. I told you we’d be together forever, and I meant it. I may not be in the physical world anymore, but I’m still here, Theo. I’ll always
be
here, just in a different way,” she said.