In the thin line between waking up and staying asleep, I stare blankly at the ceiling of my virtually empty room while steadily breathing in and out to calm my racing heartbeat.
1,
2,
3...
I regret pushing the snooze button and pulling up the sheets over my head because after then did he enter my dreams. He is roughly the same age as I am, almost nineteen, and my too-detailed dream had covered his entirety: his slightly-freckled nose and russet hair that highlight his flinty green eyes, his nimble movements that doesn't match his impressive built and his unmistakable sincerity.
Up until now I'm trying to convince myself that everything was just part of a dream, that the awkward conversations and the more awkward silence, the utmost desire to stop time (or at least slow it down) and the fantasy of holding his hand and never letting it go were all just part of my subconscious that decided to go haywire. I loved it though, when he was by my side just like in the old days, and that I could easily close the distance between us if I extend a couple of fingers. Then a pang of pain hit me when I realized I didn't do it when I was awake, when I had the chance, when he wanted me to.
Curious, dreams are. Oftentimes they don't follow a plot you learn in Literature class; they just smack you right in the middle of the climax or sometime at the denouement, with no idea on how you got there. In this dream he went to my school to watch his friend's band perform, I think, and we were already on our way out. We stayed a few paces behind his friends, just like how we did it before.
"So, how's your stay here?" he asked.
"Fine, I guess."
We both fell silent, our anchored pace trying to keep up with the other.
"Nothing's wrong but nothing's right either," I suddenly blurted out.
He just smiled and my heart sighed, swelled and broke.
His friends were waiting for him in their service van when we got outside. After a polite goodbye he climbed up in and closed the door. I was holding the door handle until the vehicle moved and I had to let it go, only to find myself chasing them - no, him - down when they turned on the corner.
Everything felt more real then. And then I start counting slowly.
Breathe in, breathe out.
1,
2,
3...
________________________________________
Thin Line by KASH
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