Stranded Memories

"You're not real."

Her words felt empty, more of an impression of emotion than a solid composition. They were just one sign she was dreaming, but it was more than enough. It would've been impossible for her to be awake and have him standing in front of her.

Across from her William stood, looking more real here than in all her memories combined. That was all he was though and she knew it. William was merely the product of her over imagination, pieced together out of the painfully short time they had spent together.

"You're not real." She repeated.

A shadow of a smile fell across his lips, bittersweet.

He looked so alive she could've believed it, wanted to believe he was real. The flush of his cheeks. even the steady rise and fall of his chest fueled by a lying heart. William was dead and she was dreaming.

"You're right, you are dreaming." He murmured softly. "But I'm only as real as you make me."

William was sincere with his words, a deeper meaning their backdrop. There was more to what he said, and it was written in his eyes.

She wouldn't believe him. There had to been no pain worse than losing William. Before these dreams there had been nightmares. Terrors so vivd of fire, burning metal blinding bright, smoke choking her lungs and eyes so strongly she woke with screams, her watering eyes replaced with tears. Why would she unneccessarily recreate the object of her pain?

"To cope with my death." William replied simply.

In her mind her own thoughts weren't safe and with William there he still managed to bother her like he had in life.

"Sorry." He murmured, sheepishly smiling. "I'll try not to."

She looked at him more pointedly than before, speaking before he could hear it in her thoughts.

"That's clearly proof I didn't create this. If I had I would've left out the annoying parts." She observed, eyebrow raised.

A full blown grin broke across his face, her heart both leaping and falling in pain with the contrasting effects such a familiar expression had on her.

"But that's what you loved about me!" He exclaimed just as easily as he would've with his arm thrown around her shoulder on her couch.

His relaxed enthusiasm gave her the opposite effect it would've if they'd been there on the couch, instead twisting her insides violently with recognized, all too familiar, pain. This feeling didn't go unnoticed by William, whose eyes softened as if he understood an ounce of her current despair.

"Can you please not use past tenses?" She muttered.

His sigh resounded around her, something she couldn't ignore like everything else, his absence from her life creating a greater need for any piece of him she was exposed to. Like an addict to the source.

"You're going to have to accept I'm dead." William said softly, his words filled with a hard edge of finality.

With his words came the memories, evidence that the past three months hadn't been a dream. Stressing over finals, crying, laughing in the face of a freedom called summer, crying, applying a hasty coat of lip gloss despite the impatient horn below, crying, loud music, screeching, grating, twisted metal on metal, crying, pacing down white halls, crying, crying, crying, like the sky as they lowered the shiny coffin down into the earth.

"It's kind of hard to deny when it's an open casket." She muttered, no longer wanting to look up into the perfect replica of his face.

His voice became like sharp daggers to her, mentally, physically, emotionally, and she withdrew. If her mind had created this she could undo it too, she would if it took the last of her energy. It was hard enough living day to day knowing there would be no phone calls, no knock at the door, no William to greet her or steal her food, none of the things that had cemented themselves into her life. All she was left with now were jagged holes, empty memories of what used to be.

Violet willed herself to consciousness, wanting to escape this world she'd supposedly created. In the conscious world the truth was hard and inevitable, but it was better than her mind toying with the taboo thoughts of what wasn't real.

Violet willed herself to consciousness, hoping that when her eyes closed again William wouldn't be there.