In My Dreams It's Me And You

“She’s a dwelling place for demons…” I sung as I played along to the loud music blaring in my ears, my hands completely taken over as I played through the notes I had been learning over the last few days. I didn’t even look up when my roommate, Chloe, appeared in the doorway to my room, her cheeks a bit red from screaming up the stairs.

“NAT! I’LL SEE YOU LATER!” Chloe yelled, a thing she had got used to doing since I had a habit of playing my guitar and singing along to songs. It was nice for me to lose myself in the music but to anyone else it must be quite annoying, especially when they have to yell at me a lot to get my attention. Thankfully I found someone to live with who didn’t seem to mind.

I tore the headphones off my ears and shifted the guitar from my lap onto the bed to run off after her as she disappeared, not really caring for the strange stares I got from passers-by as I tackled her on our doorstep. Sure I was only wearing a black lace camisole and a pair of violet underwear, but I wasn’t one to care. After all it wasn’t like people hadn’t seen me worse- especially not after a night’s drinking.

“Get off me, Nat!” She screamed as I swung happily around her neck, soon using her own to try to shove me on the floor.

“Chlooooeee! I thought you were going to wait for me?” I whined, resting my head on her shoulder so I could stare up at her with my big, blue eyes. Usually if I done this it would stop her from being angry with me, and luckily I could tell from the small smile that it was working yet again.

“I was waiting for you!” Chloe stated as she unhooked my arms from around her, turning her back on me as she tried in vain to feign anger. “But as always you were playing on that darn guitar of yours!”

I did feel slightly guilty at that point as I sneaked a look at the small clock we had on the shelf, the numbers 2:30 staring back at me accusingly. We were supposed to have left for the mall over an hour ago.

I playfully tugged on her arm to make her look at me and adopted the ‘puppy eyes’, murmuring my words in the sweetest voice I could. “Could you not wait just a little while longer? I’ll be ready in two minutes, I promise!”

“I wonder why I even bother with you sometimes,” she sighed as she walked back to the living room, falling back onto the couch and reaching for the remote. As soon as I heard Umbrella - Rihanna blaring out of the speakers I quickly shut the door and ran back upstairs to my room, kicking my bedroom door closed and rummaging through my closet for something to wear. I ended up just pulling a thick Avenged Sevenfold hoodie over my head and my favourite denim jeans that had rips over the knee and leg. After a bit of purple eye shadow, black eyeliner and some hair straightening I was ready to go, pulling on some purple converses that were laying in the hallway as I peeked in on Chloe.

“I’m ready now,” I sung as she got up with a sigh, the TV already off and her keys already spinning on her finger as she breezed past me out the door, already settled into the silver convertible on the driveway. I jumped over the door into the passenger side just as she started up the engine, a grin already forming as she shouted her next words over the radio.

“IT’S SHOPPING TIME!”

---

“It looks great.”

“Are you sure? It doesn’t make me look-“

“No, it’s fine Clo!” I repeated for what must have been the hundredth time as she spun around in front of the mirror, her hands smoothing down the black mini dress that just managed to cover her. I was kind of envious of her as she posed in the outfit, her body seeming to have curves in all the right places to basically rock any clothes she had shoved on her. She was one of those people who could go out in a bin liner and still look better than anyone else.

After ten more minutes of her unneeded concerns she finally decided to buy it, but not after she had found at least seven more outfits in the shop to try on first.

“I’m just gonna go to the music store, see if they have my custom in yet,” I said through the dressing up curtain, dumping all the clothes I had been looking after on the side before walking out of the shop. It wasn’t like I hated going shopping; it was more of a case of shopping with her. I loved her with all my heart, but after explaining to her for an hour that a plain black shirt does not make her look fat you get a bit bored.

“Back again, Nat?” A cheery male voice said from behind the counter, reaching over and giving me a hug as I walked over. “I’m guessing this is about your custom?”

“You must be able to read my mind, Luke,” I replied as I returned the hug, my eyes narrowing as I saw his sneaky smile. A smile he always used to wear whenever he was hiding something. “What?”

“Oh nothing,” he said slyly, his hand running through the mix of black and red spikes decorating his head. He was wearing the Guns N Roses shirt I had gotten him last Christmas, something I’m pretty sure he hasn’t taken off since unless he absolutely had to. “Just that I heard Jason going on about something coming in today…”

“Was it my guitar?” I almost screamed at him as I began to bounce on my feet, the smile on my face growing larger with each passing second.

“Might have been.”

“Was it?”

“I don’t know… Want me to ask?” Luke replied, being completely and intentionally annoying.

“Luke!” I whined, ready to jump over the counter and attack him if he didn’t say. He must have known I was near breaking point as he walked into the back for a few minutes and emerged with a guitar carrying case that could only contain one thing.

“Here it is, Nat. Your faithful Silver Sunset.”

He opened the guitar case and revealed the newest addition to my guitar family, grinning after me as I couldn’t stop myself from pulling the strap over my head and beginning to play the tune from earlier.

“Beast and the Harlot? Finally nailed it I see,” Luke commented as he watched me play for a little bit before putting the guitar back, my hand tracing over the silver and violet splatter pattern that adorned the body. I had even had the strings coloured silver to match the name I had decided upon for it, and after a long wait I couldn’t believe I finally had it.

“Finally… My own guitar…” I murmured as I couldn’t resist tracing the strings with my fingers, tearing them away only so Luke could do the case back up.

“You have like seven others Nat,” Luke pointed out as he passed the case to me, watching my grin grow as I patted it fondly with my free hand.

“Nah, this is my own. Just for me,” I replied simply as I began to walk out the door, pausing just to say thanks before running- or at least what could be called running with a bulky guitar trying to trip you at each step- back to the shop which Chloe was just emerging from, her arms filled with various bags containing all the goodies she had just bought.

Not that any of that lot could compare to what I had just got.

“Hey, I wondered where you went-“She cut herself off as she noticed the huge grin on my face, her eyes soon locking on to the object I was holding. “Your custom finally came?”

I could only nod frantically in reply as she draped one of her arms around my shoulder after shifting all of the bags onto the other, the clicking sounds of what I guessed were a pair of freshly bought heels reminding me that it wasn’t just a dream of me getting it. It had happened.

Before I knew it we had reached the outside of the mall and had stopped so that Chloe could dump her miniature mountain of shopping on the floor, drawing out the keys that she had put in her pocket.

“I’ll bring the car around, I’m too lazy to drag those bags over there,” I offered as I took the keys from her, placing the guitar case gently on the pavement next to her bags. As soon as I left I heard various wolf-whistles point in her direction, obvious from the mini skirt that she had decided to go out in. Midway through crossing the road I turned back to shout something back at her in light of the wolf whistles when I saw the horrified expression on her face, and the big black car racing towards me.

The driver of the car seemed as shocked as Chloe was as I just stood there, the numbed feeling already beginning to take over as I vaguely heard my name being screamed from the sidewalk. Despite all of this, all I could do was think of one thing.

This was going to hurt.