Status: Complete

Dreams of Someone

Guilty

Samantha Dawson

Tick tock.

The clock ticked on and on; a beautiful sound. The sound of time passing, marking the seconds we live and the breaths we take. It shouldn't be measured, not in numbers, not in length, and not even memories. Life should be timeless, holding in everything that has ever happened - and staying forever beautiful.

But not everything in life is beautiful.

My eyes were glued to the golden hands of the elegant grandfather clock. It was a definite delight in my world, even in its poor condition with its dark, scratched up wood. I had found it in an antique shop, and it was quite pricey. But upon sight of it, I fell in love. I immediately pulled out my checkbook, my fingers finding a pen and writing the numbers and letters - spending my month's savings, in other words.

Yet I didn't care. The whole ordeal felt like a dream; the clerk's warning about its condition, my head shaking back and forth, indicating that I would take it, no matter what.

It was my favorite position - sitting at the bottom of my staircase, my chin resting atop my folded hands, elbows placed lightly on my knees. Just watching the clock brought a feeling of euphoria.

But it couldn't last. Life is not beautiful - yet it wasn't at the other end of the spectrum, either.

The markings of time that I disliked so much passed, and I had to admit that they were necessary. Seconds, minutes, hours. They meant nearly nothing to me. But... Ryan had promised to be here, at my home, at four o'clock. And I knew that I would have to follow the markings of time, as my heart fluttered when he told me there was something important to say.

I watched the clock, mesmerized as no one else could be. They would find this tedious, of no interest. As for me... it was a dream-like place. Of course, this wasn't a daily event - I would never be able to fit in my other activities - but it was something I enjoyed most.

A soft knock on the door woke me from my trance. It brought a smile to my lips, the fact that Ryan knew me so well. He knew that I didn't like loud noises - at least, not in my home, anyways.

I unlocked the door and let him in. There he was, standing in my doorway. He looked the same as ever - chestnut brown hair and cold gray eyes. A sharp, squared-off jaw. He was tall, taller than most people I knew. He was an intimidating type of person... but when I saw him, I felt the warmth that his gray eyes lacked.

"Sam," he said, his voice low. "I came to tell you... I'm ready." His eyes warmed up, warmer than I'd ever seen them before. A smile crept up onto my face, mirroring his.

"You are?" I looked up, straight into his eyes. My lack of stature didn’t help with his great height. "That's... that's great!"

"I knew you would be happy. So... what have you been doing today?" he asked. My eyes drifted slowly over to the tall clock, almost as if betraying me. He laughed his throaty chuckle that I loved so much. "That again, Sam? Isn't it... well, boring?"

"Not to me," I mumbled. That was one thing he never understood about me. There was only one person that ever did, anyways...

"So, well," Ryan said. "I have to go soon, to work, but I just wanted to tell you in person... yeah, I'm ready to move in."

"I'm glad you told me in person," I said. "I always find things better that way."

"I know," he replies. Once again, it brought me the rush of affection for him when I heard those words. He truly knew me in and out... like a best friend should. "I gotta get going now. And remember... I love you."

I couldn’t help but grin at those words. To know that someone truly loved me, and wanted me. “I love you too,” I said, my words honest and sincere.

“So you can go back to your staring at the clock,” he said. “Bye, Sam.” He pulled me in for a quick kiss and a warm hug. He held me in his arms for longer than usual, and as my heart raced, so did my thoughts.

Time. It would always mean so much to me. The markers of it. I would never like them. Especially certain ones like years passing, and certain days happening again. Days happen every year, and sometimes, I don’t want to relive them.

Feelings. I felt love, in that moment. Real love, a mixture of those in the movies and stories told by families. But something was hiding underneath the warm, passionate feeling. Something that was eating away at me for over all these years.

Something called guilt.

---

He looked helpless. Completely lost and alone. Jason Lane stood there, his large hazel eyes wide with something close to fear, his full lips slightly parted, but there was nothing left to say.

It broke my heart.

Truly, it did. But I willed myself to keep running, putting all those years of track to use. I got into my car and slammed the door, started it as quickly as I could until I remembered the basket in my hand. I threw it into the backseat, not wanting to lose it but keeping it out of sight as the tears started to flow. I started driving, taking the long route home and putting reality on hold for as long as possible. I began to drown in my thoughts.

I couldn’t get the image of Jason out of my head. I knew that it would haunt me forever, I knew that it was my fault, and I knew that I could never tell him why. To put it simply… I was scared. But that wasn’t a strong enough word.

I was terrified.

Marriage never was a good topic for me. All little girls grew up wanting to be blushing brides one day. They wanted to wear those puffy white dresses and walk down the aisle, a bouquet of blooming flowers in their grasp.

The way my family had been, it was my worst nightmare. I watched marriages fall apart – my aunt’s, my older cousin’s, and worst of all, my parents’.

During that time, I was only about nine years old. I knew that my aunt had divorced her husband a few years before, but that was when I was very young, too young to even think about why you would want to leave someone that dear to you. It didn’t have much of an effect on me at the time.

But then the yelling started. Horrible screaming, shrieking, profanity. My parents would fight. Over money, over jobs, and even over me and my older brother. I realized that it could have been worse. They could have gotten violent, but they stopped at the arguments and filed for divorce. But the whole thing still gave me a terrible view on marriage. It didn’t so much affect my brother, who was eighteen at the time. But from then, I cringed away from the cursed white dress.

When I was fifteen, my cousin also got a divorce. I was living with my mother, my father a distant figure in my life. She visited one day, a year after the divorce, telling me that marriage was her worst mistake. At the time, she had a new boyfriend. And she was in love once again.

She told me that dating was romantic, and marriage was not. That when you exchanged vows, it just didn’t feel the same anymore. Sadly, my mother agreed with all these points. I completely believed them. How could I not when the evidence was right in front of me?

The look of happiness on Jason’s face… he thought I would say yes. But then I ruined it. My fault. It got me thinking, though. How much of my decision was made up of my family’s brainwashing, and how much of it was made up by me?

---

I decided that two years was enough. That I would have to face my fears one day… and that day would be today. I walked up the stairs and into my bedroom, pulling out my laptop from under the bed and setting it on the desk.

I booted it up and logged onto my Facebook account, and my fingers trembled as I slowly typed in the letters that made up Jason’s name. I drummed my fingers against the desk in a rhythmic pattern as I waited for the page to load.

I felt a pang when his face appeared on my screen. After two years since the incident, he was still the same. Still boyishly handsome, still the same, loving eyes. I had deleted him off of my friends list, not facing him the way I should have.

I clicked the link to his profile, but it was private. I wasn’t ready to add him as a friend, to even send him a message. The only piece of information I could get was his status message, updated an hour ago.

At the park.

---

I didn’t know what I was doing.

Some unseen force had driven me to my car. I unconsciously started it and drove to the park. At least… I knew why. Things are better in person, anyways.

Something made my heart jolt. Like it did, two years ago. Did I want to see him? No. But did I not want to see him? No. So which was it?

I decided that either way, I had to face my fear one day or another. And maybe today would finally be the day. I got out of my car and searched the park through the water droplets, scanning each and every corner for that head of blond hair I still knew so well.

I found it. He was sitting on a bench, alone in the rain. It was a stroke of luck that he was still here, and that he was alone. But things are just meant to happen, I supposed. And that meant that I had to do this.

I slowly approached, my palms starting to sweat. I realized that I was still dressed in my comfort clothes – sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. Surely, I could have looked better for this moment?

I put that aside and quickened my pace. Jason was looking down at his phone, texting someone. I got about three feet away from him and cleared my throat to get his attention.

He looked up, a smile on his face. I felt a sharp stabbing in my heart. Smiling while texting… A sure sign of at least a crush.

I saw confusion in his eyes – had he forgotten who I was? But this proved to be wrong when his voice said my name.

“…Sam?” It’s just as I remembered it. And it reminds me of all I had left behind.

“Jason,” I said, not knowing how else to answer.

“I…” A silence filled the space between us. A silence full of sorrow and our broken hearts. Mine, at least.

“Uh…” There was nothing for me to say, yet there was everything to say. I just didn’t know what it was yet. But words flowed from my lips, words that I had held inside me all this time. “'If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.’”

“Sam?” he said, getting up from the bench to face me. His hazel eyes held the same look of almost-fear they had two years ago, on this day. That was another reason I never liked the time markers. It made certain days special, and certain days unbearable. “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

The tears flooded my eyes, they were uncontrollable and mixed with the rain. But the words came from my lips, and I was back in that dream again. I had dreamed of this moment at least once every month…

“Jason, I’m back.”
♠ ♠ ♠
This is my favorite thing I've written in a long time. So I'd love comments or any type of feedback :)