Chasing Imagination

Casper

As I slammed the door to my room that was, thankfully, unoccupied for the moment, I was fuming with anger, but I was unsure whether it was more for Amy or for myself.

Now that I had overcome the shock of seeing her in his room, I began to feel regret boiling within me. Matt was her friend. He was, actually, my friend too. So why was I being such an arse?

Sometimes, though, anger and sadness wasn’t rational. It was just because I was so used to every girl I knew falling over Matt and barely even noticing me, that I couldn’t deny it hurt me to see her laughing and giggling, alone with him in his bedroom. It just wasn’t right. After everything that I had felt like some sort of electrical current sizzling between us, as recently as this morning, it had just fallen down before me.

I collapsed backwards melodramatically onto my bed, my head hitting the pillow with unnecessary force. From here, I merely stared up at the blank, grey-ish ceiling, boiling with rage, sadness, love, hate and God knows how many more emotions.

After five minutes, my anger at Amy was beginning to wane, allowing the fury at myself to become more prominent. After ten minutes, I was able to clearly see that there was no reason for me to be angry at Amy whatsoever. She said that she and Matt were friends, but nothing more. She said she liked me and, whilst I didn’t know which kind of ‘like’ she meant, I had to take her word for it and trust her.

Trust was, after all, all we had these days. There were so few people in this world that we could still trust that we had to make the most of the ones who were still beside us. And I believed that Amy was beside me. We were in this together now, whether she liked it or not. I, however, happened to quite like it, but I still felt guilty at bringing her down here in the first place, so it was probably best not to mention this little extra fact.

And if Nightshade was correct, which she so uncannily often was, then we were going to be at war all too soon. I had no idea what kind of war that would be, or what it would consist of, or whether it would even reach us in a significant way. But there was going to be a war. She said so, and I had to believe her. After all, Nightshade was, indeed, another of the few who I could trust.

And war was not the right time for petty, envious arguments between two young men about girls and leadership and crap, was it?

I wasn’t going to ‘make up’ with Matt, because I’d never fallen out with him in the first place. And I still didn’t like him much. But we could get along well enough when we were around other people. This stupid raid on the Marauder base was causing all the conflict! If only I had been put in charge of that, and Matt in charge of the pathetic semi-organised resistance.
If only...

‘If only’ wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

God, for a Dreamer, I really wasn’t so good at dreaming.

But the one thing I knew now, in my new, improved mood, was that I had to find Amy and apologise.

Amy

I was exploding with equal amounts of fury and sadness by the time I reached my door. Just as I went to push it open, however, it was pulled from the other side and Linzy stepped forward, almost colliding with me.

‘Amy!’ she said, shocked at our almost-crash. ‘Sorry! I’m just—hey, you alright?’

As usual, Linzy’s train of thought was capricious and hard to keep up with, but I managed to grasp what she was saying. Wow, I must look even worse than I thought.

‘I’m fine,’ I mumbled, sliding past her and into the comforting privacy of the bedroom. I sank down onto my bed—still plain, and undecorated with pictures and posters and ornaments and graffiti. It was weird; even after everything that had made me feel like I belonged down here, this room always reminded me that I was still an outsider in my mind; never quite one of Them. I could never do what They did.

‘Are you sure?’ Linzy perched down beside me, putting an arm around my shoulder. Right from when we first met, I’d always thought of her as a nice person, but more in a cheerful, chatty way; a way that you could talk and laugh and share jokes. I’d never thought of her as a particularly emotional person. I tended to bottle up my feelings, and that was why, every once in a while, I ended up a wreck like this, but if I had any concerns, then I would generally confide in Casper.

Fat chance that that was going to happen again.

Now though, I was seeing a different side to Linzy.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked softly.

‘It’s Casper,’ I mumbled, unwilling to tell her anything. But, at the end of the day, what was the use in staying silent? She would find out one way or another, whether it was from me, or Casper, or someone else who had picked up on the signals.

‘What happened, hun?’ Linzy persisted gently.

‘There was...I think it was a misunderstanding,’ I said, my voice cracking on the last word as my eyes pricked with the tears that I was forcing myself not to show. ‘I don’t know! I don’t even know what I did wrong!’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly, ‘it’ll pass. I’ve seen that Casper’s been in a mood recently. But he’ll get over it. You just wait until this evening or tomorrow morning. Things will be back to normal by then.’

‘I hope so,’ I agreed feebly, but then I began to think. Casper could be an idiot when he wanted to be. Did I really want to spend time with him? Why should he be allowed to treat me like that, when I blatantly hadn’t done anything wrong, and then expect me to come, grovelling to him, asking for mercy?

He shouldn’t. I shouldn’t put up with it.

‘I’ll get over it,’ I said, suddenly eager for Linzy to leave. I liked her, but I wanted some time alone all the same.

Thankfully, she was perceptive enough to pick this up. She got to her feet and smiled at me.
‘Well, if you need to talk, I’m always here. But I gotta go now. Oh, and of course there’s the wall.’ She gestured over to the incredible graffiti wall that spanned the entire far side of the room. ‘If you wanna let of some steam, then that’s your canvas.’

I smiled at her as she went to leave, still torn between sadness and anger. ‘Thanks.’

She was barely out of the door before I collapsed back onto the bed, tears stinging my eyes.
How could Casper treat me like this? I was talking to Matt! Was he really so messed up and jealous that he couldn’t even accept that?

Because, if the answer was yes, then why was I still with him?

Why was I still even down here?

The question wound its way into my mind before I was even able to comprehend the enormity of what I’d just asked. Lying here on the neutral coloured quilt, beside my blank wall, I had never felt more out of place. Just a few feet across the room was Linzy’s Wall—complex, thoughtful, imaginative, incredible. And if that wasn’t enough, there were all her posters, and cushions, and colourful clothes, and books, and poems.

And then there was me. Me, still with a blank bed and a blank wall, devoid of imagination.
I couldn’t leave...of course I couldn’t. If I did, the Dreamers would hunt me down and do something terrible to me. It wouldn’t take long. They were experts at that kind of thing, and I was not.

So, was that the only reason I was staying down here? Because I was scared to leave?

This was even worse than I had imagined.

Imagined.

No. Fear was not the only reason I was down here. In fact, fear was only a small part. Because imagination was the main reason. I wanted to experience imagination; something I had never been allowed to do before. But down here, though we may be confined to the dingy tunnels of the London underground, this was the one place in the world, or at least in England, where we were free.

And I could never leave that behind now.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Yuh?’ I called out dully. I assumed it was Linzy; forgotten something perhaps.

I didn’t expect for one moment that it would be Casper.

His head peered round the door, a rabbit caught in headlights. He looked terrified, which immediately made me feel guilty.

Why should I feel guilty? He was the one who got angry with me.

‘Amy?’ he said, his voice low.

‘Come in,’ I mumbled, not even bothering to get up. I was still mad. I had to hold my ground this time, otherwise he’d think he was able to do this sort of thing again.

He shuffled in, pushing the door shut behind him, leaving us in this shadowy, windowless room. The light on the ceiling shone perpetually, and he moved into the centre of the room, so that its rays lit up his jet black hair, highlighting it in gold.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said quietly.

Well, it didn’t take a genius to work that one out, did it?

‘Right,’ I muttered. I decided to rein in the sarcastic comments. I wasn’t intending on making things any worse than they were.

He looked down at his hands, unsure how to proceed. I sat up a little further. I knew what I was hoping for him to say; what I didn’t know was whether I was going to accept it.

‘Amy, I’m sorry,’ he whispered. Good. He should be.

That was only one side of me talking.

The other side of me was screaming. I wanted nothing more than to hold him and cry and tell him that it was alright.

But I held onto the dark side. Because if I held my ground this time, maybe this sort of thing wouldn’t happen again. I wasn’t the sweet, weak little blonde girl that everyone thought I was. Not anymore. She was long gone.

I looked up at him, my eyes iron.

‘I was a complete arse earlier,’ he continued, perching on the end of my bed uninvited. I didn’t tell him to get off. Well, I didn’t tell him anything. ‘And I regretted it as soon as I said it. It was just shock, that’s all. And jealousy. But I promise I’ll get over that if you forgive me.’
His icy eyes melted into deep oceans as they rested on mine.

‘Please?’

I crumbled.

Not saying anything, I shuffled closer, wrapping my arm around his, suddenly fighting back tears. Wow, I never knew life could be this intricate and complex. But I didn’t know much about life until recently.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered. ‘And I forgive you.’

His hand found mine, and held it close to his chest.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

And so we just sat there, in beautiful, peaceful silence. I rested my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes and hearing nothing but his gentle, rhythmic breathing. His fingers danced as they traced lines across the palm of my hand.