Eternity

Even in unconsciousness, I could feel my head spinning. I suppose I knew now what happened if I didn’t get away from the overwhelming sort of emotion that I dreaded with my entire being.

Pictures and scenes of Gerard and I, my sister and Mikey, as well as my would-be family danced gracefully through my mind, playing themselves out as a movie within my mind.

The images I saw, however, seemed to be from years ago, very possibly the late 1890’s, early 1900’s. There were horse drawn carts instead of cars and trucks, dirt roads instead of the thick, hot pavement of present day. Eva and I wore those headdresses that were made of nothing but a thin white cloth—the kind of thing that you might see in old western movies and history books.

Gerard and I rode in one of the carts together, my head rested on his shoulder. He was gazing at me lovingly, while I stared into the empty space of the thick air before me. We looked like a typical couple from the older days—at least in a sense. He wore a military uniform, American, obviously, while I wore an old, midwife-type dress. My hair was red instead of black, and my lips were fuller, while my eyes remained the same fluorescent
shade of violet.

Somehow, it was obvious in the strangest way that the girl I was seeing in this historic film was me. Gerard still looked like he did now, other than the fact that his skin was slightly darker; he was human. The cart we rode in traveled along a vacated dirt road, which seemed to be placed in the middle of nowhere.

The scene in my mind flickered and faded, dissolving as another one materialized before me in its place. This one appeared to take place closer to the present day than the image of the distant past I’d seen moments ago. Still, it was Gerard and I. This time, my hair was a silken, milk-chocolate brown, and my skin was tanned; I looked almost Italian, while Gerard, who sat next to me still, had deep, brown hair that was the color of dark chocolate, and skin that was just slightly tanned—he was human.

The image almost appeared to be straight out of 1920’s. I wore a baby blue sleeveless silk dress with a train that held extravagant layering, though it wasn’t as bulky as the previous one had been. Along with that were black nylons and black Mary Janes. A headband that matched my dress fixed most of my hair back, so that only my bangs hung over my forehead.

Gerard wore a black trench coat that looked similar to the one that he had now, with black dress shoes and yet another black suit. His hair was slicked back, virtually glued to his head, which rested in my lap. We were just teenagers.

As this scene played, I stared into Gerard’s eyes with such passion; just the same way he stared back into mine. Everything about our bodies was different, but our eyes remained the same. After a moment, he rose up from my lap and kissed me with an unimaginable amount of compassion and warmth.

Just as I was about to respond, raising my hands to weave them through the strands of his hair, the mini-movie blurred and skipped, and then faded completely.

My mind was dark again for a moment more, and then my eyes fluttered open to reality. I was no longer at the Border’s, lying on the ground, but in my own dimly lit bedroom, with Eva, Mikey, and Gerard surrounding.

They didn’t notice my stirring at first, until a soft whimper escaped my lips whilst my head began to pound again.

All three of their heads whipped around, gazing at me in such a way that I felt like the most important girl in the world.

“Ebony…” Gerard murmured, reaching forward and brushing my bangs from my eyes.

“Thank God you’re alright!” Eva cried, scooting closer to me and wrapping her arms around my torso. She had been sitting beside me on my bed.

I smiled faintly, and glanced up at Mikey, who still remained silent. He simply nodded to me, smiling kindly.

“I’ll get you a drink of water and something to eat, okay?” Eva said, and stood, hastily walking to the kitchen. I heard cupboards opening and closing, pots and pans clanging around.

“What happened, Eb?” Mikey mused, a puzzled expression flitting through his forest green eyes. “When I walked back into the café, you stood, and you were stumbling around like crazy. Then… then you just fell down.”

I sighed, letting my eyes close again. “It was that woman. The one with gray eyes, her emotions…” I paused, taking a breath, “…they slammed me. It felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t get away from it. The room was spinning, and I was nauseous, and my head was pounding… like it is now.”

“Oh…” he said softly, laying a hand over my forehead. “You do feel a little clammy.”

I nodded and opened my eyes again, peering up at Mikey. “I’ll go get you some Tylenol, ok?” he smiled, and walked back toward the kitchen.

“I’m glad you’re alright, Ebony… You really had me scared there, for a while.” Gerard said softly, a relieved smile still playing at his lips.

“Me, scare you]? No…” I smiled gently, teasingly.

He chuckled. “You know what I mean, silly girl.” I giggled lightly.

“Yeah… Yeah, I do.” I said, smiling. Even though it felt like there was someone beating at the inside of my skull with a thousand hammers, and I could still feel the nausea churning through every part of my body, I was glad that it was happening here, and not in the middle of town.

He stood from the chair he’d set next to my bed, and took Eva’s place, sitting down next to me on the bed and winding his arms around me. Just like I’d expected it to, the pain in my skull dimmed—not completely, but enough that it was slightly more manageable—and the nausea faded off entirely.

I smiled and shook my head, chuckling in disbelief and leaning against him.

“What?” he smirked, gazing into my eyes lightheartedly as I had his a moment ago.

I sighed contently, staring back into his beautiful golden rounds. “You don’t realize it, do you?” I smiled, feeling slightly more confident.

“Realize what, exactly?” he smiled, narrowing his eyes the slightest bit.

“That you make it all go away.” I mused and closed my eyes, cuddling into his chest and closing my eyes.

My heart thumped excitedly in my chest; I hadn’t really thought about telling him about the fact that he was the only person who could relax my senses completely and silence the thoughts and emotions in my mind.

He tilted his head to the side, still not understanding. I sighed.

“Everything…” I mused.

He shrugged slightly, smiling. “I just hope that’s a good thing.”

I nodded, grinning. “Of course it is.”

Before he could speak again, Mikey came back with a glass of water and two Tylenol. I smiled up at him and pulled myself from Gerard’s embrace long enough to gulp down the medicine and the water, and then curled right back up to him.

He beamed, winding his stony arms around me once more.

“How long was I out?” I suddenly wondered aloud, startling them both. Things had become so quiet in the past few minutes.

“Well…” Mikey began, turning to look at the clock. “…only about an hour… and it’s nearly 8:00 now.”

I smiled. “Mmm.”

“You could probably sleep, if you wanted to.” Gerard whispered, laying his cheek on the top of my head.

“Well… I am a little tired.” I admitted, burying my face in the crook of his neck.

With that, I felt his heart beating, and it was very nearly perfectly in time with mine. I wondered if he felt it too.

“Then sleep, dear.” he whispered again. When I pulled back to look at him, he was smiling, and his eyes were closed. He looked gorgeous as ever.

I took notice of the fact that Mikey had left the room, and it was completely silent, besides the beating of our hearts and our soft, shallow breathing.

“Okay…” I agreed, I scooted down, so that my head rested on his chest, and curled closer to him still.

If the moment could’ve been any more perfect, it might’ve looked like something that was taken from a fairytale.

I couldn’t believe it; just a few days ago, I’d had to indulge myself in books, other peoples’ fantasies to make my life feel even semi-normal, and now, here I was, living my own personal dream. I had my prince charming, even if we weren’t technically prince and princess yet. It was enough for me to have him here in the first place.

As we lay together in my comfy, warm bed, he began singing softly. I didn’t recognize the song right away, but his voice was achingly beautiful. Immediately, I felt as though I should’ve known that already—what about him wasn’t achingly beautiful?

“I'm holding onto white balloons, up against a sky of doom. Tell me you see them; cause
what's inside of me is invisible to most, even in clear view. I'm sending out a signal to the possibility of you, cause right at this moment, I know you're connected to a part of me that I don't even know myself…” he sang the soft melody, all the while petting my hair.

I wanted to stay awake now, just so I could listen to his voice a while longer, but as he transitioned into what seemed to be the chorus, my eyes drooped, and I couldn’t hold them open any longer.

“Angels lift me, are you with me? I'm holding onto you like I'm holding onto white balloons…” he sang, and that was the last line I heard before I was out cold again.

After a few moments, the same pictures flashed through my mind again: The ones that looked like they were from movies, perhaps musicals. I’d forgotten about them, just as soon as I’d woken up; I was just now noticing how bizarre they really were.

Gerard and I were there, in the same clothes in both of the scenes, and this time, I could see Eva much more clearly. She looked like a southern belle princess in the first scene, as she strolled by the cart that Gerard and I rode in. Her hair was a beautiful platinum blonde ocean, hanging in tight ringlets around her face.

In the second, the one could have been cut out of a silent movie if it had appeared black and white to me, Eva wore a purple lace dress that was far more extravagant than my own.
The layers were bulkier, and tiered out from her waist.

In this time and image, her hair was a flowing display of fiery red, pulled to the back of her head and hung in a ponytail, the strands falling in gentle waves.

Like my own, in each film, her eyes were that same radiant violet color.

Another, different scene had been about to be acted out before me, but I was shaken out of sleep by the sound of my bedroom door shutting. I recognized the footsteps making their way down the hall as Eva’s; they were too soft and small to have been Gerard or Mikey.

I smiled at my sister’s protectiveness, but then immediately after took notice of the fact that the figure I’d formed myself to before I’d fallen asleep was gone. I sighed and sat up, wanting him back, wanting to bury my face in his shirt and take in his scent once again.

My stomach screamed at me, and I remembered that Eva had been about to make me something to eat, before Gerard had lulled me into sleep.
I looked at the clock, which told me that it was 11:00 p.m.

As I stood and stretched, my head began to ache again. Of course it would, now that he was gone. Tylenol had never much worked for me anyhow.

I trudged toward the door, rubbing my head, but as I was about to open the door, I heard faint voices coming from the other side.

“Gerard, I think you’re driving that poor girl insane.” I heard Mikey say matter-of-factly. Once again, I wasn’t sure whether or not to think he’d meant it in the way that was actually happening.

There was an audible sigh from Gerard. He didn’t say anything in reply.

“She feels like she’s known you from the day she was born, and she can’t figure out why.
She can’t understand most of what you’re telling her. That much I can see on her face. And the dreams she’s having are only making the situation worse. She knows; she just doesn’t realize that she knows yet.” he stated.

I furrowed my brow. What could I possibly already know that held the answers I yearned for so much? And how did he know my dreams? Perhaps that was his ability: Seeing peoples’ dreams.

“Are the dreams..?” I heard Gerard mutter meekly; he sounded almost afraid.

“No. Not yet.” Mikey said. “She only sees the good things.”

Good things… Did that mean that here were bad things too? Would I dream of those later? The next image I’d begun to see before waking up could’ve been exactly that:
The nightmarish portion.

“Good… Maybe…” Gerard spoke, nearly whispering. I tapped into the extra bit of sense I had so that I was able to hear them better.

“You have to Gerard, or you know something’ll happen to her. And then you might not get her back for another 30 years.” Mikey said, his tone almost dangerous.

My heart thudded anxiously. Happen to me? Is that what those visions were going to lead to? Something happening to me?

“You—“ Mikey began, only to have Gerard cut him off immediately.

“I know, I know… I’ve had this opportunity all along. Don’t lecture me, please. Telling her is scary enough for me. I never know how she’s going to take it.”

Mikey sighed audibly, and began to say something once again, but I wasn’t listening anymore. Fear pulsed through my veins with every beat of my heart.

If something really was going to happen to me, to go wrong, then what was that something
going to be? Was I going to die, or get hurt severely and end up in a coma…?

But that couldn’t have been. Mikey had said that I would come back; or at least that I probably would, in thirty years or so.

“Hey guys, if Ebony wakes up, will you tell her that the snack I made her is in the microwave? I’m going to be out for a bit.” I heard Eva ask quietly, interrupting the brothers’ conversation.

“Sure, no problem.” I heard Mikey call back, and then continue to talk to Gerard in that cautious tone that made my hands tremble.

I backed up and sat against the foot of my bed. There was nothing in my room that would hurt me… Would I end up here for the rest of my life? The fear in my heart was slowly reforming itself into paranoia.

“Gerard, it’s happened so many times already, and I hate watching you go through this over and over. The constant depression while she’s gone, and the way you see the world when it happens. But you have the chance to change all of that now, and I’d rather see you take the chance of shocking her a little bit than live with the emptiness in your eyes for the next who-knows-how-many years. Please, just try.” Mikey pleaded with his brother, his tone desperate.

But now I was desperate as well. I pushed myself from the ground swiftly, sprinting to my bedroom door.

If I didn’t find out now, this paranoia, and the endless curiosity were going to be what ended
my life.

“Come on, I think she has a right to know…” Mikey continued persuading the beautiful boy before him.

I took a hold of the knob sharply; I turned it and jerked the door open with all of my strength. It creaked in agony.

Both of the Ways whipped around to stare at me, terror in their eyes. I knew that they realized I’d heard them, because I knew that there was fear in my eyes as well.

Gerard stammered and stumbled over a jumbled explanation that I couldn’t make a bit of
sense out of, and I shook my head vigorously.

“Please, just tell me what’s going on.” I begged, my own voice shaking.