Dream of Me

I still had a few hours before I had to be at work, taking the night shift at the local twenty-four hour gym. They pay eleven dollars an hour when you work from seven to seven on the night shift, so I guess I get an advantage. I collapsed down on my couch in my apartment a couple miles from Angel’s, my warm black leather couch waiting for me as I curled into a ball.

I fell in deep instantly, my arms curling around her as I pressed my chin into her shoulder and kissed her cheek, whispering my favorite phrase, “Hello, gorgeous.”

She turned around and threw her arms around my neck. I turned my head and pressed a solid kiss against her shoulder and then leaned my forehead against hers. “Are you still mad at me, my Angel?”

She looked away, turning her eyes down and away from me, she sighed. I shook my head, pulling her up to sit beside me and wrap my arm around her shoulder. I muttered against her cheek, “I’ll take that as a ‘no’?”

She pushed out of my arms and stood by her window, looking out at the sun tinted minute by minute, losing an inch of light slowly. She looked disappointed and depressed. She put her fingers against the windowsill, her eyes searching through the scenic route just beyond her window. “I could have sworn that I saw you today.”

I sat; bracing against the bed, ready to explain myself if I had to, but it didn’t seem that she had any clue of the secret that I had been holding over her head, just beyond her reach. “You didn’t.”

She turned her head to the side and spoke slowly, a small sad smile attached to her lips, “I thought I did, finally. I’ve been looking for three years now, you know. I don’t understand why you can’t just come and find me. I can feel you, and I know that when I do, it’s because you’re close to me. What I can’t figure out is why haven’t come to find me yet. You’re in love with me, right? But you still cower behind your closed eyes to see me.”

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I spoke with a rugged voice, one I knew she loved that used to get my point across. It hurt me to use authority over her; it hurt to know I wasn’t pleasing her; it hurt to know it was me hurting her. She didn’t understand though, and I had a sad doubt that she ever would, not until she found me and I did explain it all, that is.

She turned toward me, leaning against the windowsill, “I may not know what I’m talking about, but at least I try. You don’t. You haven’t tried a single day over the course of finding me to come find me, do I mean that little to you?”

I pushed myself up from her bed, walking silently and slowly to her, my gaze darted between the plush carpet to her gorgeous eyes. I put one hand to the wall beside her head and the other against the glass of the windowpane, trapping her in place with my body. I leaned my head down to her level, pressing my cheek against the side of her head. I whispered, “You mean the world to me, Angel, my Angel. You’re everything and more, everything I could ever want. You’re heaven sent.” She smiled at the joke, “I just can’t tell you certain things, and I can’t do certain things. Finding you myself is one of them. It’s a sacred law that we share; it’s one of the only laws that matter to us.”

Angel looked up and turned her head toward me. I wanted nothing more than to kiss her and make her smile. I wanted to kiss her for real though; this wasn’t real because when I opened my eyes she’d be gone. That was the most heartbreaking moment of my whole day, until she fell asleep and pulled my subconscious with her, to be with her. These are things that I would never confess to her, I had to be strong for the both of us, no matter what happened between me and her and the rest of the world.

I pressed my hand to one of her cheeks as I turned my own head toward her and nudged her cheek with my nose for her to look into my eyes. I pressed my lips against hers for half a second, feeling her breath suck through her parted lips. “You are my world, and you may not know it quite yet, but you will. You’ll find me, even if I have to start leaving hints.”

She turned her head up towards me, stretching her neck the slightest to meet my lips with hers, her hands crawling to the back of my neck to bring my head down and add more pressure to her lips. I kept one hand against the wall but curled the remaining arm tightly around her waist to crush her into me. This was a different kind of kiss that we’d ever shared, a more urgent passion-filled kiss as she crushed her mouth against mine. Still, she was the first to break away from me and duck under my arm and walk away from me, her arms crossing over her chest as she shook her head and kept her back to me.

“You’re not the only one hurting, Angel. I want nothing more than to go to you, but I can’t. I don’t know how to stress it enough, but we’ve got to just work this out.” I put emphasis on the last three words, hoping she’d bite the bait, but that didn’t seem likely at this point. I wanted to just scream at the top of my lungs, I work at the gym a mile from your home, damn it!

She looked over her shoulder at me, a certain realization washing over her features. Why did we have to fight as much as we did? Why was it practically every other night that we had to get into this? When would she understand that I wanted her just as much – if not more – as she wanted me? I couldn’t tell her where I was, I couldn’t abandon this law my father had strictly held over my head.

She twisted around, throwing her arms down at her sides in obvious anger and frustration as she sent a glare so angry that it could melt ice. She was shaking slightly as she gave me her best death glare, and oh, I could feel it all the way down to my curling toes. “You knew?”

I was taken aback from both her words and her anger. I didn’t quite understand where she got this newfound anger from, but I was just waiting for red smoke to shoot from her ears and her eyes to change to the purest color of red. “I knew what?”

“You knew where I lived? You know where I live and you still… don’t you care about me at all, Noah? How could you?” She screamed, raising her fists over her head and throwing them down at her sides to release some of the building adrenaline. Soon she would charge me, and I wasn’t so sure I was ready for that.

I licked my lips, nodding slowly. I darted my gaze between her angered one and the floor of her apartment bedroom. Well, she realized something, just not what I wanted her to realize. “Yes. I know, you live two blocks from your high school, in the cul-de-sac with the nice apartments, you live in 201 – first door on the second floor, directly above your best friend’s apartment.”

She looked between the floor and my whole body. Shaking her head, her body shook and tears threatened to spill over as her voice cracked once, “How long?”

“The whole three years.” I said as I turned my head to stare at the floor, I know I messed up, but it wasn’t like I could tell her.

She shook her head, “You knew and you never… I want to wake up now, Noah. So, I would really appreciate it if you stopped holding my subconscious down and just let me wake up.”
I didn’t know how she knew that was exactly what I was doing, not allowing her to wake up and leave this unresolved because it’ll leave me fatigued with the a migraine sent from Hell, but she knew. I wasn’t going to give in, though. “You don’t even understand, Angel. I can’t tell you these things.”

“Yes, I do. It’s your law; you can’t break it because of some unsaid punishment that’ll happen if you do. I just haven’t worked out, how if no one knows you do it, how you’ll get in trouble for it.”

Now, it was my turn to get mad at her. I looked at her with incredulous outrage. I stepped toward her; my breath huffing just as hers was at this moment. “Are you asking me to break the law for you, abandon everything and anything I’ve known for you?”

“Yes! Noah that is exactly what I’m saying to you! Something’s have gotta give. You can’t have the best of both worlds; you can’t have me when you close your eyes and then be all honky-dory with everything else when you’re awake! Can’t you see that you’re breaking my heart? If it’s true what you say, about how you can’t stand to see me in pain, then change it already!” She screamed at me, gripping her hair momentarily and then releasing the strands as she charged me.

I wasn’t ready for her at all, so when she started to run at me, I just stared at her through my angered haze. When she slammed into me, knocking me on my back and straddled my stomach, she gripped my shirt and balled it up in her fists. She started to beat my chests with her fists, screeching and crying through her anger as she released all of her adrenaline out on me. And I let her, I had to. I was the source of her anger and if it would make her happy to let it all out on me, then so be it.

My chest was finally bruised and red from how hard she pounded against me until I took away the liberty and power to continue to hit me. I flipped us and pinned her hands deep into the dark blue carpet, twining my fingers with hers and pinning them with power. I shimmied my hips slowly so that I could trap her legs beneath me so she couldn’t kick me.
We were both huffing and puffing our breath out and the room suddenly seemed no less than ninety degrees complete with humidity as I looked down into her face.

“Are you done?” I huffed as I tried to even out my breathing and she stopped trying to struggle beneath me.

She paused for a moment, one single solid moment, and then started her fight back up, thrashing beneath me as she snaked around, trying to throw her hands and legs up in exasperation and fight. I pushed my complete body weight onto her, pinning her legs down with my own and pushing her hands deeper into the dark blue carpet.

"Get off me!" She shoved through her lips in a grunt as she struggled to move against my body weight, but she was a tiny little thing, and I knew that I could easily out-weigh her without even a single try.

"Not until you calm down!" I said through gritted teeth. She was purposefully trying to be infuriating now, and I wasn't going to bite the bait no matter what kind of attitude she threw my way.

She tried to roll onto her stomach to get out of my grip, but that wasn't going to happen and I wish she would just give up so we could talk about this like the adults we were supposed to be. "I want to be angry at you, damn it! Let me be and let go of me!"

I sighed, I was going to be late for work if I didn't leave soon, and if she wanted to be angry at me, then so be it. Bring on the migraine from Hell and the fatigue galore. I groaned internally at the pain and exhaustion I'd be experiencing momentarily. I pushed myself from her and sat back on my feet. She scrambled on her back, pushing her shoes and hands to crawl backwards from me with that angered, sizzling glare sticking to her features.

I stood up and turned my head to the side, closing my eyes and reaching somewhere deep and reluctantly inside myself to release her subconscious and allow her to wake up if she wished to. It was like flipping a switch, I felt like I was turning my instincts off, it was both gut-wrenching and spine-chilling. I hated it. When I opened my eyes, she was still staring accusingly at me. I threw my arms up and screamed through defeat, "Consequences, Angel, I'd have consequences. Do you want to get taken away from me, or me taken from
you? Because I sure as Hell don't."

She continued to stare at me - glare at me is more realistically placed. I shrugged and threw my hands down to slap against the tops of my thighs. Rolling my hand around in a circle, I felt my anger get the best of me. "Well? I released you, and you want to stay mad at me, so go on. Get."

By the sound of my authority, and talking to her like she was a dog, something inferior and insignificant, she pushed herself to her feet and wiped her nose into her sleeve. She looked me up and down, her eyes pausing as she stared at my ripped shirt from all of her pounding on my chest and seeing as it was beet red, she said, "I hope that hurt."

I nodded, looking down at my ripped shirt as she took it all in as well. "Oh, yes, well it did. So, mission accomplished, then, right?" I raised my eyebrow to her and nodded around me, the thick unspoken question of why she was still here, when all I wanted was for her to launch into my arms.

And launch into my arms she didn't, she wiped at her eyes and rubbed her nose into her arm as she pushed her hands through her hair afterward. She looked between the ground and my face - my eyes, "I think a few days without me would do both of us good. So, don't bother me until I'm ready."

I stared at her with a solid, furious gaze that made her own falter and made her body incline on itself, shying away from me, "As you wish, since I was created to serve, protect, and love you, and not in the slightest portray equal traits of those three things for the both of us, I will do as you ask of me."

She nodded and licked her lips, rubbing her nose and closing her eyes. I looked down, not allowing or willing myself to watch her slowly disappear from my line of vision. The headache from Hell had begun, and my stomach lurched as she sent her anger and sadness pointedly my way. "Thanks for that, babe." I muttered through gritted teeth as I held a groan back.

I opened my eyes and looked down at my shirt. She ripped it. I shook my head, grumbling meaningless insults under my breath, scowling as I ripped the shirt from my back and threw it angrily at the threshold of my bedroom as I moved to my closet and ripped my work shirt from its hanger. I threw it over my head and shoved my arms through their holes, slipping on my dark grey tennis shoes. I looked at my watch and cursed under my breath, why did dreaming take hours when it felt like minutes? I felt I had an advantage with being able to split my subconscious in half and mindlessly walk into anyones dreams. I pulled my black leather jacket on and ran out to my most impressive yellow 2010 Camaro with black pinstripes. I smiled, my little beauty put me in a better mood instantly. I ran out and hopped in, pushing the key into the ignition and feeling her rumble beneath me sent shivers all up and down my spine.

I pulled out of the parking lot and drove the ten minute drive to the local gym, parking in as close a spot as I could, and running full speed into the main entrance, dodging people in their little work-out outfits. I shot through the entrance and jumped, skidding across the marble counter tops to the full around front desk and typing my ID number and timing myself in. I released a hefty sigh when I saw I had punched in three seconds before being considered late.

There was a small applause behind me where three of my co-workers of the night shift were clapping at my jumping-across-the-counter top stunt. I smirked and rolled my eyes as I cleared my throat, "Couldn't very well be late, now could I?"

My boss, who was standing in the back, held a grim line where his appreciative smile should have been, but of course, he was lacking that. I looked down and cleared my throat, smiling and nodding. "Quite impressive, Brady, quite impressive indeed."

Mr. Fitzpatrick pushed away from the wall, uncrossing his ankles, and walked back to his large oval office like he was the president himself. I had - somehow - avoided getting fired and - somehow - accomplished getting to work on-time with all of the utter bullshit that I've gone through in one day. I'd say yes, quite impressive indeed.