Dream of Me

When I finally pushed myself out of the dream, I collapsed down onto my knees and started to cry. I didn't know why, I wasn't sure when I was going to stop, all I knew in that certain moment was that if I didn't cry right now, I was going to spontaneously, internally combust. I threw my back down against the wall and dragged my knees into my chest, burying my head into the cracks between my knees and started to sob into the denim of my jeans. How could he just speak so uncaring to me? I wiped my eyes and just when I thought I would stop crying, get up and check for my brother, tears sprang to my eyes and I collapsed against my wall once more. I pressed my hands to the back of my head to keep my head and my sobs locked against my knees. I could feel my heart literally breaking as I sobbed and felt my body internally call for him. I really did hope at this desperate moment that he was in some serious pain, I hoped that above anything else. Hoping he'd pull me back into one of our dreams came as a close second.

After another ten minutes of pure sobs and hiccups, I finally wiped my eyes into my knee caps and held my breath to stop the convulsing sobs that rocked my body. I wiped my eyes into perfection as I stood up and stared at my full length mirror, my reflection holding the image of a girl who looked exactly like me with bloodshot eyes and a red nose. I sighed and pulled my hair into a ponytail and left the newly dark confines of my bedroom. Just as I was making my famous getaway to get food from the kitchen, I heard the front door close. Great.
I turned around to a tall, dirty blonde with hazel eyes and a disappointed line where his tired but happy smile should have been. I took a sip from the cup of water that I had previously made and licked the moisture from my lips. "Welcome home."

He turned his head, cocking it to the side as I turned on my heel, dumping the contents into the sink and rolling my eyes. I turned the water on and rinsed the cup out and threw it on the drying rack. "Or not."

He was loosening his tie and pulling it over his head, white knuckled fingers clenched the fabric. I stared at his hand, not willing to accept or even welcome the disappointed glare I knew he held for me at this moment. "Another one, Angel? Another detention? Don't you get tired of serving them, or waking up to take them at eight in the morning on a Saturday? Doesn't it get boring after a while, or does it just get more enthralling by the referral? Do enlighten me."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, "He holds unfair judgement."

"You were sleeping in his class."

"So were three other people besides me. They didn't get yelled at and reprimanded, they didn't sent down to the deans, they didn't get detentions. Hell, Gabe, they didn't even get woken up! You can't stand there and say that it's all me and I'm the ignorant one when no one else gets in trouble - just me. I'll take and serve as many detentions he wants to throw at me until the treatment and judgement I deserve is given to me!" I huffed as I turned away from him and started to pull things out that I wanted him to make for dinner - chicken? Sounds like a plan.

"Oh, now that's so noble and just of you." Gabriel sneered in his exhausted, grumpy fashion. He was such a dad sometimes, and he needed to stop and take a step back. First off, he wasn't my father and he never would be, and secondly, he didn't even give a flying crap about how I felt in this situation.

I whirled around and crossed my arms, partially pouting, as I stood there and looked him up and down with an equal sneer to the one that he held. "You know, instead of being an ass about it, why don't you, I don't know, try to talk about the problem and not accuse and make fun of me."

Gabe sighed, scratching his scruffy hair and sighing. He nodded, leaning against the threshold wall and glancing down at the floor for a long second. "Okay, you're right. You're right. What do you want me to do, go in and request a brother-teacher confrence?"

I shook my head and laughed. I shrugged, "If you think that will help, then go ahead and be my guest.I just want all of this bull crap to stop so that I don't have to stay after school and serve them, so I don't have to wake up on my refreshing Saturday and serve them, you know?"

He nodded, and then a small silence ensued. I pointed to the dinner of which should feed four and twirled around to grabbed the chicken-flavored rice as my sidedish request. I pushed the box beside the uncooked pultry. With a smile, I added, "I'll send her up and you send a call down when it's all cooked and stuff?"

He smiled with gratification towards me and threw his arm around my shoulders, curling me into his side and pressing a kiss to the top of my head. He nodded and released me from the embrace, "You know what, that would sound just perfect right about now. I'm sorry for, uh, getting pissed and stuff at you."

I shrugged and sent him a smile as I made my famous getaway and jogged down the steps, knocking three times in a pattern on the Rector's front door. I waited for a moment and watched as an older, taller, black haired looking Jules answered the door. I smiled widely, "Hey Liz, Gabe wants you upstairs. Something about helping him cook dinner and stuff."

Liz smiled and clapped her hands together as she briskly moved past me, so, so, so excited about seeing her man candy a whole half hour earlier than usual. How exciting. I smiled back at her excitement and as she was halfway up the stairs she called down, "Jules is in her room, you know the way."

I nodded and walked into their apartment. It was exactly like mine, except more comfortable and not for show like ours was. They had a fluffy white couch with black carpeting, a glass coffee table, and a tall forty-inch TV on a stand. They had closed their shades and I made my way back to the bright yellow bedroom of Jules. The walls were covered with movie posters and official band posters, along with signatures. She had the same black carpeting as the front room, but she was lying on her bed, inspecting her hair for split-ends. A habit of hers when she was bored. "No, Zak. I swear, I'm not with her right now. If I was, I would have handed the phone off to - Oh wait!"

I pushed the door closed when her focus had finally reconnected to the world and she saw me make my way over to her and plop down onto her plush pillowtop bed. I leaned my back against one of the four posts and smiled at her. "She's right here." She threw the phone into my lap. I looked down at it and then looked back up at her with my eyebrow arched as high on my face as it would go. "It's Zak Grand. He's asking for you."

I pulled the phone up to my ear, and with a voice full of question and confusion, I spoke, "Hello?"

"Hey!" I could easily pull the smile from his lips and the excited energy pulsing off his body like he'd just been told by Bob Barker that he had just won a new car. I didn't understand it and I wasn't about to ask him to explain it for me.

I paused for a moment as I made a face at Jules, giving her a forewarning that she was on the top of my hit list after I got off the phone. "Hey. What's up, Zak?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking about you and I was wondering something." He said in a gravely serious voice, all happiness and excitement vanished in about two-point-four seconds.

"Okay, shoot."
"So, tomorrow, there's this cool warehouse party and I heard that Jules was going with some guy and I thought that maybe I could take you? It's in this cool abandoned warehouse and the warehouse is in the middle of an open field. What's so perfect about it is that the cops have no idea it's even being used anymore, and there's no one for miles to call the cops on us." Now, the excitement returned to his voice once more.

I stopped, pausing for a moment. Something in the pit of my stomach that was doing flips and churns told me that no, I shouldn't even be contemplating going to this party with Zak, that I should yell at him for even considering asking me in the first place and that I should then hang up the phone and not even give the kid the time of day. And then I thought about how this was all of that Dreamer/Spade mumbo jumbo, and that I was tied to Noah and that I felt this way because my body, soul, mind, and heart depended upon him to make it completely known that no one but him could take me out.

It wasn't that Zak was unattractive or bad-looking. He actually was quite the opposite. He had this wavy brownish-blonde hair that curled around his face and made you want to move your fingers through it. And these green eyes that were dark but completely inviting and this build that sent shivers down your spine just looking at him. And he was charming and funny, kind of caring, really sweet. And he wasn't Noah. And, as bad as that sounds, that was what threw me over the edge in my decision. "Yes, Zak. I would totally love to go with you to this party tomorrow."

"Really? Is this some sort of joke or something, because if it is, I really don't think it's funny." Zak jumped to the wild conclusion. Who would even pull that kind of prank on him? Didn't he and everyone else for that matter know that he was quite desirable?

"Yes, really, Zak. I want to go with you to this warehouse party place thing. It sounds fun, and if Jules is going with some guy, then I wouldn't really want to be a third-wheel of any sort, now would I? Don't worry, it'll be fun, right?" I smiled as Jules watched me with her jaw dropped and her hands quietly clapping together.

I rolled my eyes at her and waiting for Zak to reply. "Yeah. Yeah, it'll totally be awesome and fun tomorrow night. I'll pick you up at, like, eight tomorrow then?"

I nodded, holding the phone to my ear as my stomach did flips, and not the kind that you usually get when a really good-looking guy asks you out. I licked my lips and tried to rid my tongue of the foul, coppery taste that just crashed over my tastebuds. This Spade/Dreamer stuff wasn't going to rain on my parade. "Tomorrow at eight then. I'll see you then. Bye, Zak."

"Bye, Angel." Now, that time I didn't know if he meant my name or if he meant to use that as a petname. I sighed and closed the phone, throwing it back into Jules's lap and threw my back down onto the center of the bed.

"So, you and Zak, huh?" I stared at a now upside down - even though she was rightside up - Jules who was waggling her eyebrows at my recently made plans with one of the school's cutest, most desirable guys. I nodded, forcing a lucid smile onto my lips, "Yep, me and Zak. So, you and some guy, huh?"

She blushed instantly, a smile pulling instantly onto her lips as she fidgited a bit and twirled her light brown hair around her finger. "His name is Donny Manchester. He's the bagger to my register and he's friends with Zak and told him about how me and him were going to this party, and he called on a demanding endeavor to find you - to get you to be his date." She threw her back against the wall of pillows and squealed happily, "God, do I love boys."

I laughed and rolled my eyes, my head shaking on its own accord to how she was acting. I sighed and kept my smile on my lips as my mind flowed back to Noah, wondering what he was doing, if he worked, or went to the gym, or hung out with friends. He didn't like to talk about it because I had to find him and all of that other stuff. I still didn't understand why I had to find him, but I wasn't about to pull him into a dream and ask him. I focused back on Jules and we gushed about our dates and what we were going to wear, and the endless possibilities that tomorrow night could hold for us until Gabe called downstairs on the walkie-talkies we had set up, telling us that dinner was ready.

"Roger that." Jules punched back. She loved doing that and I'll never understand what her weird fascination with it was.

Sometime after dinner, after Jules left at the stroke of midnight, after I had made my way back into my bedroom, after I collapsed onto my bed and turned on my bedside lamp to catch up on some reading did I get get pulled straight into a thick, deep sleep. All I could do was sit, sigh, and think: Well, damn. Here we go again.