Dream of Me

My eyes shot open when he released me and disappeared, I shot upright in my bed clutching the covers to my chest as I gasped. It was a feeling of being held under water for too long, or when someone pushes you under and you were taken aback. I looked left and right, Gabe shot through the door in that same second, flicking the light switch up and standing at the end of my futon with a worried, tired look. "What's wrong? Why are you crying? Are you okay?"

I wiped my eyes and found that my face was drenched in tears and a light sheen of sweat was covering my forehead. I nodded and forced a surprised laugh through my lips. "What? Of course. I'm perfectly fine. It was just a bad dream, I guess."

Gabe licked his lips and shrugged, pushing a smile against his mouth as he sat at the edge of my futon. "Do you want to, um, talk about it? Or something?"

Four years down the line and he still had to act awkward from being both a brother and a caretaker. I wished he saw it how I did, that my brother was my caretaker, but he saw them as Jackal and Hyde - two completely different people as the same person. I waved my hand, waving away his question and pushed a ridiculous face over my tear-stricken one. "I don't even remember the dream, Gabe, so it's fine."

He nodded, running his hands awkwardly through his hair and pushing himself to his feet. He clapped his hands together, taking into account that he was shirtless with a pair of basketball shorts on. "Um, right, anything else you want to talk about?"

I shook my head and he started to retreat out of my bedroom, but once he reached the wall to flick my light switch down, I barked, "Gabe! Jules and I are going to this little get-together thing with a few friends from school at our friends house. So, we might not be back until late, maybe even after you and Liz head to bed. Is that okay?"

Gabe held a look over his features, biting his lip and shrugging. I never went out, not much anyway, so when I did Gabe usually felt obligated to let me go wherever and do whatever and come home however late. It was a guilty pleasure on my plate, he didn't know what I was really doing and he didn't really want to know what I was doing, so he fed himself the lie and just believed it. "Um, yeah. That's fine, just don't come back to this apartment drunk, Angel, I mean it."

I pulled on my famous Angel smile and shrugged, my brown eyes growing wide and the colors of green and red becoming more predominant, "Of course Gabe, I wouldn't do that. You know me."

He rolled his eyes and flicked the switch down, closing my door slowly and soundlessly afterwards. I threw my back down into the bed and whipped my head into the pillow, balling some of the blanket up and hugging it into my chest. There was still time to call of the date with Zak, I told myself. But, if I did that, Noah would know and I wanted him to feel pain for all of the pain I was feeling right now. Tears threatened to push past their barriers and this time I wasn't going to give them the okay to spill, I wasn't going to cry today at all, no matter if my body and heart wanted me to.

I rolled over onto my side and closed my eyes, falling into a dark, dreamless sleep where no dreams of a tall boy with russet brown locks that were a mess and eyes that were the prettiest blue came to me, telling me he loved me if not to just hear me say it back. He didn't come back and I knew I really wanted him to, no matter how angry I was at him. When I woke up in a haze, my body and limbs locking into place and Gabe poked his head through my door quickly, a blast of sunshine hitting me and causing me to throw my blanket over my face. "Hey, I'm heading out to work now, okay? Have fun tonight."

If Gabe was heading off to work, then that meant that it was two in the afternoon. He worked the afternoon shift on the weekends. I sat up and nodded, rubbing my eyes and looked at my shades that I had forgotten I had shut when I took my nap yesterday. I groaned loudly and threw the blanket back from my body and stood up. It took my a few minutes to make the room stop spinning, and then I went into my closet. What was I supposed to wear? Could I wear something casual, or should I wear something a little more flashy? I stopped for a minute, hitting my head lightly against the door and rolling my eyes. Why was I stressing anything? I didn't care if I impressed him, I didn't care if he thought I looked sexy or nice or whatever guys usually think people look like when they go to parties. I wanted to just look like me.

Turning toward my closet with a better, leveled-out head on my shoulders, I started to rummage. I raked through the top half of my closet, pushing shirts aside and scowling at the majority of my wardrobe. Why didn't I have anything fitting for tonight in here? I shook my head, closed my eyes, and reached my hand across all of the shirts I had and grabbed a random one, I could feel it was a long-sleeve. Still with my eyes closed, I reached my hands across the various fabrics of denim that were lined along the wall on a rack and grabbed a random pair. When I opened my eyes, I looked at the jeans that were bleach-splotted and they had various horizontal cuts from the thigh and down, they were skinny jeans. I nodded at the choice and then looked at the shirt, it was a brown open front long-sleeve shirt. I grabbed a white tank top from the bottom rack as well and nodded, I'd wear my tan moccasins with this then.

I gathered all of the clothes that I was going to wear today into my arms and moved across the hall and into the bathroom. This was my bathroom since Gabe's room came complete with a bathroom attached to his bedroom. I kicked the door closed and started the water next to steaming, stripped, and got in. I felt the water massage all of the knots and stress out of my back and shoulders. Hot showers were always a good weakness on me. It was my time to think without being disturbed in anyway possible, not even Noah would pull me into sleep when I was in the shower, and it was a good thing he didn't. I didn't want to deem him as a perv.

When I got out, got dressed, pinned a few loose strands of my blonde hair back, I shot out of the bathroom. Grabbing the twenty dollars that Gabe left me to spend for the day with Jules, I silently thanked him and shot out of my apartment, shoving my teal blue with black spotted leopard print lanyard into my pocket, I knocked like crazy at Jules's door.
It took her an all of five seconds to open the door, she was dressed in a sunset orange sundress with skinny jeans beneath it, her black Converse laced with highlighter orange laces and a jean jacket over it all. I looked her up and down and smiled. "Well, don't you look cute for your date, huh?"

She looked me up and down just the same as I did, her hands grabbing at the brown open shirt and shaking it playfully, "Don't you look cute for your date, huh?"

I waved my hand at her, swatting her hands away from my shirt and rolling my eyes at her statement. We walked out of the apartment with linked arms. Thankfully, it was quite the beautiful March day. As Jules walked outside with me, breathing in the sunshine and shaking her light brown hair out into the air and sighing out the fresh air. She playfully punched my arm and winked, imitating her best Irish brogue, "Must be the luck of the Irish, ay?"

I rolled my eyes at her and pushed her back with a light laugh. We started walking arm-in-arm down the street towards the strip mall that was a couple of blocks down the way. "So, it's your turn to pick - where we having lunch? I got my twenty, did Liz shed yours?"

Jules held the two tens up, rubbing them together as she shoved them back down into the pocket of the jean jacket. We took a turn and it brought us to all of the restaurants that had actual good food. There was Olive Garden, Hooters, IHop, SubWay, Outback, Applebee's, and then your standard fast food restaurants. It was a Saturday ritual between me and Jules to go out to either breakfast, lunch, or dinner on Saturday. We'd been doing it since the summer before Freshman year, and it just kind of stuck. Jules had a look that was complete in thought, her tongue touching the tip of her upper lip and her hand that was laced with mine tapped against the top of her thigh. "I'm thinking Applebee's."

I nodded, "Applebee's it is, then."

***

Once we were done with lunch and were lounging around in Jules's front room on the couch, waiting for Zak and Donny to come pick us up, Jules took a gander at the time. With a pout etched into her lips, she crossed her arms and settled back into the couch beside me. She rolled her eyes and scowled audibly, "What kind of sick joke is this?"

I took a look myself at the clock, they still had five minutes to pick us up before they were considered late. I looked back at Jules and laughed out loud with power for a couple of seconds. "Oh, calm down. They still have five minutes, it's not like they stood us up or anything."

She shook her head and grumbled out, "No, but it's like they did." I pushed her arm with force and she fell over and shot back up into her sitting position, "Okay, okay. You're right. I'm-"

There was a buzz downstairs for the Rector apartment. I shook her arm and she squealed, jumping up from the couch and running over to the speaker. "Who is it?" she said in a low voice.

"Donny and Zak, come on down."

She turned toward me, jumping up and down as I joined in with her, laughing at how ridiculous we looked. You would think that neither of us had ever been to a party or even been on a date before. It was a stretch, I hadn't ever been on a date before. But, parties? I had gone to a few of them with Jules in the past three years. Jules usually went every weekend.

We walked downstairs and Donny was quite the looker, I had found. He had this crazy, messy black hair and these pretty hazel eyes that seemed darker than they actually were. He was stick straight and wearing skinny jeans, Converse, and a band T-shirt for some locals. I turned my attention to the boy who was walking toward me with his wavy brownish-blonde hair and dark green inviting eyes, a hand outstretched for me to take. He had on an open black flannel, sleeves rolled up to his elbows with a white wife beater beneath it, dark jeans and DC's on. I secretly approved of his outlook, but I would never admit that to him, Noah, or even myself. "So, you and Jules can take the back. Angel, you are sitting up front with me."

The car ride wasn't as awkward as it could have been, Zak blasted music the whole way and opened the sun roof so the moonlight could shine down into the car and make it not completely black. We were driving down this road for about five minutes before we finally turned off road and drove through the short grass for an additional two minutes before the huge abandoned warehouse came into view and the maze of cars did too. We pulled to a stop and got out on our own accord, walking arm-in-arm with our dates. Before walking in, there was four folding tables set up with all types of different liquor and alcohol. Zak and Donny grabbed Jules and I each a cup, handing it off to us, it smelled fruity but strong.

I was going to set it back down on the table, but Jules's eyes widened at me, noticing that I was going to pass up the opportunity and kicked my ankle. I shot her a look and pressed the red SOLO cup to my lips and downing half of its contents into my system. It was vodka, I recognized instantly, before I downed the rest of the cup. The three of them cheered loudly, and then it was my turn to cheer for Jules as she finished her cup. The boys towed us inside and we separated, Donny taking Jules off to the side and Zak taking me towards the middle. She could hold her own, so I wasn't worried about her. What I was worried about, was myself. I had thoughts of sending some vibes to Noah, seeing as I haven't given him a thought since I was in the shower - man did that sound really bad. I decided against it.

Once we reached the middle of the floor where the different colored lights were switching around and the strobe lights were giving it a certain dance club feel, not to mention our class president was the DJ of this gathering, delivering beats and songs, I shook my head. Zak closed the distance between us and pressed his hands to my hip, doing time to the music as I started to bob around and shimmy and shake my hips along with him. He twisted me around and pressed my back to his chest, his hands still on my hips as he pressed his lips to my shoulder. I didn't know what to do, all I knew was that I wasn't sure if I had left my comfort zone or not. His hands moved up and down my sides sensually and I finally pressed my hands over his to keep them locked against my hips, knowing that his traveling hands definitely did leave my comfort zone.

He flipped me back around then, pressing his hands to my lower back, picking both my hands up and wrapping each one around his neck slowly, his eyes locking with mine. This felt so wrong, but the alcohol in my system told me that the haze I felt at this moment wouldn't make me move away from him. Zak moved his hands up and down my back slowly before they pressed against my lower back once more, pushing my hips into his. Slowly, very slowly, Zak's mouth closed in on mine, pushing over my lips. When he pulled back, I looked down at his lips, trying to pass the feeling in my stomach as excitement instead of disgust as he shoved his mouth against mine again, his hand gripping the back of my neck and his other one moving from my lower back to up my side. I could feel his climbing hand as his tongue rolled with mine in a very gross way and I wanted nothing more than to throw his hand away from me, or at the very least, push it back around my back, but I couldn't. His hand finally rubbed over my chest and all I really wanted now was this kid to get off me, to leave me alone, and to never talk to me ever again. I tried to turn my head out of the kiss, but his hand that locked against the back of my neck kept my head still.

Finally acknowledging the churn and flip in my stomach as disgust and on the very highest level of wrong, it was too late to stop trying to kiss him, to get his arm from around my neck, to break each individual finger that was groping me. I needed Noah, and I needed him right now, I needed him to abandon his laws, I needed him to get off his ass and come love me, come protect me, come save me the way he was supposed to. I was wrong and if I could get out of this death grip Zak had me under, I would have followed the feelings until we were toe-to-toe, just like Noah had said.

Finally, Zak pulled his lips away from mine, but only because there was a tap at his shoulder. His head turned to the side, his eyes like dark green daggers stabbing whomever disrupted him. "Can I help you?"

Before I could focus my eyes on the person who tapped his shoulder, Zak's head snapped to the side and he stumbled back about five feet, ultimately releasing me from his grip. I wiped my mouth and spit at the ground, trying to rid all of the spit that Zak passed from him to me, trying to get the feel of his hands off me as I visibly shivered.

"Thank you, seriously, thank you so much." I said as I wiped my mouth once more and lifted my gaze up the long dark denim legs, the light blue-dark blue-white plaid flannel that was rolled up the tannish-peachy skin of my savior until I saw the tips of his russet brown hair and finally locked my eyes against his beautiful blue eyes that were tinted because of his anger and the darkness. "Noah?"

"Abandon everything you know, you said. Come find me and love me the way you're supposed to, you said. Well, here I am." He looked me up and down, taking a step toward me but swiveling left and grabbing the white shirt of Zak and throwing a punch deep into his stomach. When Zak doubled over Noah's arm, Noah threw a downward punch into the side of Zak's face. Spitting a wad of bloody spit, Zak pushed back and threw a punch into Noah's face, where his head whipped to the left. I screamed, throwing my hands over my mouth as Noah shook his head and his hair out, stepping back and kicking Zak in the stomach, where he fell backwards onto the dusty ground. Noah grabbed his shirt and punched him in the face until his lip split, his eye split, and his cheek puffed.

Huffing and puffing through labored breaths, Noah growled loudly, "You ever touch her - talk to her - you ever blink in her direction ever again, and I find out, I'm coming back to finish you off. Got that?" Zak rolled his head from side to side, groaning and coughing weakly. Noah didn't like that, delivering another punch to his gut, Zak coughed. Noah screamed, "Got that?"

"Yeah, I hear 'ya. I got that." Zak said through a strangled voice, hacking up some more blood spit and crawling onto his hands and knees where he dry heaved.

Noah turned on his heel, grabbed my hand, and towed me out the back entrance all the way over to a car. He seemed very, very, very angry with me by the disappointed look and the grim line where his smile usually was. "You think Jules can get her own ride home?"

I nodded slowly, unable to even answer with one-syllable words. I was shocked, I was so shocked that shocked didn't even cover how I was feeling at this moment. He opened the passenger side door to a yellow Camaro, looking down at the black leather interior and then into my eyes. He was expecting me to get into the car, but I finally realized what just happened. He braced his hand atop the open door and his other laid at his side. I looked down at the ground and then shot my eyes back up to his. I threw my arms around his neck, my feet nearly dangling off the floor as I felt a wave of relief and happiness wash over me, tears springing to my eyes.

His arms closed around my waist, one around the back of my shoulders as I sniffled and tried to hold my tears back. Finally, I thought. I had been looking forward to this day for a whole three years. I continued to cry as he slowly rocked us back and forth, kissing my shoulder gently. He whispered a couple minutes after my tears refused to let up, "Why are you crying? I thought you would be happy?"

I nodded, crying harder, a sob breaking through my lips as I tightened my arms around his neck and pressed my trembling lips against the side of his neck. I whispered through a hoarse voice, "I'm so happy, I've never been happier. You... You abandoned your law, you left it all behind for me, why?"

He licked his lips, kissing my shoulder repeatedly as he crushed me into his chest. "Because I'd do anything you ever asked me to, anything at all. Now," He jerked his head to the side, "You're staying at my place tonight. Let's go."