The Dream

“Frank,” I begged. “Please… don’t go!” Tears were rolling down my face at this point, but I was past the point of caring.

“I have to go, Gerard. If I miss another day at work, I’ll be fired.” He turned and started walking away.

On impulse, I lunged for his arm as he walked closer to the door, barely grabbing on the end of his sleeve. If I would have missed I would have fallen on my face on the hardwood floors of our apartment.

“What are you doing? You almost ripped my last dress shirt!” He pulled his arm out of my grasp and looked down at me. From my knees, I looked back up at him. He had an odd expression on his face. It must have been anger. I wasn’t used to Frank being mad at me, at anyone, for that matter. It just didn’t happen.

“Please,” I sobbed. I could barely breathe. I glanced out the window that was to my right and saw that it was still pouring rain. I knew that today was the day. I just had that gut feeling. This couldn’t happen to my Frank. I needed him to function.

Frank then looked down at me in pity. Here I was, on my knees, sobbing and tears pouring down my face, begging him to not go to work. He goes to work every other day, and I have never acted like this. Can’t he just see that something is wrong?

Frank grabbed my elbows and helped me up. Without taking his shoes off, he walked me into our living room and helped me down on to the couch. He sat on the ottoman and faced me with a blank expression. After a few minutes of complete silence between us, Frank finally spoke. “Gerard,” he started. When he said my name, I got really nervous. He has never been angry with me before. The tears stopped flowing now, only to be replaced with anxiety.

I couldn’t even look up at him. “Yes?” I asked, after he said nothing further.

“Why won’t you let me go to work?” He asked, with an edge to his voice. “You let me go any other day. Why is today different? I am going to be late today now,” he complained.

“You just have to trust me on this one,” I answered back, still refusing to make eye contact. I looked up a little and saw him playing with his hands, one of his nervous habits.

“I have to go,” Frank said sharply and went to stand up.

I reached for him, and pulled on his arm again. “Please, no,” I begged again.

“For God’s sakes, let me go, Gerard!” Frank shouted, catching me off guard. I dropped his arm like it burned me and finally met his eyes. I saw nothing in them. The love, gone. Hate and anger filled them now. This was not the Frank I knew.

Frank grabbed his wallet and cigarettes off the counter and headed closer to the door. “No, no, no, no, no…” I started saying and shook my head, my eyes stinging. Frank took one glance back and said a simple, “Goodbye, Gerard.” It sounded so final. Is he leaving home? Wasn’t he just going to work? What did I do wrong?

Before he slammed the door, I said, “I love you, Frank,” just loud enough for him to hear.

He didn’t say anything back, just closed the door behind him, not even bothering to lock it. How could he not say anything back? That was the part that really hurt. “No!” I couldn’t keep myself from shouting and sobbing now. “No!”

* * *

The next thing I remember, someone is shaking me awake. Something warm hitting my cheek over and over again. My voice is being repeated over and over again by a familiar voice.

“Gerard,” the voice said. “Gerard, please wake up.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and opened my eyes. Frank was staring back at me. When he noticed that I was awake, he also sighed in relief. He kissed my lips softly and asked, “Bad dream?” Before I could answer he took his thumb and wiped under my eyes, assuming wiping the tears away.

“Is it raining?” I asked. Usually, that would be a strange thing to ask someone who is concerned about your well-being, and Frank seemed a little confused but still answered, “Yes.”

Almost immediately, the anxiety that I felt in my dream returned. I tried to keep my breathing under control, I couldn’t afford to worry Frank today with another panic attack. Maybe it is just a coincidence. And I sure hoped it was. Because in the dream, I know what would happen to Frank once he started going to work. I couldn’t even think about it.

Ever since I was young, I had this… ability, if you will, to predict the future. Of course, it is always subjective to the decisions that we make during the day, but it almost always happened. No, I do not have ‘visions’ about the future, I have dreams. Whenever I had one of these dreams when I was young, it would have to be my younger brother Mikey to wake me up. The thing is about these dreams, I can’t wake up from them on my own, and that’s what makes it especially scary. When I am alone and have one of these dreams, and no one is around to wake me up from them, I can ‘sleep’ for days on end. Another bad part about them is when I have one of these dreams, I’m not really sleeping and I wake up exhausted. Sometimes with the really bad ones, I have to stay in bed all the next day and rest, because of how physically and emotionally draining it was. On average, I get about one every few weeks. Sometimes I dream about people I don’t even know, and I feel terrible because I can’t help them. The only people I have ever told about these dreams are my brother Mikey and my mother. Frank has no idea.

Frank noticed my long period of silence and instead of saying anything, he grabbed my hand under the sheets and squeezed, letting me know that he was there to talk about it if I wanted to. I leaned over in the bed and kissed his forehead. “Thank you for waking me, Frank. I’m okay now,” I said, trying to be convincing. Thankfully, he fell for my bad lie and rolled over, still holding onto my hand. Minutes later he fell back into a deep sleep.

I was left to think about my dream for the next few hours. It was only three in the morning, and I had to get up at five anyway to get ready for my job.

Just to be on the safe side, I have to somehow convince Frank to stay home from work today.