And She Made the Shape of My Heart With Her Hands

I stood there in a black room filled with plain nothingness. Hell, I couldn’t even be sure if it was a room. Cloudy images flashed through my eyes here and there. I couldn’t tell what they were pictures of because of the murkiness and immediate rate they were changing at.

“Cara,” A voice whispered to me. The whisper was so low as it gave me chills, and the way it just wisped right through my hair and ears, I just couldn’t put a name to the tone of voice.

“What? What is it?” I took a step forward as best as I could, my feet rising up from the blackness and then landing back onto blackness once again. “Who is it?”

Silence. Black. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The flashing images had come to a halt and so the only thing that was left was the darkness. I couldn’t hear anything. No words, breathing, movement. I was alone.

“Please,” I whimpered. “Who is it?”

Again, nobody answered.

I panicked. I attempted to march forward, towards where I thought I could hear the mysterious voice sounding from before. As I lifted my foot, it just stopped. It just stopped dead. I placed my foot back down and tried the other, raising it up and moving it downward towards the blackness in front of me. Again, nothing happened. It was as if someone had just stuck an invisible wall straight in front of me.

“Please, Cara. Tell me,” the unknown voice commanded in a plea. This time it didn’t sound like it was coming from somewhere in front of me. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere around me.

“Please! Stop!” My fists balled up tightly and my eyes narrowed in frustration. “T-Tell me what to do! I’m confused!”

“Cara,” it groaned again.

“What?” I screamed desperately, pounding my foot on the ebony space of oblivion. “Help me! I don’t know what to do!”

“Cara,” the inexplicable male voice repeated. “Cara.”

I shook my head back and forth vigorously, trying to shake my thoughts clear. Nothing happened, of course.

“Cara,” he stated once again. “Cara, please.”

“Please what?”

“Cara?” The voice repeated my name again, however this time it was more in a question sort of tone. “Cara?” The voice sounded more familiar to my ears this time. “Cara! Come on, Cara.” I knew that voice…

“P-Pat?”

I heard a low chuckle, which made me smile a little in relief. “Cara, open your eyes,” he instructed softly.

I did as he told me to, and sure enough, there was Pat looking down at me with his usual warm smile that could guarantee to melt an icecap. “Um, was I asleep?”

Pat’s smile grew larger before he answered, “Yeah. You took a break after a while of selling clothes and stuff for Trevor by chilling here in the van. I came back to Trevor asking where you were and he said the van. So yeah, I came in here to see you knocked out and I guess dreaming.”

“Oh. Wow,” I replied. “Was I talking and stuff again?”

He nodded in response. “Yeah. It scared me at first. You looked a little disturbed.”

“I was,” I muttered, sliding my arms around Pat’s chest and squishing my face to him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I felt his hand running through my hair and rubbing my back soothingly.

“Nah, I’m good. I’d rather not, actually. It was just a little scary.”

“Gotcha,” he answered.

“Pat? What time is it? Where is everybody else? What are you supposed to be doing right now?”

Pat chuckled and stayed relaxed. It was cute how he only seemed to be relaxed and calm around me sometimes and then hyper with everybody else. It made me feel special. “It’s 11:50 P.M. Everyone’s still around here packing things up, meeting up with fans… The normal stuff. And I’m already doing what I’m supposed to be doing; being here with you.” He smiled brightly.

“Aw,” I cooed as I leaned up to kiss his lips. “I don’t care if that line would’ve been something I would have laughed at before; it was cute and made me all giddy.”

Pat laughed. “Thanks. I saw it on TV once and thought it would make a girl swoon. You’re definitely that girl,” he explained with a small smile.

“Definitely,” I repeated with a grin.

“Well look who it is,” John commented as he watched Pat and I approach. “Sleeping Beauty.”

I swallowed a bit of saliva as I tried to ignore the pathetic quiver of butterflies that flapped within my stomach. “Uh, yeah. Hi,” I greeted awkwardly.

I then noticed how my brother eyed me somewhat suspiciously. “Are you getting sick?”

I frowned a little. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Good, because every time you get sick, I get sick right when you’re getting over it,” Garrett replied. “And I always seem to get it twice as worse, too.”

“Oh stop it, Garrett. You do not,” I responded, loosely resting the arm with the purple casting on my hip.

“Whatever. You’re wrong though.”

“Of course I am,” I muttered darkly with sarcasm.

“What are we talking about?” Kennedy asked as he strolled up to us with a humongous red bag of Skittles.

“Nothing important,” I answered, still staring at the big bag filled with various colors of sugar. “I didn’t know they made bags of candy that big,” I pondered aloud.

He let out a laugh. “Neither did I.”

“You know, I think your fans try to bring you all this high sugared candy so you’ll gain some weight, making you guys easier to chase after,” I theorized.

“Whoa,” Jared responded, astonished. “That’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Ugh,” my brother scoffed. “No, it’s not. That’s a stupid reason to bring us candy. They do it ‘cause we’re they’re favorite people on the friggin’ planet- not to make us fat so they can catch us.”

“Well alright, Garrett, but you just muse over your little fantasy there while you’re breaking into that bag of Starbursts you got tonight,” Kennedy replied. I nodded my head in agreement.

“Shut the hell up. You know you’re going to eat that bag of Skittles, Kennedy.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Not alone, that is,” I added with a mischievous smile as I eyed the pretty bag of luscious candy.

“You two are ridiculous,” Garrett mumbled.

“You know it,” Kennedy and I seemed to reply together. We smiled proudly at each other.

“Hey, losers.” We all turned our heads to see Tim strolling up to our group. He then stopped and causally asked, “Ready to go?”

I furrowed my brow in a questionable frown. “Ready? Ready to go where?” A couple of the others chuckled lowly. Some didn’t and stayed quiet.

“Home,” Tim replied blankly.