My Enemy, Love

Chapter Twenty-Five

Alli's POV

It was early afternoon when I decided to take a nap on the couch. Well, it was supposed to be a nap, but I sort of ended up falling asleep. It was probably because I was so tired and hardly got any rest at nights; it seems like I've been that way for months.

Oh, yeah, probably because of the dreams I've been having. Ever since we got back from Seattle I've been having these dreams that are vivid and feel incredibly real. In some, I'm sitting on the beach with Gail and talking, but the others...they're nightmares. Horrible dreams where I'm running from something that's chasing after me.

I don't know which dream is worse: fear or memory. To see Gail again, alive and well, or to be in constant terror and running for my life...

I was sitting on an empty beach in the middle of a summer day. The wind was warm and gently blew around me, moving my hair slightly and shifting small specks of sand onto my hands and feet. Sitting next to me was Gail, and she was as beautiful and healthy as she had been before she was diagnosed. 

"Look, Allister." She said as she pulled a small object from her pocket.

The object looked like one of those Russian nesting dolls that when you open the first one, there's a slightly smaller replica inside. Then if you open that one there's an even smaller one inside there, and so on. This one was male, however, as it had on a mask of a man's profile that covered the face. The mask was what made it masculine, displaying an attractive facade. "Meet Love." She said with a smile, holding the doll out to me.

I recoiled at the name and tried to back away from her and the doll, but found that I couldn't move. She reached over and pulled the mask off of the doll, and beneath it was the ugliest face I'd ever seen. "You think Love is ugly and wears a pretty mask to fool you, but you don't seem to look beneath the ugliness."

"Why should I?" I asked, staring at the doll bitterly. "I know what's there, and it's nothing but pain and misery. Love is ugly and I don't need any of it."

Gail just shook her head at me. "Love is not ugly," she said. "The truth is." She pulled open the middle of the doll and inside was another, but somehow this doll was bigger than the previous one. It was still male, just like the first doll, but it wasn't wearing a mask and its face was beautiful in an angelic way. She held the doll out to me and I took it.

I tried to pull the middle, but it wouldn't open. This was the final doll, completely solid all the way through. I noticed for the first time that it was crying, and it had a small, red heart with a black hole in the center on the chest.

Suddenly, without warning, Gail got up and started walking away.

"Abigail!" I called, standing up. I tried to run after her but I found that once again I couldn't move from my spot.

"Find the real ugliness in the world," Gail called over her shoulder, still walking away. "There is more to Love than you think you know."

I felt something, someone, gently nudging me. It woke me up from my dream, but I kept my eyes closed.

"Do you think she's alive?" A voice right next to my ear said in a slow British accent.

"I saw her breathe a few seconds ago." A second voice replied, this one more distinctly Irish.

"Guys, if she's sleeping then leave her alone." Another British voice chimed in, but it was different from the first, and it sounded farther away.