The Stranger

Chapter One

+ Rachel +

I pick at my food, not having any appetite at all. Ever since I remembered the dream it's all I can think about. Everything about it, I even dreamt from Sky's point of view. That's kind of cool but it just hurts to think I've lived through an amazing relationship just to have it ripped away by reality.

"Rachel are you okay?" My mom asks.

I keep staring at my food, "I'm fine," is all I can say. "Just tired," I shrug.

These past few days have been strange around the house. In my dream I had four siblings, in real life I'm an only child. In my dream I lived in a townhouse in the ghetto, in real life I live on an estate and my family is considered socialites.

In my dream I had nothing but Sky.

In real life I have everything but Sky.

I manage to finish half of my plate then I leave to go up to my room. My gigantic room. It's double the size of Regina George's in Mean Girls but it's styled like Massie's from The Clique, not a surprise considering those are my two favorite movies. It's a quite oversized now that I think about it, even my bed is huge, though it's nice. Circular mattress, white sheet set, white canapé hanging in the center, classy.

I pick up a big box of photos that my parents left on my desk. Apparently before the accident I had taken down all my pictures so I could reorganize them. Now I'm just looking at them to help me understand what's real and what's not.

I skim over the box, half of the pictures are normal and half are from a Polaroid. I remember begging for a Polaroid when I was about nine, I loved photography and I still do.

I take out a picture and see it's from when I was about six. It's a picture from Halloween, I'm with Josh and Morgan, I'm dressed as Wendy from Peter Pan and Josh is Peter. Peter Pan is still one of my favorite movies, and Peter Pan was my childhood crush. Josh knew this, smooth Josh, smooth. Then of course Morgan is third-wheeling dressed as a flapper. It could be worse she could be seventh wheeling like Ben... In my dream...

Everything just leads back to the damn dream.

It isn't until I pull out a picture from my eighth birthday party that I realize something horrible. I missed my eighteenth birthday. I missed going into adulthood.

Well, that sucks.

I brush it aside, I'll have other birthdays.

Well, hopefully.

----

I've been back in school for about a week and a half and I'm already all caught up. Sure it was a tad hard getting caught up in AP Econ and AP Statistics, but I was able to mange. Staying in the top five for my class was challenging but as far as I know I've kept my place.

I may have been able to regain my academic life but my social life on the other hand is still a little off. At lunch I sit with Josh and Morgan, along with some other people that we all know through dance and acting classes. The thing is even though I'm surrounded by people, talking to me, laughing at my jokes, I still feel so alone. It's like I'm here, but not. I can engage in conversations but not one hundred percent. Something is always keeping me back from truly being here. It's the false reality my mind created, whenever I'm not speaking to someone I'm just daydreaming what I want my life to be like. It's a continuation of my dream, except this time I wasn't almost murdered, Josh and I aren't cheaters, my parents aren't dead or insane, and Josh isn't a psychopath. Though I feel guilty whenever I dream about life with Sky when I'm with Josh, but I can't help it. I love Josh with all my heart, well I love the real Josh not the one my mind created, but I can't help but think about Sky all the time.