Open Clarity

6. THE PARTY (part one)

"I've been looking for you for so long," he said as his smile came back. His friend and all the others suddenly faded away in the distance.

I hadn't dreamt of Matthew in a few years. The first time I had dreamt of him was when I saw him at his ninth birthday party. I was seven at the time. I had dreamt of him often after that, and each of my dreams was special to me – so special, that I still remembered each dream I had ever had of him. I was thinking about him all the time and had even told my aunt about him. I had wondered where I might have seen him before for him to keep appearing in my dreams. Aunt Addie's theory was that, because of the move, and because I found it difficult to make any friends, I was feeling lonely. My mind's way of compensating for that loneliness was to create a fictional person in my dreams. At the time it didn't feel that way. Reflecting back on it, though, I slowly stopped dreaming of him as I got busier with school and especially with Inger. Now that Inger was going away for the summer, I was probably recreating Matthew in my mind again. The only weird thing was that he felt so real and he made me feel so happy.

"You... you disappeared," I stammered, mesmerized by the depth of his eyes. He peered into my soul and warmed me from within.

"I never went anywhere," he said. "You just weren't looking. How's your aunt?" he asked.

"My aunt?" I couldn't understand the connection.

"When we were younger, you used to always tell me about your aunt and how much fun she was." We kept walking. I had turned to walk in his direction, following his group alongside him. His friends were quite a bit ahead of us. I could still smell the sweet scent of pine, but I couldn't see anything clearly except him. All of my surroundings were out of focus. He turned his face towards mine each time he spoke.

"Aunt Addie's great," I said a bit sarcastically. We were still very close, but in the back of my mind, I could still hear her telling me – crushing me – that he was just a figment of my imagination - even though I knew she was right.

"Let's go for a ride?" he said more as a question than a statement. I looked around and spotted a sage colored Vespa parked in front of a cabin. We still seemed to be in the woods, but this cabin had appeared from nowhere, as had the Vespa.

He fired it up and I climbed on behind him, putting my arms around his waist snugly. I rested my chin on his shoulder. His hair smelled like it had been freshly washed.

We drove down a small dirt road and turned onto a paved street. I felt exhilarated as the wind combed through my hair. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on my face. We didn't try to speak to each other – we were both comfortable with the silence between us. It was like we had been life-long friends and didn't need words to communicate.

When I opened my eyes, the sky had turned dark and cloudy. The wind had picked up a bit. It was a much stronger wind than the natural breeze that you would feel while cruising on a motorcycle. I felt its strength pushing us from side to side. Matthew's torso and arm muscles flexed as he tried to keep the handlebars steady. It got darker and foggy. I could smell the humidity in the air. I felt my heart pounding as we swerved left and right, trying to stay on our side of the road and avoid the oncoming traffic.

Just as it got so dark that I couldn't see anything around us, Matthew made a sharp turn and veered off the main road, onto a steep dirt hill. We came to a rough, bumpy stop amidst more trees. I was out of breath from the fear of crashing. I got off the Vespa and smoothed my hair, which was tangled from the windy ride. Matthew turned off the Vespa and set it on its stand. When I looked up, I realized it was no longer Matthew. His eyes were no longer pools of warmth, but they were an ice cold blue. I was so focused on his eyes, that I couldn't distinguish the rest of his face. From my peripheral vision, I could tell that his features were more chiseled than Matthew's, although his hair was still dark. Matthew's tank top was gone as well. This boy was wearing a white T-shirt with the sleeves stretched over his bulging biceps. His body was very buff.