All in my head

Day 1

Day 1: 20th December 2018
I was standing in my backyard and the wind was blowing at a slow tempo, but it felt faster since I was wet. My hands were wrapped around my thin shoulders to shield them from the cold. I didn't move and neither did I want to move. My wet body was the reason I stood in the same position where I was.
I saw a cat sitting at a distance of just a few meters from me. I have quite a big adoration for cats so I took a tiny step forward in order to catch hold of it. It was so tiny and greyish white in color.
As I took my second step the cat met my gaze. I put a halt to my walk. Slowly, I moved my other feet too. That's when it ran away and stopped under a tree which was a bit far from where I was standing. I ran towards it really fast and fell down on the grass.
"Ow." I spoke in a very soft voice. I had hurt my right hand and a scratch appeared near my elbow which gradually started to bleed. "Shit!" I said in a low voice while I got up on my legs.
I was wearing a little white dress which was flowing despite of being damp. I curled my hands in a hugging position around me once again. I was still glaring at the cat but this time, someone picked it up from behind the tree. I could only see his hands but I could tell that he was a man wearing a black sweatshirt with sleeves pulled up. His wrists were tight and forearms were muscular. His skin was tan and he had cleaned nails like he'd had a manicure just a couple of hours before. He had a tattoo on the back of one of his hands. I reckon it was of a lion. But before I could do anything I heard a thunder. I shuddered; looked up at the sky and-
I woke up on my Adirondack chair with a mild shock on my body. The silver lining from the lightening appeared and I could see it from my window. It certainly was just a dream.
It was around 3 a.m. in the morning. My fireplace was still burning and the heat reached me. I was warm but I couldn't understand why I felt so cold in my dream. "Dreams are supposed to be interconnected with reality," I mused to myself.
Whatever I know about dreams is that they are a part of what you feel or think about. If you feel cold in the real world, it's possible to have shivers in your dream too. If you feel choked, it's possible to feel the same in your dream. I was doubtful about mine. I was completely warm but still I felt cold in my dream.
I shoved all those thoughts into one corner and decided to read a book. I wasn't feeling sleepy anymore because I had spent the last entire day sleeping on my couch as I was tired working out more than I should've done according to my normal routine.
While reading I got lost to such an extent that I lost track of time. It was 6 o'clock in the morning and I had to get ready to visit my little sister (cousin), Sara. She was just six years younger than me but that never made a gap between us. She was in seventh grade and I was in college first year. We decided to meet up at 7 o'clock as she had to empty her attic. Her house was being fumigated for bugs so she had to spend the night with me.
I got dressed in my sweat suit, which was all I liked to wear. It was comfortable and hassle free. Unlike a skirt or flowy crop tops, I wouldn't have to manage it with care. I could sit the way I like. I could lie down and not worry about any malfunction. I loved being free.
I started walking to the end of my backyard where I had parked my bike. I sat on it and started pedaling it forward. I had a car too, which my parents left for me, but I never drove it as I was always scared to drive. I remember when I was learning to drive with my father; he would always want me to begin with slow driving. He said, "Anyone can drive fast but only a few can drive slow, and that's the most difficult thing. So I'll teach you to drive slowly first, and fast later."
I reached Sara's house in about fifteen minutes. She was, as always, busy drawing on her sketchbook and not helping her father.
My eye caught Mr. Rylie's attention. Mr. Rylie was Sara's father. She did not have her mother staying with her as she would travel here and there for meetings and social events and come back home only at weekends.
"I'll always be there to help you Mr. Rylie." I slyly said it to him in order to tease Sara.
Sara was not my best friend but she was definitely the closest one I ever had. Having her in the form of a sister and a friend with whom I could spend my time when I felt alone was a good thing for me. I never visited her too much but I was always there to help when she or her family needed me. I was never a person who would go out with people and have fun at parties. Maybe that's the only reason why I never had real friends.
"It's okay Aura, but I could expect my daughter to help me when you're not around." All of us laughed at this.
We continued moving boxes into the outside storehouse; cleaning those dirty vases kept in the dark for so long and laughing about all those silly things we did while we worked. We ate lunch and began to do our work again.
"Is that from your marriage?" I asked Mr. Rylie as he was cherishing his memories from the photo album.
"Yes. It is indeed." He smiled.
"When is she coming back?" I asked.
"She's going to come on Monday. Her schedule is very busy."
"Next time, I'm going to go with her. I feel tired in this boring place where I just sit in the front yard all day. I'm an artist. I need to explore places." Sara's voice was funny.
"Yeah, I think you should go because we're bored of having you here with us." I retorted.
"See, everyone's bored of everything and the least anyone deserves is a change."
"We'll surely get you a change as soon as possible."
"Yes. And that soon is until I complete my school studies." She rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna get the other side cleaned. You guys carry on."
Mr. Rylie and I met our gaze and started laughing after witnessing Sara's inexplicable behavior.
We waited for our fumigation team to arrive and do their job. When they arrived, Sara and I went to my house and watched T.V all day. We talked about her school crushes and my celebrity crushes. I never had crush on any of my school mates or college mates. I always had it the hard way by liking people who were beyond my reach.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck with an eighty year old young adult." Sara softly commented, smiling with her lips pressed.
"That's ironic." I retorted.
"Why do you have to induce a competition?" She rolled her eyes.
"I never did that. Why do you think so?" I smirked.
"Because you are competing with all those wannabe girls out there who don't date men just to concentrate on their careers. Aren't you?"
"Woah! So let me give a confirmation. I don't date because no one has proposed to me yet. Plus, if anyone had, then they're just jerks who play around with women. You don't want me to date those asswholes now do you?"
"Hmm... So it means that we're not going to have someone who looks like a man, apart from our Dads, in our house for a long time."
We both chuckled to this. "That's so unfortunate Sara." I grinned.
When it was about 11 o'clock, we decided to call it a night. I was so debilitated that I slept on my couch. Sara slept on the couch next to mine.
To say that I was only dreaming would be an understatement. It felt so existent and non-dream like. It all started from where it had ended. I was still standing on my feet but I wasn't damp anymore. The weather cleared and it was the time when the sun would be at its horizon, just about to dive into the earth.
The hands that picked up the cat caught my attention. While I was still trying hard to comprehend what was going on, I also wanted to know who was behind the tree. I felt curious about the hands. I took a step forward and the grass creaked. There was silence everywhere so I could hear the creaking. I took some more steps and finally reached to the point where I could see who he was.
"Hello!" I whispered.
It was a boy, nearly aged twenty. He was carefully holding the cat in his hands and petting it with his fingers. He was tall (not very tall). The first things that I noticed were his eyes. His eyes were dense with eyelashes giving it the most gorgeous look. His eyebrows were perfectly shaped and dark with scythe shaped structure. I had never seen such beautiful eyes ever before.
"Hi. What's up?" He looked at me, finally. He gave a bright smile with his lips pressed together. I could see his perfect jawline; perfect cheek bones; perfect Roman nose and clear tan skin with no beard. But most importantly, his hair were multi colored, black from the roots and blonde from the top with a tint of blue in it; pulled up in a classy hair up do which is officially named the low taper cut. He was wearing black sweatpants and a sweatshirt which complimented his wrestler's shoulders and sturdy physique.
I didn't know what to say. "Um... Hi, I'm Aura." I smiled and put my hands in the mini pockets of my dress.
"Hi Aura," he smiled again, still petting the cat.
"You... You can call me Aari. That's what everyone at college does." I sounded nervous.
"Well, I'm not one of your 'everyone'. So I'm going to call you Aura. Is that okay Aura Claire Anderson?" He gave me a sly smile and moved forward. The cat was still in his hands.
"How do you... How do you know my name?" I smirked and followed him. He was headed towards the road before my house's backyard.
"It's because I know you." He smiled. His way of speaking was that of a spirited baby who had unfortunately grown up.
"But I don't know you." There was a pause. "And exactly where are we?" I waved my head in order to realize what was going on.
He stopped. "You tell me. Where are we?"
His smile was so lovely I felt captivated by it for a few seconds.
"I'm guessing that I'm dreaming." I answered him in confusion.
"You are dreaming." His eyes widened. He handed me the cat and said, "Here, hold it."
I gently rubbed my hands on the cat's head. He put his hand forward to pet the cat in my hands. He almost touched my chest. Our eyes met and he gave me a smile again. This time it was a smile in which I could see his perfect teeth.
I smiled too.
"You did not tell me your name."
"What's in a name, Aura?"
"I want to know your name. Is it bad?"
"It's not bad but..."
"But... What?"
"It's not necessary to know my name actually." He sounded confused.
"Then what should I call you?" I demanded.
"Call me whatever you want. Personalize me."
"But if this is a dream, I won't see you again, right? I mean not all the time will it be possible to see you. Dreams don't repeat." I narrowed my eyes.
"Let's go and sit on the bench in your backyard. We'll talk it out." He grabbed my hand and quickly walked to the bench.
We both sat down and he was staring at me, fidgeting with his fingers.
"What?" I asked in confusion.
"Nothing," he replied and turned his gaze away.
I was convinced that I was dreaming so I got completely comfortable with him. Dreams, I suppose, lasted for a few minutes so I decided to talk whatever random thought popped up into my master mind. After all he was so beautiful.
"Are you going to say something? I'm starting to feel dizzy now. What is happening here?" I stood up from the bench.
"It's all in your head. You're dreaming." He winked too.
"First of all, if it's a dream then how is it continuing from where we left it last night? Secondly, who are you? I want to know the truth." My voice was stern and I demanded that to know was my right.
"It's just a dream and you're special. Most people have it. As I told you earlier it's all in your head."
"Okay. Then what are we supposed to do?"
"Talk... I guess." He smirked.
"Are you sure you're not messing with me right now?" I was stern.
"I'm not." He nodded sideways, his face was serious.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
I laughed.
"What is amusing you?" He enquired.
"I swear I don't feel like I'm dreaming. I mean this is so odd." I made a face.
"Why is it odd? Isn't it perfect to be a dream?"
"No, and that's because I don't know what we're supposed to do. I can't figure out what I should talk about next. I can't figure out what the hell am I doing here. But if someone is supposed to be dreaming then these thoughts don't pop up in their head. Would you explain, please?"
"Look, calm down. It's only a dream and I can say it because it is. Trust me." He tried to pacify me by reaching out to me and holding my shoulders."
I was looking in his eyes. He was looking into mine.
"Okay. But I still don't feel like it." We sat down.
Silence.
"I still haven't thought of something to do." I rolled my eyes.
"What's your favorite color?" I could imagine how hard he tried to think of that question.
I sniggered and answered, "Blue it is."
"Blue?"
"Why? Is there something wrong in liking blue? To be specific I like sky blue." I enquired.
"There's nothing wrong in liking blue Aura. I like it too. But I like black more than blue."
"Oh! I completely forgot about black. It's a nice color but blue has to be my favorite." I was excited and I know he noticed.
"Okay. Why blue?" We were talking like we were kindergarten best friends and had already met before a million times.
"Because I love the sky and thinking about it."
"So that's the only reason to like blue." He stated which sounded like a question to me.
"It's like... I'm a poet. I like to admire everything. For example when I'm sad I just sit on my window and look at the sky for hours. It kind of... liberates me of my stress and all the things that I've been going through that day." He nodded and put his gaze on my hands which were rested on my knees. "What about you? Why do you like black?" I continued to ask.
"It's because I like the sky too. But I beg to differ and prefer the night instead."
"Ahh... So I'm the sun and you're the moon. I wonder how we even met here. We're not supposed to meet, right? I know it's all just a set up." I grinned and his look hardened as if he'd heard something awful.
I grimaced and rolled my eyes while he was staring in some other direction. "You know what? I'm gonna wake up and then you'll be gone." I nodded.
"And how are you planning to do that?" He enquired with interest.
"I think... blinking my eyes too hard and pinching would do it." I made a goofy and thoughtful face.
"Let's give it a try. C'mon, do it."
"Don't challenge me." I came closer to him while we sat on the bench.
"I'm not challenging you. I just want to know how your plan works out. Simple, is it?"
I blinked my eyes vigorously almost ten times. Nothing happened. I looked at him. He was still there, sitting beside me. I blinked again, this time it was more vigorously. I pinched myself too. But it was too hard so I gave up.
"Shit. What kind of dream is this?" My losing behavior was at its worst.
"I think you lost pretty badly." He smiled.
"Uhh, you win. WHATEVER!" I didn't care anyway.
"Tell me your story." He insisted as he aligned his eyes to mine.
"What?" My eyebrows were raised.
"I want to know your story."
"What do you want to know? I don't have a story to tell."
"Everyone has a story. Yours is just inside your head."
"Oh please. If you're going to talk about that book 'everyone has a story', I think I wouldn't be interested in this conversation."
"Well, I haven't read any book called 'everyone has a story'."
"Lucky you!"
"But I really want to know your story." He smiled.
I paused and continued. "Well if you mean that I never scored good grades in school; I don't have many friends and the ones which I have are not really close to me; I try very hard to please my parents but I'm always incapable of doing that, is my story, then that's my story."
He was looking at my face constantly and did not move his eyes for even a second (without any expression). After a few seconds I spoke.
"Do you like it?" My eyes widened and my cheeks lit up.
"Dude, you're in deep shit." He laughed.
"Yeah," I laughed too. "I'm kind of philosophical sometimes, though."
"Then why are you holding all of it back? You can just let it out and cry."
"What difference would it make if I cried? I mean if I did, I'd just shed a few tears, release some pressure from my eyes and nothing would be as I want it to be. I'd have to face it all over again. And if you just mean to suffer all day and cry all night and then repeat the same thing over and over again, I think that would be utterly useless because my eyes would swell and my life would be miserable. Too much of crying isn't good because eventually I would have to face it in reality every day!"
"I know it's going to be hard for you to live in reality but that's your life dude and you've got to face it. The only person that can heal you is you. You can go out with people to feel like you're loved but when you don't love yourself no one can love you better. You need to understand that."
Talking to him didn't seem really awkward. I wanted to tell him whatever was going on in my mind. I wanted to confess things that I never really told anyone. Somehow I felt comfortable with him.
He was still looking at me with care. I could tell that he cared. We changed our position to a new one. He was lying on the ground and I was half lying and half sitting on the bench. We did not speak anything for fifteen minutes. I was looking at the sky and he was doing that too.
"Were you alive? I mean are you a ghost, because I'm getting those feelings?"
He paused for a second. "I know a joke."
I knew he was trying to ignore my question so I decided to go with the flow. "I'd love to hear that." I made a face.
"Oh you do. Then I won't say it." He was teasing me.
"Uhh! Why are you teasing me?" I curled my lip in baby anger.
He laughed. His voice soothed my ears just like the rain soothes the dry ground.
"Why?" I cried in my baby voice.
"I was just joking. I barely know any jokes." He put his hands on my head, his voice softened.
"You know I recently read this pick-up line on Instagram. It said, "Hey, are you the sun? That's because I want you to stay ninety two million, nine hundred and sixty thousand miles away from me."
"Woah," was all he could afford to say.
We both laughed.
"I thought pick-up lines were supposed to be a bit cheesy. Shouldn't they?" He made a smart guess.
"Oh of course they're supposed to be cheesy. But I am savage you know. I like unusual things more."
"And you remember the exact distance from the earth to the sun. Bravo!"
"Ya... I'm amazing." When I said this he looked at me as if I was the least funny person on the planet and he had to forcibly laugh all the time. Eventually we did laugh involuntarily.
"What's your favorite pick up line by the way?" I nudged him. We started walking.
"I know so many of them that right now I'm not able to recall any of them. I know loads of them, seriously."
"Once I read this thing. It was like... Do you have a name? Or should I call you mine?"
"Ohhhh!" This came out from his mouth for so long. Then this turned into laughter.
"Nice one, right?" I felt appreciated.
"Yeah, this one has to be the most 'lit' one by far. It's my favorite now." His voice was happy.
There was silence again, for the next ten minutes.
He broke it first.
"So, how's life going on for you?" It was a serious question.
"It's..." I took my time to think. "... below average." I waved my right hand.
"Below average?"
"Yeah, it's below average. Christmas is near. I guess it's going to be fun until Christmas comes, hopefully."
"I wish it will be okay for you and I also wish that my wishes could come true." He laughed it away.
"It's kind of weird." I sunk my head in grief.
"What's weird?" He demanded to know.
"This... whole situation where I have to just... sit inside my room and talk to the walls."
"Dude, I can totally understand that." He smirked.
"No. It's even more different now. Before... I used to hate it when I was supposed to be alone. But now this loneliness liberates me. I just don't want to have a bunch of friends."
"Everyone needs friends, Aura."
"I said that I don't need friends. But I do need a friend. I am in desperate need of it."
"Then, I think, you should go out and just rock 'n roll with someone."
I grimaced, "Ahh. That's not the point, man. It's like I don't go out but at the same time I imagine that someone would magically levitate from some corner of the world and come to my aid." I grinned with shame.
"That's..." he couldn't stop laughing, "That's so unfortunate."
"Ha ha ha. That's very funny." I sat on the grass.
"Listen, just take your time. It won't be like that forever." He sat down too.
"I know that. But how do I deal with it right now?"
"Talk... to me." He smiled.
"I am talking to you." I smiled too.
He stretched his hands forward and placed them gently on my shoulders. I jumped (metaphorically).
"It's going to be a long night." He wondered and raised his head up at the sky.
I was really impressed by the kind of person he was. Some might think that this is that cliché kind of attraction that almost everyone faces in which everyone is so much mesmerized by the person's beauty and the way they talk. But in my case, it was the same to some extent. I loved the way he looked. But above all, I had never had a guy talk like that to me.
For instance, if we take an example of a person who is wandering in the desert for almost his entire life all alone, and if by chance he finds company of a little boy who is lost too, I think the person would feel like he has found God. When there was no one to comfort him in the darkest nights and hottest days, he had finally found someone to care for; someone to talk to and someone with whom he could spend the restless nights under a tent. The same was with me.