Serenity's Dreams

Serenity's Dreams Ch2

Chapter 2

Before and After

"Not to be rude, or anything, but... you know if you spent half the time you spend out here in a bar instead, you'd have ten men all over you in a minute."

I heard the voice, but it felt far away. I was sitting in lotus position in a dead end of the hedge maze. Meditation within walls of green living things had always done wonders for my peace of mind. I slowly moved my fingers to bring me back to my body.

"Instead, you hide away in nature and your work. It's kinda typical, you know. Kinda sad."

Everything seemed to be in slow motion, I was so relaxed in the early morning air of autumn. The fall chill was finally here. Even my voice felt far away as I tried it out.

"That's the beauty of treasure. It's meant to be found. Not my job to seek, but to be sought."

"Of course... the old excuse." Her tone was friendly, but she was annoyed under it all.

My eyes slid open and in a smooth rush the world came into sharp focus and not only to my eyes, but to my stomach. No longer did I feel like I was floating, instead the cold hard earth under my butt was rather solid. And I was hungery.

"It's not an excuse, Christina. Case in point: you don't come looking for much in the mornings. But here you are. Searching the maze for me at 5am."

"That's different, I'm not here for you."

"Then for what? Finally seaking inner peace?" I teased, but I hoped that really was the answer. From the time we met, Christina had been right on the edge of self-acceptance and self-loathing. She knew she could find more calm and happiness in life if she just surendered to it. That was what Serenity was for many people. A safe place to stop fighting.

"I might be pregnant again."

Not quite what I had been expecting, I found myself stuck, sitting here on the ground, my only way out blocked by a 5'2" blue-eyed brunette with one hand in her slacks pocket, the other holding a veti starbucks beverage. She looked rather pissed, now that I focused on her.

"...Eli's?"

I asked out of instinct. Christina and her husband had been seperated for over a year now.

"If I am... it's not."

Damn. This was a burden I would have to help her carry for another year. Briefly, I had a flash of clarity where time seemed to stop all-together. It was a sudden and startling knowledge, one that had happened before in my life so I recognized it immediately. It was the knowledge that I would remember these moments forever as a marker. Somthing that would seperate Before and After in the telling of a story. Everything was going to be slightly different from now on.

I reached out my hands to her, making her grimace and reluctantly walk forward. There was an alcove in the hedge wall to my right and a stone bench where I beckoned her to sit.

"You know nothing I say, no matter how wise can change anything, right?" I said quietly, inching closer to her feet, my legs still wound up in lotus.

"I knew that before you did."

"Right." I figured she was gonna make this hard. "You always knew me as a smart girl in school. The brainiac. The loner. Too inteligent and no good with the guys."

"You didn't know the first thing about being a girl." She mumbled, rubbing a tired blue eye. I smiled, remembering how tomboy I had been then. Still was, in many ways.

"And you had a charm that never failed to get you what you wanted. But you see... We both evolved to find our just dues. I refused to comform to anything feminine and I'm all alone. You went for the big 'M' word right off the bat and never turned back."