Life as a Young Dreamer

chapter 7, dreams;

I was laying in bed, curled up under the covers, Bradley at my side. I had soup in my hand and I let out a yawn, feeling tired. Being sick is extremely hard on a person.

Bradley watched me, a little frown on his face. He had taken the day off of school so that he could stay at home with me as I was sick. He demanded to, and didn't let me answer anything but 'okay'.

I let out a small cough and looked over at him, taking a sip of my soup. "What do you think of dreams?" I asked quietly.

Bradley rubbed the back of his head, and shrugged. "Dreams are horrible." He answered.

I watched him for a moment, and nodded. "I've always had alrightish dreams. And then one day I wondered what it'd be like to have bad dreams. They keep you awake. You can't think of anything but them. And it's all just random things that mean nothing. So I understand why you think they're horrible." I set my soup aside, and sat up in bed, stretching my arms.

"I especially think good dreams are worse. When you dream about an extremely happy thing, such as getting a puppy, that takes over your life as well. Plenty of people think that when you dream of a happy thing, that's you telling the future, and that you'll get the girl, or you'll get the car. I feel like it could ruin peoples lives, wondering why they keep dreaming of this puppy, when nothing at all relates to the puppy in real life." I ran a hand through my hair, letting out a breath.

Bradley nodded, and leaned back in his seat. "I feel like that's a similar thing to the people you see in movies getting genies. They have three wishes. They have to choose carefully. I don't know about you, but that would be horrible.

Worrying about what you would wish for. I feel like that's what would drive people insane."

I nod, and lean back, looking up at the ceiling. "Yeah. Because if you wished for a sandwich, you'd always have the regret of, oh, I should have saved that wish for something that was more important, you know?" I sighed, and let out a yawn.

Bradley reached over and felt my temperature to check if I still had a fever, and frowned when he felt that my forehead was still burning. "You have to get better soon, Kate." He told me, and stood up, walking off to get more cold medicine.

For the past few days I've been feeling horrible, and today I finally cracked. I hated the feeling of being sick, with a passion.

When Bradley came back in to give me pain medicine for the second time today, he took the chance to ask where my parents were.

I swallowed down the foul tasting medicine, and rubbed my throat. "They're out of town. They do that a lot. They run a pretty healthy business, and they get bigger every day, so.. they kinda are forced to." I explained, and hugged my teddy bear that was laying at my side close to me.

Bradley nodded, and looked around my room. "You can always stay over at my house when that happens, you know. I bet that talking to me about the mysteries of the universe would be much more fun than laying in here with no one." He smirked a little, giving me a nod.

I scoffed, and facepalmed. "Way for being modest, Bradley.." I muttered quietly, even though a grin came to my lips. I laid back down and pulled the covers up as much as I could, curling up. "What do you want to talk about now, though? I'm not in the shape to go and stay at your house, so I have to get all of your "smarts" in for now."

Bradley thought for a moment, trying to figure out for himself what to think of. "What about the future?"

I felt my face spread in a grin, and I nodded. "Yes! I have so many huge thoughts on the future. First of all, speaking in the sense of being like, "I can't wait for tomorrow," is idiotic to me. But of course, I still use the phrase because I'm human, but whatever. Anyway, think of it. Every day we get to think of this "tomorrow", but do we ever really get to see tomorrow? Unless you're literally dying, there isn't a way that you couldn't have another tomorrow after the next. Life is an ever flowing thing. So why constantly whine about tomorrow?" I tell him, chewing on my lip, and waiting for his response.

Bradley rubbed his hand together. "Don't you remember, the first day we met, when you said, "That's not the point. It's wanting to know more." That exactly this. The fact that tomorrow is physically somehow impossible to achieve, we still wonder. We want to know more, we want to be able to have everything laid out for us. Well, at least, most of us. I've met plenty of people, including you, which I truly doubt you want to know what's going to happen." He explained.

I grinned, and nodded, rubbing one of my eyes. "Yeah. I guess that makes sense. But, honestly, much like the genie thing, knowing what will happen to me would make me extremely anxious. If I knew that a bad thing was about to happen, and I had no way to change it, that'd be even worse than being oblivious and then having something bad happen." I ran a hand through my hair, noticing what a mess my hair was, all tangled.

Sigh.

Bradley nodded, and rested his chin on his hands, watching me. "The future is horrible too. Lots of things in this world are horrible." He said sadly, as if it was all just dawning on him.

"Plenty of things in this world are horrible. The thing is, though, is that we have to find the good in all of the bad things. If we can do that, we'll live a happy life. Well, as happy as personally possible. That's why I don't really talk to many people. Well, that, and the fact that not a lot of people know me like you. It'd be horrible, not only having to be around tons of people a lot, and then not being around people who have a simple shred of a brain.." I sigh again, and glance back over to Bradley.

Bradley just watched me, his eyes deep, obviously thinking. "Do you remember the day we met?" He asked me quietly. I nodded, and he continued on. "I didn't really know much about you. I thought you were a freak. But now that I'm here, I know that you are a freak. A total freak. The freakiest of freaks!" He stood up, grinning, and began to skip around the room. "Kate is weird!" He said, and finally stopped skipping, glancing at me. "In a good way. I didn't expect to be talking to you about things like this when I first met you."

I nod, and raised my eyebrows. "I definitely didn't either. It was a pleasant surprise." I let out a couple coughs, and slowly curled back up under the covers. "But right now isn't too pleasant. Come back tomorrow?" I asked, glancing over.

Bradley nodded, and walked over to the chair, grabbing his things. When he was heading out, I stopped him.

"Hey, Bradley, can we talk about changes tomorrow?"

"Same time, same place."

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I hope you enjoyed reading!
xx, Bright