Dreams Of You - gxg

3am

Dreams of love, longing and pining plague Ivy's nights. She can't escape it, she dreads the time when the world grows quiet, the skies dark and the moon bright. It means that she has to sleep.

Somehow, amongst the drama of her bestfriend leaving her behind, Ivy had developed a sort of insomnia. She can't sleep, when she can it's all dreams that feel too real and too exhausting, when she wakes up it's almost like she hasn't slept at all. She's so tired all the time.

Ivy blamed Dahlia. Her bestfriend. Or her ex bestfriend now.

Behind her window echoed the sound of voices in the distance, hushed and quiet. With every fifteen minutes a train would rush by, clambering on the tracks, shaking Ivy's room. She sighed loudly with each train, she hoped her roommates wouldn't be able to hear her. Ivy enjoyed the feeling of tension leaving her body with a long and deep breath. But the tension would build right back up again, she could feel how tense her muscles were, how they ached with stress.

Staring at her ceiling for hours was her nighttime routine. She replayed the moment when Dahlia told her she was leaving over and over again in her head. She felt crazy, she felt like she was weird for caring so much, for being so hurt. Objectively, she understands why, Dahlia got a scholarship to the best University in the country. But Dahlia left her, with only a days notice. What Ivy had thought was their dream, shattered into teeny tiny fragments. She was left to carry on their plan, alone. So now, she was ignoring Dahlia's every text and call. Her heart felt broken.

It's been three months since the whole ordeal. They're both settled into their first year at University. But it feels fake for Ivy, all the days blend into one and she feels like at the end of the day when she's laying in bed, staring up at her ceiling, that she didn't even do anything. That she passed her body onto someone else and they did it all and then they gave the body back to her when the day was over. It's all one, big blur.

Her phone flashes in the dark room, illuminating the ceiling, revealing every crack and discolouration. Ivy turns on her side, and reaches for her phone, angling it toward her. It's Dahlia, she's deleted her contact, but she recognises the number. She knows it off by heart now.

Dahlia does this every few weeks, calls Ivy up in the middle of the night. Ivy will always ignore it, let it go to voicemail, and then when the voicemail comes through, she picks it up and plays it close to her ear. She's usually drunk, slurring I miss you's and I'm sorry's.

Ivy watches as her phone vibrates, staring at the number as it rings. And then it stops, and the phone goes black. With a groan she gently tosses the device to the side, another train whizes by as she does.

She stares up at the ceiling again, waiting for the voicemail to come through as it always does. But she waits and waits and her phone doesn't light up the room like she thinks it will.

Ivy scrunches her face up tightly, holding back the tears that sting her eyes. They aren't far apart, fifty miles maybe even less. But to Ivy, it felt like they had oceans and mountains between them. Oceans infested with sharks, mountains full of bears and tigers.

Just over three months ago, they were inseparable, they spent every day together, and if they could, every night. They fitted together perfectly, Dahlia was just that bit taller than Ivy that the smaller girl could cuddle into her. Tracing absent minded patterns on her back with her fingernails. Ivy loved it.

Such a stark difference to now.

Hours go by, and Ivy has changed position over five times but still can't get comfortable. She's near to her nightly little break down, where she'll get up, go wee and cry messy, ugly tears, with big choking breaths. She hates her life right now, everyone keeps telling her it gets better but she's been waiting and it hasn't.