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It wasn't what I was expecting. Not the way she flinched at my words, nor the way her eyebrows squished together as she looked at me. I stumbled back at her gaze. My heart pounded against my ribs like crazy. The realization of what was going on set in.
I understood how absurd the whole situation seemed. But with the waves of nausea hitting me, I did not appreciate my best friend looking at me like I had lost my marbles.
"Stop looking at me like that, Gail! I know how this sounds, okay?" I flipped, the muscles in my body tightening.
Abigail instantly pushed forward in her seat, her hands outstretched in a motion to grab my shoulders. To make me understand, perhaps? I wasn't really sure at that moment.
But I flinched, unable to take a condescending look, not with the tightness already building in my chest. And with the way, even the fluffy rugs beneath my curled fingers felt like sandpaper against my skin.
She cocked her head to the side, eyes drawing in with her lips turned downwards. "Come on, now. I don't think you're crazy. This is just..." she paused and turned to the laptop screen, then back at me. "It's..."
I jerked up from my position. There was no way I was going to let her give me one of her lectures on reality and otherwise. Because this was no teenage fantasy about seeing the man of your dreams, it was so much more than that. And there was only one way I could show her that.
So I rushed in to my room, opening up my bedside drawer where my evidence lay. I scooped a handful of the sketch pads there.
Her eyes widened once I ran back in, scrambling up from her position on the chair. "What in the... Eyi, are those what I think they are?"
I dumped them right in front of her on the sofa she previously occupied. My chest heaved in and out as I pointed to them. "Look at them, Abigail. Pick your choice and look at the pictures," I paused and pointed to the laptop screen, "Then take a look at him and tell me if I'm hallucinating."
"Okay, hold on." She took a step back with her hands raised. "This is getting..."
"Ridiculous? Crazy? I know. But just... Just look, please." My voice broke. The swirling emotions in me took a form I didn't even understand.
With each passing second, it was all turning into way more than trying to prove I wasn't crazy. My lips pressed together as a slight quiver formed in the pit of my stomach. Doubt was setting in. I needed to know then that someone else was seeing what I was seeing. That even though the guy that had just started appearing in my dreams ever since then was now standing behind me in that picture, it wasn't a warped-up version of reality I had made up.
So when I looked at Abigail with my lips quivering, she saw it. My raw need. She took in a heavy breath and with no other word needing to be spoken; she picked up one sketch pad, scrolling through it.
I stopped breathing as her brows creased, drawing closer together with each page as she turned. Her eyes flickered from me back to the sketch as she picked a second and then a third. The colour of her skin turned pale while her lips formed an o.
Abigail collapsed onto her knees just in front of the laptop, zooming in on the picture to get a closer look. Her eyes switched every so often between him in the picture and him on the sketch pad.
"Holy crap," she muttered and air swooped back into my lungs as if she'd just asked me to breathe with a power unknown to the force of nature. I sank into a seating position beside her, my eyes tearing up.
"Holy mackerel, it's him! It's the same guy. I mean, look at that face, the way the roundness goes down to that defined jaw and then there's..." She went on trying to convince me it was the same guy. My breathing eased up slightly, my eyes fluttered shut as I listened to everything I had already noticed without looking back and forth between the picture and the sketch pads.
When she was done, she turned to me. Her breaths had gotten shaky, her eyes were clear with different emotions spinning in them. "H-he is real. H-ha-how is he real?"
We both turned back to the screen, letting the question fill the room and the very essence of our being.
How was he real? But most importantly, why had I been dreaming of him?
"I don't know," I muttered, not realizing I said that out until Abigail turned to me. "But I'll be damned if I don't find out."
I stood right up without missing a beat. It was like my breathing changed and everything in me became more alert. There was one thing set in my mind and every move I made was something that would lead me there. The shrine. It was where he was standing in the picture and with the energy, I could feel sizzling at the tip of my fingers; I was going to search for him there.
With that taking over my train of thought, I didn't realize Abigail stood up too until I turned to leave, everything I needed with me, and she was standing right in front of the door, hands out to stall me.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, her eyes wide and stance open like she was ready to be a barricade to keep me from stepping out if she had to. My brows arched upwards, and she shook her head. "You know what? Don't answer that. You can't be seriously thinking of going out there this late to go find him?"
"But I am."
"You've got to be kidding me!"
"Look, we have all these questions with no answers and he might have them."
She let out an exasperated sigh, pointing back to the table. "Do you realize how many hours have passed since we took that picture? He might not even be there anymore!"
"And my keyword is might! If there is even a slight chance, no matter how minute it is, that he'd still be there, I'm taking it. I have all these questions running a marathon in my head, driving me through all depths of insane, but most of all, I just want to know why. Why did he appear in my dreams right after she..." The rest of the words stuck in my closed-up throat. My hands reached for the pendant that felt hot against my skin through the layers of my clothes.
But I didn't need to say anymore as Abigail softened.
My eyes shut for a moment as I tried to take in deep breaths. Once I got a bit of bearing back, they fluttered back open and stared into Abigail's soothing gaze. "I need to know."
Abigail gulped hard and nodded her head. "Fine, but we do this together, okay? And the moment it's getting too late, we come right back."
I opened my mouth to protest, but she wasn't done.
"And then we continue the search tomorrow and the day after that, if we have to. But I will only allow you out of here if you agree to my terms."
"I..."
"Please, Eyi. I'm begging you. We search but not at the expense of anything that gets you hurt."
Sighing, I nodded. It was really the least I could do.
She released a breath, the edges of her lips building up a smile but never really completing it. She took the keys from my hands. "I'm driving."
By the time we got to the spot the picture was taken, the evening sun was already casting really long shadows onto the ground. The bright hues of the city were set aside by the orange tinge of the setting sun. But that didn't stop us. It didn't stop me. Not yet.
The few tourists and locals went about their business as Abigail and I twirled around the place, searching. There was no name we could call, and that made it even more difficult. But I knew everything I needed to know about those black curls down to the very form of his body, and so I looked. Not stopping. Even with the way my heart rammed against my ribs with every turn I took.
The world spun around me, anticipation crawling over every inch of my skin.
He had to be here. He needed to be here. I really needed him to be. He just...
My breath hitched as the world stopped. My body froze in place, as it felt like everyone else around me did. Everyone except him.
There was that laid-back stance as he moved. His hands swept through those curls like they had once before in my dreams. It was him.
Tingles exploded throughout my body and my legs moved before any information could fully set in. Abigail shouted my name, but it was all in the distance. I couldn't focus on anything, not with him just at the tip of my fingers.
My heart pounded as I stumbled forward, stretching forth my hand to reach out to him. All the different things that could happen when he turned to me went through my head. Would he also heave a breath of relief at the sight of me, too? Or would he be confused, wondering who I was?
All that different scenarios raced through my mind, but none of them prepared me for that charming sea-blue eyes filled with confusion that turned to face me.
My world shattered.
It was wrong; it was all wrong. It wasn't him. His face was all wrong and there was his hair. It was meant to be a shade darker with tinges of blue highlights. And his lips weren't that full. He wasn't...
I stumbled backwards, collapsing onto the pavement. My eyes clouded with tears.
Footsteps padded hard against the concrete floor and a couple of murmuring followed, but I couldn't focus. Not with my ears ringing and my head pounding.
Everything was wrong.
Hands wrapped tight around my shaking body just as sobs broke out from my lips.
"Hey, hey, hey! It's okay. We'll find him. This was just a mishap. You're overwhelmed, that's all."
"I thought- I thought it was him." I sobbed into her shoulders.
"I know, I know," her voice broke as her hands patted my back softly. "But it's just a mishap. We'll go back. You'll dream about him once again and who knows, maybe he'll leave a clue and then we'll come back here tomorrow to find him, okay?"
But despite the soothing words and the ease that her hands were creating rubbing against my back, it didn't stop the tears or soothe the dull ache that was building up within my chest or fill the hole expanding in me.
It was like I was losing her all over again.
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𓆩♡𓆪 𝕎𝕆ℝ𝔻 ℂ𝕆𝕌ℕ𝕋: 1808
𓆩♡𓆪 𝕋𝕆𝕋𝔸𝕃 𝕎𝕆ℝ𝔻 ℂ𝕆𝕌ℕ𝕋: 3505
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