The room was warm and attained a positive feel.
You opened your eyes ever so slightly and yawned. The sun had just peaked over the edge of the earth to mesmerize you with its utter compassion and faithfulness to its role. It was so important to the rest of the world, and it never gave up on its duty. What if the sun went disappearing? Would everything fall into chaos? Maybe there would be a new light to fill its empty place. Would the moon take over? A moon that lasted all day, with no sleep or rest... Wouldn't it just get tired as well? Then everyone would ask why they both left with nowhere to be found. But was the sun really that important? Couldn't people evolve to survive without it? It wasn't like the darkness was scary.
Did you oversleep?
You checked the time on your phone and saw that you had fifteen minutes before you had to jump in the car and leave. Therefore, you had to check on Jeff and make sure that he was up. But if he was, wouldn't he have woken you up too?
"Jeff?!" you called, stumbling out of the room. "Are you up?"
No response.
So you ran like a bullet down the stairs and found yourself face-to-face with the cold ice surrounding crystal-like eyes.
"I am now," Jeff yawned.
That moment mattered to you more than you ever could have imagined. You felt the need to remember every single aspect of every day with this guy. But why? There were no time limits... There were no endings. In fact, it was only the beginning. You were about to fly to Paris and experience something you've never been able to do before. The city of love- that's where you wanted to be. Imagine all the pictures... The streets at night, and the stars in the illuminated sky... Magnificently beautiful. But why did everything seem beautiful? His eyes were beautiful. His thoughtfulness was beautiful. The clock on the wall was just... beautiful.
"I'll go grab my stuff," you muttered.
"Arighty."
You were having trouble carrying the suitcase you meticulously placed near the top of the stairs the night before, so Jeff took it down without a problem.
"Are you nervous?" he asked.
"Of course not," you said.
You began to make your way back down the wooden steps, but your sock slipped from the friction and you fell through the air. Your hair flew with the wind from the window as a shiver circled the serpent in your spine, and weightlessness overcame your body. Closing your eyes with instinct, you felt an impact with two warm arms.
"You really need to be more careful. One more hit on that head of yours and you can count on your memories never returning."
He was right. You were so careless around him. The one thing you wanted to remember could sacrifice your goal altogether. Wasn't that pretty ironic? That it could be the death of you? But don't get carried away... You were sure that everything would work out in the end. It was your destiny, and as long as you didn't do anything to change the situation dramatically, you would be fine.
"Sorry," you mumbled.
The airport wasn't too far away, so the car ride was less than silent. You just thought different thoughts and dreamt about different dreams. You counted the number of trees that passed by and how many red cars made left turns. Every bird you saw in the sky was tallied and all the stoplights you got to breeze through received a line through the humidity of the car window. You watched your cold breaths take flight every time you breathed just so that you could wonder why the warm body it came from had to leave it so chilled. Why did you? Your heat couldn't stay with it longer?
Your flight ended up being delayed for three hours, so after getting your luggage to the ramp, Jeff took you across the street to a park. He said you used to go there a lot and that he wanted to see if it would help, but you knew that the real reason for him taking you there was to spend time with you. And you appreciated it. It was, again, beautiful. You had never seen cherry blossom trees in your life, but they seemed to just suddenly appear as you walked along a stone path. The pink and red petals soared onto the tops of the water in the charming fountain overlooking the center of a leviathan maze of orchids and chrysanthemum. As the wind became stronger, you became more interested in the sound the vegetation made when it danced. Nothing would ever compare.
You noticed that Jeff was keeping his eyes away from you as if he was scared to look. Was he nervous?
"Jeff? Are you okay?"
"Um, yeah," he said. There was a slight brush of red on his face.
As your hair matched the frequency of the wind, you slowly etched your hand behind Jeff's, and you sensed the amiability of fingers wrapping around yours. You slightly smiled at the blue eyes that were now staring at you and they seemed to smile back.
They used to say it only takes ten minutes to fall in love with someone.
Was two days enough?
"Hey," you muttered, "do you think that this is a good idea? Like actually going to Paris and all? It just makes me think that maybe we were together for so long, and now it's back at square-one."
"It's not like that at all," Jeff murmured. "I still remember everything, so it's not like everything was lost."
"Couldn't you just tell me then?"
It would be easier if he sat down and told you everything that happened. Sure, you wouldn't get to experience it for yourself, but at least you would know how he felt during all of it. And if he was good at reading you, he would know how you felt too. It made no sense for you to even go at that point. You wouldn't have any fun if you always had the stress of remembering on your mind, right?
Jeff stared at you as the sun hid behind and cloud and shadowed his bellowing eyes. As he spoke, two birds took off behind him and fluttered their wings obtrusively.
"Some things are better unremembered."
...What? What did he mean? Did something bad happen? Did you guys have a bad history? What if something occurred that caused you to lose your memories? Gosh, it just kept getting better and better. Every time you thought something was perfect, you figured out that something was far from it.
"I would know that better than anyone. And you should too."
That was too much. He changed. His personality just... flipped. You didn't like it one bit. One moment, you felt protected, and the next, you wanted to run. Was that strange? Was it strange that you wanted to run? His wolf-eyes were getting the better of you, and you wanted to retreat back into your humble hole of a home.
In your mind, you were just a rabbit, and you were a rabbit running away at a high speed. Your legs could only carry you so far before the darkness surrounding the trees you began to follow would control you and move you like a puppet lost in the oblivion, searching for an answer to all your fears. But before you slammed your thumb on the trigger, a net would be there to snatch you up and take you to a place you never dreamed you would ever have to go. You would be ensnared by the wrath of an unforeseen enemy, and nothing you did would ever release you from that hell. You would-
"Hey, are you okay?"
Déjà vu, déjà vu, déjà vu... Well, that's what hit you.
And the scene was automatically reset. You were standing in the middle of the airport watching Jeff walk ahead of you. People shuffled by innocently and slugged around your unmoving self as the crowd blocked your vision and suffocated all hope of catching up to him. You began to call out, but no one would hear you. You started to cry in your mind, but no one would read you. You even tried to huddle on the floor for relief, but, alas... No one would see you. That was the true nightmare that came to life.
"You seriously need to be more careful. Not joking this time."
He was standing over you with his hand outstretched.
You stared.
"Coming? We're gonna miss the flight."
So you grabbed onto his hand and let it guide you through the long hallway leading to the interior of the plane. The higher you flew away from all the politics and stupid societal flaws of the nation, the less free you felt. You were enclosed in a moving airship with a million strangers. But the person that felt the most like a stranger was sitting in the seat right next to you.