DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES

My smile falters momentarily and brown eyes flash before me like a thunderstorm.

What am I doing?

I’m about to retort as he takes the phone from me using his other free hand and taps the tip of my nose in mockery. I rub it immediately, fighting an irritation when ultimately I lose. I sneeze violently with a shrill noise and Nate laughs out.

“Shut u-“

I’m stopped midway with yet another sneeze and I sniff heavily after I’m sure there are no more to come.

“Are you going to sneeze through all the photographs, I need a smile Callister, or better yet-“

I sense a warning edge to his voice and scoot further from him when suddenly his fingers tickle me uncontrollably at the abdomen and I land back onto his chest with a thud, laughing my eyes out.

“Nate! St-op it! Oka-y, okay. Don-e!” I speak out indistinctly through fits of laughter and wipe a tear when he stops.

I sigh heavily and look at him dangerously before moving my fingers over to his neck to tickle him! Ha revenge, best served cold.

But just like my cooking, it is an absolute failure.

He sits unfazed with a triumphant smile.

“I don’t feel ticklish. Now do you want to take that picture or not?”

I make up an irritated disgusted face at him before flashing my best smile for the photograph which he clicks.

This has got be one of the best nights.

We’ve been sitting, possibly for the last half an hour, silently drinking in the view.

I’m facing the window directly, leaned against Nate’s front as he has both his legs on either side of me, arms interlocked around my neck. He has one of his legs half folded with his knee up and I have my hands knotted in my lap.

There’s a palpable passion lingering in the intimacy with the strange comfort of it feeling almost natural.

And just like that, I think what Zach must be doing right now. Where he’d be, who he’d be with. And how I’ll never, have something like this with him. Because he’ll never want us to. I wonder if he’ll ever want this, with anyone, nevertheless.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Nate breaks the silence with his voice and I smile goofily as I decide to play a little.

After all, I don’t really want him to know him to know about Zach. One Lily is enough.

“My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” Nate chuckles behind me and I smile widely.

“John Green.” I say out proudly remembering how I had read the book, one of my favourites, over and over, sometimes all night long.

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” I look up to him, confused, impressed, and amused all at once.

“Sarah Williams.” It was his turn to be proud now. I look back to the view in front of me.

“No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. Bram Stoker.” I say, looking out front.

This is why literature had my heart. It always said the things I didn’t know how to, in the first place. No judgements.

“I love the silent hour of night. For blissful dreams may then arise, revealing to my charmed sight what may not bless my waking eyes. Anne Bronte.”

His slow words stir something inside of me as I feel an ironic undertone lying in them. But then so does mine own.

“True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind.”

My voice fades out into nothingness and I break off, without mentioning the author.

It was my dream to be proud of you. The one thing I only ever asked of you. And you couldn’t even give me that.

Are you incapable of snapping out of your dream, for even a minute?

Dreams have turned into a strictly no-fly zone for me. Because I couldn’t possibly watch myself crashing in them again. I shudder lightly and silently hope that Nate doesn’t catch it. And even if he does, he says nothing. For which I am grateful.

He has made me so happy in just one night. When did he get so close? So important?

We must be looking like a happy coup-

My wayward thoughts scare me and I decide to make conversation to keep my mind from going rogue. He seems occupied in his thoughts too. I wonder what he’s thinking about. But just like him, I don’t push.

“You have a grand gift for silence. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion. Arthur Conan Doyle.” I sense Nate smiling behind me as he answers.

“I want to write a novel about silence, what people don’t say. Virginia Woolf.”

“Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind-“ I break off to let him complete which I knew he will. I just didn’t know it would sound so much… more. Yet again.

“-then possibly my answer has crossed yours.”

Everything with Nate was always, more. We sit silently for another few minutes, still reeling with the heavy words we exchanged tonight. I had hoped to lighten the scene with it, but it had just added to the thick electricity all around us.

“You gotta love Doyle.”

“True.”

A vibration of my cell phone cuts through the tension and I pick it up a see a text from Lily.

L: Staying over with Steve. Don’t wait up ; )

I keep it back down and turn my attention back to the blue eyed golden boy. At least for the time we have together.

“You haven’t forgotten your literature, Nathaniel.”

“So haven’t you, Adalanna.”

I smile in satisfaction lightly and close my eyes, letting the darkness and the warmth of Nathaniel Alderidge, consume me.

*

“Alanna, hey.” I hear my name as a distant whisper amid the darkness and try to locate it.

“Wake up. We’re here.” I know this voice. Two fingers softy touch my hair. I know the touch too.

I open my eyes groggily as I find myself in a car and Nate bending low to my level his hand supported on the opened door of my side. When did I fall asleep?

“Come on, sleepyhead.” I stretch my arms lazily before getting out and Nathaniel closes the door behind me.

We’re back at my apartment.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not that heavy a sleeper.” I stifle a yawn and look up to him. It’s a design flaw.

He just can’t look dis-Nathaniel.

Which also translates to hot. Hot?

“Yeah, for someone who sleeps all their way down the tower and through the drive, you sure aren’t a heavy sleeper-“ He chuckles and my mouth forms into an O. I slept that long?

“-but you might be heavier in other aspects.” He bites his lip in suppressed amusement and I look back at him in horror!

“You carried me? All the way? Tower? Steps?”

“Yeah, well, I was tempted to leave you there but I thought it would be unethical.”

“And calling a girl fat is totally ethical.” Geez. I thought I was in good shape.

“I- no, uh- I think I called you – heavy, Adalanna.” He fumbles in amusement, trying to cover it up and failing desperately.

“That makes me feel so much better.”

“Come on. You know I was kidding. You look-“ He pauses to gauge my reaction while I raise an eyebrow.

“-perfect-“ My eyes widen further in happiness! Ah my poor heart! Nathaniel Alderidge thinks I’m perf-

“-ly proportionate.” My two seconds of happiness decrease by two seconds. Which means I am left with none.

He pouts playfully and someone teach me how to keep up with anger in a such a view. Please.

He’s enjoying this. THAT jerk is bloody enjoying this. And THIS jerk is bloody finding it adorable.

He walks with me up to the door like the gentleman he is, silent humour still in the air.

“You could have just woken me up. Like you did now.”

“Yeah, but then, I didn’t want to wake you because you looked-“

“Is this the part where you say I was looking beautiful and peaceful?” I hold the door handle and turn around slightly to face him. He is taken aback a bit but hides it quickly with a smirk.

“Uh… I was gonna say that you looked like you could use some sleep-“

Okay now seriously, please do kill me. Way over your head to embarrass yourself Alanna. Stop reading those novels.

“-especially since you didn’t get much of it last night.”

“Wha-, wait how. Of course, you know it.”

Who am I kidding? He knows bloody everything. And it turns out, all true things. He chuckles lightly and his blue eyes flicker in the darkness.

“It’s all over your face. You get cranky when you don’t sleep.”

I smile in surrender with a brief closing of my eyes and we both take a minute silently looking at each other. This human has got to be the best thing to happen to me. After Lily.

There’s a safety with him. Something I’ll never have with Zach. Maybe this is better. Healthier. Simpler.

I tiptoe up to him closing the distance between us, my breathing betraying me with every step. He stands so still, looking at me intensely, honestly, and I take his right hand into both of my own. His hands are so warm, soft.

“Nate, uh, thank you, for tonight- and for yesterday and fo-, screw it, I’ve lost count. Just, thank you.” I smile shyly.

“Anything for you, Adalanna.”

“Anything?” I flash a playful non-believing smile just to cut through the tension and his face turns too serious for a moment.

“Anything.” His voice comes out as a hushed whisper and his eyes are full of raw emotion. Which emotion, though?

I may be feeling a slight idea of what ‘okay’ must have meant to Hazel and Gus. And I’m astounded at how deep and heavy it is, much more than we feel while reading. One word that’s just both of yours.

He removes his hand slowly and leaves without another word, while I stand frozen to my place. I’m shaken and overwhelmed with an inexplicable emotion that gives me goosebumps.

Am I just falling? Just a few inches, but yes, maybe?

I take my time in the shower, thinking all about the whole day. How I had lived after so long. I get out and put on Nate’s hoodie over my shorts.

His scent immediately engulfs me as I cuddle with the blanket. I grab my cell phone and I notice it’s almost 2.

I open my gallery to go through the photos from earlier when suddenly it rings, flashing an unknown contact.

“Hello?”

“Alanna! I need your help!”

“Brit? What happened? Why are you crying?” Brit’s scared and crying voice blares through the phone and I sit up rapidly.

“Zach, he’s-“ Her voice croaks and she stutters, filling me with instant fear.

Author's note:

Too long without drama, author what ya doin?

“Eh, you think so?”

Give me drama, come on, there’s peaceful love going on in here, didn’t sign up for this.

“Let me just modify the situation… whoop, too much of i- shit.” ** disappears **

We love Literature fans in this house, yo people where you at?

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