Bitter-Sweet Dreams

Here's a short exercise I wrote.

I've been working on this other short story that's proving to be a bear and this sort of came out of me on the side.

I dreamed of you last night.

It was the type of dream where things don’t seem to happen, you seem to just know that they have.

I arrived at a party that we’d both planned on attending, the location of the party seemed to be a kind of industrial building with the back wall decorated as a cave. I came out onto a balcony looking over the party to see you sitting there, wearing that short black dress you bought that night we drank too much wine and went shopping at the mall.

But you weren’t happy. You were on the phone. I never knew for sure, but it seemed to be your boyfriend whom I not-so-affectionately always referred to as Ringo.

It seemed as though we’d been planning on getting together for this party for a long time, but once you got there Ringo harassed you by phone… I came over to you and offered you my hand, you took it and stood up, putting your head on my shoulder, sobbing gently as he continued berating you with his overbearing jealousy over the phone.

Aside from almost making me cry, holding you there like that made me wish that my sole purpose in life could simply be giving girls like you hugs in times of need and crisis. I always seem to want to give you a hug anyway and this time it was so urgent it broke my heart.

He hung up on you and you looked up at me, with your head pressed against my chest. I wiped the tears from below your eyes and made a soft shushing sound in your ear.

Though you didn’t say it, your eyes seemed to tell me that he was forcing you to choose between him or me. I love you more than anything and it broke me, even in a dream, to tell you to go to him if that’s what you needed to do.

You kissed me on the cheek, then softly on the lips and left the party.

It was a bittersweet dream.

When I woke up I felt sad, devastated, as though it were real.

Maybe it will be.

But I hope not.