Between Dreams

by Cynthia Austin

  He drifted off, lost in thought.

  “So you’re twenty-three?” I asked, doing the math in my head to figure out our age difference. I smiled to myself. Four years, not bad.

  “Sorry again, about your parents,” I added, trying to sound sensitive to the situation. “So what’d you do with the business?”

  “I’ll be twenty-four in August,” he confirmed. “My father’s business partner is taking over the firm for the time being, just until I can get things taken care of over here.”

  He looked at me. “How old are you?”

  It was his turn to figure out the math.

  Without thinking of where I had spent the evening, I blurted out, “I just turned nineteen. Today’s my birthday.”

  I looked up at the clock hanging over the sink, which read 1:30 a.m.

  “Well, it was my birthday. By the way, you really don’t look like a lawyer,” I declared as I sized him up, looking at his long, unkempt hair and grunge clothes.

  He smiled. “I clean up pretty well.”

  I just shook my head and asked a stupid question. “What do you do with all that hair?”

  “Lots of gel.” He laughed, running his hand through the mop of black mess.

  “Hmm,” I said, tapping my fingers on the table, staring at him. “You might actually be kind of cute in a three-piece suit with some McDreamy hair,” I joked, referring to one of the characters on Grey’s Anatomy.

  “Gee thanks, I guess.”

  I thought I saw his pale cheeks turn a slight shade of pink. We both laughed.

  “So when do you start this new job in Sacramento?”

  It was actually really nice talking to him and learning about his life. For once my mind was on something other than Ray and it felt good. I had a feeling Adrian and I were going to be fast friends.

  “I start on Monday.”

  “Are you driving? It can get pretty expensive with gas and that traffic is a nightmare.”

  “No, I’m considering taking the train.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s the best way to go. Just be sure that you allow yourself enough commute time.”

  Adrian smiled. “I used to commute into New York City by bus, subway, and ferry. This should be a piece of cake.”

  He grabbed the empty coffee mugs and walked them over to the kitchen sink. It was one of those old farm sinks that started to make a comeback in those fancy home and garden magazines.

  I laughed, a little embarrassed at myself as I realized I may have sounded a bit too motherly. “Sorry. I can be a control freak sometimes. I’m sure you have it all taken care of.”

  I got up from the dinette. “It was really nice meeting you. Thank you for the coffee.”

  Adrian turned around, surprised at my sudden plan of departure.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

  “You invited me over for coffee. I drank it, and now I’m leaving. If you want me to stay longer next time, you’ll have to invite me over for more than coffee. Like a movie or something.”

  My mind immediately focused on the or something add on and what it might entail. I stretched my arms towards the ceiling while arching my back. I couldn’t believe how tired I was.

  He offered, “Do you need a ride?”

  “It’s not necessary. My house is just around the corner.”

  “I’ll walk you then.”

  We headed out of the big house and down the porch steps, past the old, weather-beaten flag pole and up Court Street towards my house.

  “You’re a lot younger than I thought,” Adrian observed as we walked together.

  “Yeah, Chrissy knows the bouncer so she was able to sneak us in the bar.”

  He just shook his head at our law-breaking abilities.

  “So you’re not staying long then, huh?” I asked him as I felt a twinge of disappointment. I didn’t have many friends these days and being with Adrian was like a breath of fresh air.

  He shook his head and we continued walking in the cold silent darkness of night.

  Suddenly Adrian came to a complete stop and turned to face me, “I don’t want to go back home, Sidney. It’s just that I came back here for something. And…well.” His face was twisted in conflict, as if he were experiencing some sort of internal battle trying to decide whether he wanted to share this information with me.

  He glanced down at my necklace. “I came back here for someone and I’m not leaving without them.”

  Now a flood of disappointment rushed through me.

  He came back here for someone. Nobody travels clear across the country for just anyone. Give it up, Sidney. He’s obviously wrapped up with someone else.

  I gripped my necklace and absentmindedly twirled it around my fingers. Adrian’s eyes followed my hands.

  We stood in silence for a few moments longer before he finally replied, “Goodbye, Sidney, and happy birthday.”

  Then he was gone, heading back to his big empty house as I stood there watching. He hadn’t even walked me all the way home, just to the corner of his street.

  I turned down Sycamore Street and walked up Magnolia as my house came into view.

  That’s odd, I thought as I looked at my green Chevy truck that was parked in the driveway.

  I had left the truck at the bar so how was it home?

  Chapter Seven

  Wish You Never Met Me

  The old truck had two sets of keys. I had one set and I was well aware of who had the other one. As I got closer to my house I saw the silhouette sitting on the steps of my porch, his lean body resting against the wall with his arms crossed. I froze, standing on the sidewalk staring up at his blue eyes.

  “Where the hell have you been, Sid?” Ray asked as he stood up and marched down the stairs towards me.

  Before he could reach me, I dodged his grasp and headed up the stairs towards the front door. After spending the better half of the evening with Adrian, I didn’t want to soil my happiness with the bickering that always came along with Ray. I didn’t have the energy to deal with him anymore.

  I heard Ray’s light and airy steps bouncing up the stairs behind me. I opened the front door and flipped the light switch on, but as soon as I did I remembered that Nouri was probably in bed and I didn’t want to disrupt her. I quickly shut off the light and signaled for Ray to follow me up the stairs. Once inside my pink bedroom, I walked over to the table lamp resting on the nightstand and switched it on as I sat on my floral bed.

  All I wanted to do was go to sleep but I knew I had some explaining to do. My gaze seared into Ray but as soon as I saw him all of my defiance evaporated like a puddle in the middle of a hot summer day. His big blue eyes looked me over, ensuring that not one hair was out of place. He took a seat next to me on the bed and pulled me into his firm chest as he wrapped his arms tightly around me

  “Why are you here, Ray?” I questioned, still trying to retain the remnants of my anger.

  “I’ve been calling you all night,” he explained. “When you didn’t answer your cell, I called the house phone.” He looked at the bed and began tugging at a loose thread on the quilt. “Nouri told me you went out on a date.”

  I burst into laughter at Ray’s last line. He brought his lapis eyes up to mine, trying to figure out what was so funny. “That’s because Nouri hates you and she wanted to make you jealous.”

  “I guess it worked.”

  “And what, you cancelled your shows and flew up here in a mad dash to interrupt my date?”

  Ray just stared at me with no hint of a smile.

  “I guess I did. I came to the house first, and after begging that damn nurse for twenty minutes, she finally told me you went to The Watering Hole.” He took off his baseball hat and tossed it on the nightstand. “Why’d you go that dive?”

  “Chrissy.” It was all I needed to say.

  “You had me so worried, Sid. It’s not like you to pull a vanishing act like that. I went to the bar looking for you and Chrissy had no idea where you wer
e. She mentioned that you had met some strange guy earlier in the night. My mind started drifting into all of these dark scenarios of what could have happened to you and it was driving me insane.”

  I burned with fury that my best friend was such a chatterbox.

  “If anything ever happened to you I don’t know how I could live with myself. It’s my job to protect you,” he whispered, kissing my forehead.

  I began to pull away and declare that I was an adult and I didn’t need his protection, but then Ray inhaled deeply and grabbed my sweatshirt as he put his nose in it. He asked disgustedly, “Have you been smoking?”

  “It wasn’t me, it was Adrian,” I began to explain before feeling his entire body tense as he let go of my sweatshirt and scooted back staring into my face searching for answers.

  “Who the hell is Adrian?” he asked accusingly.

  Oh now we’re playing the jealousy game.

  “Remember Lilly, Ray? While we’re jumping on the green-eyed monster train, why don’t we discuss her and you can tell me why she’s your Facebook friend again?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, shoving his index finger in my face. “Don’t even try to turn this around on me. I asked you a question, now answer me.”

  I slapped his accusing finger out of my face and shouted back. “Why does it matter who I spend my time with?” Becoming way too defensive, I raised my voice, “You obviously don’t care. If you did you’d be here with me and not playing house with your little whore, Lilly.”

  Ray stood up and yelled back, “You’re the one who left me, Sid! Don’t try to turn this around on me. You were supposed to be living with me in L.A. but you left. Maybe if you stayed I wouldn’t have slept with Lilly. You’re not there, so there are no rules. Do you understand?”

  All I heard was the phrase, “…I wouldn’t have slept with Lilly.” It devastated me. Even though I had known they were lovers while he was in L.A., hearing it from his lips shocked my soul. I immediately went into denial mode and changed the subject in my mind to something far more emotionally manageable.

  If Nouri was asleep before, I was pretty confident that she was awake now. Hell, Granny could have awakened from her vegetative state after all of the screaming.

  “Well, that’s great, Ray.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and looked him straight in the eye. Now was the perfect time to plunge the knife deep inside him and sever the chains that had imprisoned me once and for all. “Maybe there will be no rules for me, either. Maybe we should break up.”

  That swan song changed Ray’s tune real quick. “I’ve tried to be faithful, Sid, but it’s impossible.” He moaned, falling down in front of my knees like a puppy begging for a treat. “Don’t do something stupid because you’re mad at me. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”

  “That’s just it, Ray,” I countered, leaning my upper body toward him so my face was inches from his own, hoping he could see just how serious I was. “You treat me like I’m one of your possessions. Some toy you just place on the shelf when you’re done and that no one else can touch. Meanwhile you’re out there running amuck while I just sit and waste away. It’s not fair.”

  “I always come back to you, Sid. Everything else that happens, it’s nothing, it means nothing.”

  I shook my head and blasted him, “But Lilly wasn’t just nothing, Ray. I saw you two together and the thought of you lying in bed next to each other—”

  I couldn’t finish my words. I was losing it.

  Ray got off of his knees and began to pace the room defensively. “You said we could start over, but you won’t let this go. Why can’t you just let it go, Sidney? It was a fucking mistake, okay?” he yelled.

  I looked up at him, wiping my eyes, surprised he called me by my full name. He never called me Sidney. In the entire five years that we’d known one another, he’d never said that name.

  He must really be pissed.

  I wasn’t going to let him turn this around and make me feel bad for his mistakes. Not this time. I narrowed my eyes at him, “People don’t carry on with a mistake for months. You have led this double life for a long time. Do you know how bad that messes with my mind, knowing that I was here living this life of lies while you were down there in a relationship with someone else? God, I was such an idiot.”

  I stood up and walked over to my bedroom window. The sky was still black but there was a hint of gray beyond the horizon of the foothills. The sun was coming up. Once again, Ray and I had been at it all night resolving nothing. It was now becoming the norm in our relationship.

  He came up from behind and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I know that you need closure, Sid, but didn’t you get that when I ended things with her and chose you? Wasn’t that enough?”

  “No,” I answered. “It’s not enough. Because I still don’t understand why. Why did you do it? Did you not love me enough? Did you not even think of me when you were with her?” I asked. My voice cracked as tears filled my eyes. I turned my face away from him, not wanting him to see me cry.

  He began to grovel. “I don’t know what to say. I tried, I really did. But it all happened so fast. I met her and something about her mesmerized me. I tried to shake the feeling but I couldn’t. She would come to the shows and I would avoid her on purpose but I couldn’t stay away. It was like we were two magnets, destined to come together.”

  As Ray spilled his true feelings for the red-headed little tart I couldn’t help but compare his feelings for her and how much they mirrored mine for Adrian.

  Adrian and I were also two magnets drawn to each other. The connection between us couldn’t be ignored. For once in my life, I understood the feelings my boyfriend had experienced when he explained why he cheated.

  “And I’m sorry for that,” he continued. “How many times am I going to have to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness? I got caught up in the moment. But I still came back to you. It will always be you, Sid.”

  “Until when?” I mumbled, sounding defeated, still pondering the fact that maybe we shouldn’t be together. This was the same conversation we had been having for a month. Nothing ever got resolved and it was all starting to feel like a huge waste of time and energy. How many tears could I cry for one person?

  “Until when?” he asked.

  I clarified, “You’ll come back to me until you find someone better? Someone that’s so beautiful and perfect that the very thought of her consumes your mind day and night and you discover that it’s physically painful to leave her side and I become a distant memory pushed to the back of your mind and locked away in a box. Am I supposed to wait for that to happen?”

  The words just flew out of my mouth. All of the hidden fears I had thought about night after night were now pouring out of me.

  Ray let go of my shoulders, and walked back over to the bed. Taking a seat, he placed his face in his hands and sat silent. “It did happen,” he mumbled. “And I still came back to you.”

  I didn’t know whether to smile or cry. I was happy he chose me but did he really just admit to me that he was in love with Lilly? Possibly more than me? His words were like a bullet from a gun, piercing my heart. I sat down on the carpet trying to grasp what Ray just revealed to me. He’d loved her. He just told me that he had been in love with another woman. I tried to catch my breath but that felt impossible. My face was flushed and my head was spinning, conjuring up all sorts of conclusions. Ray slid off of the bed and crawled over to me.

  “I chose you,” he said. “I’ll always choose you. I love you more than anything, Sid.” He cupped my chin with his hand and forced me to look at him.

  I shook my head in frustration and tried to push him away but he locked his steel arms around me, forcing me to stay close, reminding me of the prison I had always resided in with him.

  He’s not going to see me cry, I vowed over and over again while I focused on swallowing the lump in my throat. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him. But I could still feel him, his wa
rm breath breathing close to my face. “I’ll give up my musical dream and stay here with you if that’s what you want. I’ll get a real job, we can start over.”

  I opened my eyes in disbelief, searching his face, expecting to see the deception he was spinning but instead, I saw nothing but sincerity. I tried to speak but the lump was still there, refusing to give me my voice. My tears silently slid down my cheeks. I shook my head in absence of my voice.

  “No,” I managed to squeak out. “I’d never ask you to give up your dream. Especially when you’re this close.”

  He grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me passionately. I clutched his blond curls and pulled him closer. If it were possible, I would have climbed inside of him, burying my broken self in the warmth of his strong body. Instead, I crawled into his lap, kissing him harder with more passion than I had ever felt in my life, as if I were convincing him that he had made the right choice in choosing me. He gently brought his hands down my back and then up under my sweatshirt, caressing my bare skin. His breathing becoming more pronounced as our kissing became more aggressive.

  He pulled away as his eyes burned with passion. “Tell me right now, Sid. Are we going to be able to survive this? Do you still love me or do you wish you never met me?”

  I smiled without hesitation. “I love you, Ray. Forever.”

  “This needs to come off,” he whispered as he pulled my sweatshirt over my head. He grimaced. “It smells like smoke.”

  His words reminded me of Adrian, but I forced the image of my new handsome friend out of my mind. Ray reached over and flicked the table lamp off. We both fell to the bed, entwined in each other’s arms. It felt good to have him home again despite my still very broken heart, it felt like we had made some progress tonight. Our relationship could still be fixed. Ray was still worth fighting for.