Don’t Take Forever
3am dream writing. About someone who never fully stayed but never fully left either.
I had a dream last night that you were all over me. You were grabbing me by my hips and pulling me close and you said
“so when are you going to be my girlfriend”
I tried to pull away out of shock and you wouldn’t let me. I tried to fight it but every time I tried to create distance you pulled me closer and you wouldn’t let me go.
You called me and said you were picking me up.
“Be ready at 11…. and don’t take forever! I want to spend the day with you”
I got ready and you were outside. My chores pretty much done, all but one shirt left to fold and put away. I looked at the last shirt in my hand, then looked back at you waiting outside from my window, then back at the shirt again.
I hesitated for a split second.
“fuck it”
I tossed the shirt behind me and walked out of my door without looking back.
I got in the car, put my seatbelt on and looked at you, trying to figure out what you were up to.
“So what’s this about?”
You shrugged casually, one hand on the steering wheel as if someone asked you if you knew what you were going to have for dinner in a week from now.
“Idunno. Saw this flea market and thought we’d check it out”
Leaving no room for objections, not realizing your desire was leaking out more than you wanted it to, you said it like it was spontaneous, careless even, but I could already tell you’d been thinking about it for longer than you wanted me to know.
I smiled, amused,
“Hm. Okay”
I said, taking in the information but still studying you.
We were walking around a flea market hand in hand. Usually loving you felt like standing outside in the cold while trying to peek through somebody’s window. But for the first time it felt like just me and you in our own bubble, as the rest of the world was existing around us instead of between us. I looked at you and said,
“so now that we’re dating.. can I call you dill? 😃”
You stopped in your tracks, dropped your head back and went
“aghhhhhhh. I hate that nickname”
Then you looked at me and smiled despite yourself and said,
“…You know what fine 😂”
I remember giggling like a school girl that just got her way, laughing so hard I nearly walked into another booth. Suddenly, I never felt unsure about myself with you. I realized in that moment that every girl I ever compared myself to in the past disappeared into irrelevance because for once I wasn’t competing for your attention. I was undeniably being chosen in real time.
We stopped at a booth where a man was selling my little ponies. There was a limited edition G3 series fluttershy behind the counter. You saw my eyes lock onto it immediately but just as quickly looked away.
“How much for the fluttershy?” You asked.
“Two hundred”
The man replied without hesitation in his voice, his eyebrows raised like he expected you to laugh and walk away.
“Just leave it alone” I said quickly. “Maybe next time.”
“Shut up”
You urgently mumbled under your breath, already pulling out your wallet as if if I were to say one more word the world would end.
“One fifty”
“Hey, are you insane?”
I said to you, now pulling on your arm to leave the booth.
“It’s fine, let’s just go… there’s a guy selling squishmallows down the hall-“
“Bro come on.” You interrupted,
“It’s her birthday weekend”
“One seventy five. Take it or leave it”
As if I was no longer standing next to you, I watched you count the bills in your hand. 20’s, a 10 and a 5. Then you turned around holding out a box to me,
“here.”
“Dill, no”
I said softly, still holding it against my chest,
“I can’t accept this. This was way too much money”
“there’s a corn on the cob place over here I wanna go check it out”
You said, already walking as if you didn’t hear me at all. And somehow that made it worse, or better, I don’t know,
I remember feeling the opposite of desperate in that dream. I never felt like I had to beg, I was just existing as I was and you loved me there.
I remember later that day, you drove me back home, my fluttershy resting gently in my lap. Beams of sunlight pouring from the windshield, warming the plastic while I traced my fingers along the edges.
Something looked different now.
Were the rays of sunlight playing tricks on my eyes?
No, was I imagining things?
Surely, my fluttershy couldn’t be morphing right before me. She was brighter somehow.
Then it hit me all at once. Fluttershy wasn’t changing, I was.
Love had reached inside of her packaging and rearranged her.
We pulled up to my house, the car coming to a complete stop. The calm silence of our seatbelts unbuckling and birds humming in the trees contrasted with the loud highway and distant music from just minutes ago.
We saw balloons coming from the backyard. They were just barely taller than the fence, enough to make out shapes of people laughing and eating behind them.
“Oh shit. Yeah, I forgot my family was having this Barbeque thing today”
The silence started to shift, not badly, just uncertain. I looked over at you.
“…Would you want to come back for a hot dog?”
Suddenly I was watching you in the corner of my own backyard like you always belonged there. You were hugging and kissing my mother and laughing and bantering with my dad and brothers. My sister, usually an introvert, was talking to you about video games as if she’d known you forever, and you looked proud. Not embarrassed, not hesitant, proud to be there with me. But most importantly proud of yourself.
The dream blurred and later flashed to us laying down and looking in the mirror together.
You were playing with my hair and you asked
“Is this all yours?” You asked quietly.
and to my own surprise I said yes.
“I’m proud of you”
then you kissed my forehead.
That dream was some kind of cruel joke.
Or maybe it was necessary.
I woke up gasping for air, tears already running down my face before I was even fully conscious. Slowly, reality started to settle into place around me.
A text from mom reminding me to pick up Lilo from the groomer.
A text from my best friend asking what I was doing later.
A text from Ulta that my package was en route.
I almost forgot. I have a text from you today too. Something about a ride later. A silly meme. A gym selfie. Something small enough to keep me close, never enough to hold onto.
I opened up Instagram absentmindedly, still weary from my dream.
And there you were. A picture of you and your ex on Mount Rushmore, both of you giving a thumbs up to the camera. That’s when reality fully settled back into my body. I stared at the picture almost too long before taking a deep sigh and letting out an exhausted laugh.
Then I looked in the mirror across the room. I looked tired, destroyed honestly, yet beautiful, the kind of beauty that only comes from finally accepting something your heart has been fighting for too long.
Because when I woke up I realized something else too.
I’m not crazy, I was in a situation where I never felt chosen, never felt safe, never felt special.
And eventually, that kind of starvation will make anyone lose themselves.