Not Like the Other Girls
By Ten Black Roses
Song by The Rasmus
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Night was still here, judging by the sky's precedent view of dawn overshadowing the place. She could look outside the window to make her see it made no difference whether she was tired or not. The way she thought it, it would take more than even a miracle's belief to repair her feelings, or a state of being from then on. Feelings for her own skeptic uncertainty towards the blinded contentment she now realized it had been all along.
It was all the cause of a dream she woke out off.
Friday evening, March 16, no particular year.
That remaining day, she sat on a bench in the local park, reading a book her friend Stacey had recommended her since last year. It brought peace to her as long as the climax was only ten pages away from reach, meaning she was safe at the start.
It was right there when someone pokes her shoulder. Candace looks up, her eyes broaden with surprise and inconvenience.
"Jeremy, hi!"
Out of noticing, Candace looked up to see as though a hurricane was on its way. Temporarily, the face that Jeremy held was not a happy, if a bit somber, one. Continuing to plainly gaze at his face, anxious empathy began taking hold of her. Had he become mute or something?
Candace was on the verge of speaking, when she turns her head towards her left.
No use in thinking any deeper than that. It was only a dream after all. Was there any value in remembering it? For Candace, she could hardly try to see any.
Then again, had she really been able to go as far as so to think this would never be worth it? Always having to get over what choices she what obligated to make while making an effort in convincing herself it was all worth it?
She still tried to remember it well. The figure standing next to Jeremy was clearly someone who could only emerge in the abstract of dreams.
But why in her's? Too many questions!
The figure's outer appearance with clothing and all looked quite similar to a detective's attire, except it wore not a hat and its head had been utterly covered with fuchsia scarves.
At times, intimidation could have the most apt reaction, but it did not come until Candace heard what she should have desired to have been imaginary, even in her dream.
"I'd like to introduce you to her, Candace. This is the love of my life" Jeremy began.
Candace was not in any way well surprised, regardless of knowing something like that to cause her in being.
"Ever since I saw her, my heart had always been within her grasp, never being able to focus on anything else in this stupid world until she exchanged mine for her's"
How ironic, while her heart was currently being sucked by the black hole of wretchedness into the indistinguishable cave of nonexistence. She felt the urge to ask him why exactly she was telling her this. Why she needed to know something as unnecessarily blunt as this.
Better yet through this form. As for the weather, not even the wind or the bitter company of lighting on the rise could sway her attention.
There was no use in thinking it through anymore if she still wanted to feel even the lasting one percent of comfort's soul slowly becoming compost for the seeds of her tears about to shoot out of her face.
That is if she still thought it mattered anymore when she knew the core of it all was mistrust once she got the hint of this presumed nightmare's origin.
The speculation was once Jeremy's somewhat dejected feeling for Candace. He should at least be happy when telling someone something like this. Candace could conclude it was never safe to assume. Not until she heard Jeremy speak.
"I'm sorry I never told you, Candace. I thought maybe if I never saw you again once I left for Boston, my guilt would be left behind, along with all the other memories I've held throughout the years"
What seemed to leave starting there was the lack of sense any of this made, once the figure removed its blanket.
"You were right, it's never safe to assume"
Especially in a dream.
She may have gained some charitable, if temporary, joy for the ages thanks to the many sacrifices her conscience had obliged her to make. If only it didn't mean having to also fill the empty sack of cynical despair she called a brain with detrimental grudges.
Candace looked at her right hand, grasping a mirror she knew looked exactly what it was that the figure's face really was.
It was odd indeed, almost as bizarre to the point of making her believe she was in a horror movie. How could someone have a mirror for a head? Candace could only say something.
"I don't get it" said Candace, looking at the mirror head.
"How can this be true? People don't have mirrors for heads! I'm in a dream! I knew it! This was all just a shitty drea-"
A reflection of her face which Candace had not noticed before was finally taking shape. She was completely lost after witnessing this phenomenon occurring.
Only a few seconds before a surprising recognition took her by the face.
"They say even the proudest spirit can be broken-" Said Jeremy, before Candace blinked, soon fining herself in the exact same spot where the figure had been, shocking her in the process.
-with love"
It was a strong moment for both of them, seeming more unaffected visually and literally by the raging storm behind them. Their faces were the only thing they were the most concerned for. The storm could be a sign telling them this moment would last as long as a dream possibly could.
"I'm sorry I never told you. I didn't think you'd be ready"
Candace was not in any way livid through that statement, even if most people would gasp in offense for such idea. Deep within her soon to be fragile mind, she knew she thought the same. There was no point in arguing.
It was just not fair, why separate? They had more in common than they expected.
"Jeremy, my sweet. Will I ever get to see you again?"
Candace once believed in hope. She thought everything could never have a double meaning. But the more she thought, the more she concluded it was only dispersing her time if she even tried.
All to the point of making her think that hope was really nothing more than what everyone feels when they decline from considering it a synonym of that word.
"Candace, I don't know, I can only say it's better if we just…hope for the best, but expect the worst at the same time" Jeremy replied.
She remained strong. As unfair this would seem to her, or as daunting the lightning storm seemed, Candace was not going to hide under uncertainty.
Not this time, again.
"Well, I hope for the best" Candace replied, slowly closing her eyes, while moving her head forward.
"I'll miss you, Candace" Jeremy replied, mimicking Candace.
Their lips experienced a satisfied contact when they caressed each others surface. The regrettable shame was shared between the both after all. If anything was this placidly gratifying, it really meant goodbye.
The lock broke, and once Candace opened her eyes, it had all vanished.
She was nowhere else but lying on her bed. Barely able to contemplate how good it felt when it could not just have been a dream, but possibly for the last time.
Knowing nothing else to do, Candace just loitered on her bed. The idea of time healing all wounds would have to get to her in forty minutes. Which was the same amount of time she had taken to reshoot the experience within her mind.
An experience she really wished could have been real. Or at least enough to make her believe it wasn't only a dream.
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Meanwhile, somewhere in a boat, Jeremy had woken up as well. Just because he had chosen to sit up instead of remaining slouched on his bed didn't mean he was tired. He just didn't know why he had woken up to such trouble.
It could be proven that boys had less ease in remembering dreams they had, seeing they were usually heavy sleeper. Jeremy could agree, even though one only needed a creak to have his eyes open in surprise.
But as Jeremy looked outside the second-class window, it was all aspiring to come back to him.
Having it be enough to impulse him to lie back down, while chanting the words to a song that defined his mood as of then, and maybe for the rest of the trip, if not his youth.
"She's fading away, away from this world, drifting like a feather; she's not like the other girls. She lives in the clouds, and talks to the birds. Hopeless little one, she's not like the other girls I know"
Neither of them had forgotten the spiritually everlasting spectacle of relieve by which love gave them. They had learned.
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I am quite finished here! Well I really don't know what to say like always. Except I'll really miss writing and reading most of the stories here in the PaF section of this site. Seriously, I wish I could explain why, but this kind of answer can only be obtained through a PM (which is highly doubtful to the point I'm assuming nobody will ask such thing) and nothing more. But hey! On the fun side, if you managed to detect any Watchmen, Coraline, 9, Forever Young (the song) or Time Squad (Michael Swain version) reference here, you my friend are a cool person! XD
Goodbye my friends (or enemies) and may your creativity strive as long as your happiness does!
-Ten Black Roses
P.S. Yes, I've seen the episode "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted!", no, I did not use it as a source of inspiration.