Hello again! I'm just trying to catch up on all of the stories I've been posting over on LJ. This one placed first in the pdfichallenge round #2, Insomnia.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, alright?
It was the dreams, more than the reality, that really tore that aching hole in her chest. They'd created that gaping chasm where her heart had once been, and every night that abyss widened, choking and paralyzing her until she could barely see for the haze of grief clouding her eyes.
So Vivian Charles made a firm resolution – she wasn't going to sleep. Ever. Period.
Because really, she'd much rather lie there in her self-induced insomnia than writhe and twist in the clawing grasp of those all-too familiar nightmares. It was better to sit there and wait for the hours to drag by, instead of jolting awake in the dead of night, a scream threatening to wrench itself from her throat, and a cold sweat clinging to her skin.
She never had the same dream twice, though – no, her subconscious was inventive enough to dredge up new methods of terrorizing her every night. There was one thing, however, that they all had in common.
Charlotte.
Charlotte, her eyes wide and her face pale and her body still, oh so still. Charlotte, sinking down to the inky depths of the ocean, brunette locks ringing her face like an unholy halo. Charlotte, sputtering and gasping as that vibrant life fled her body. Charlotte, tear-streaked and begging, begging and pleading and—
Vivian felt a cold chill creep up her spine, and she shook her head to chase the memories away. It's only a dream, she reminds herself, only a dream.
But even those haunting images aren't the worst that her mind can conjure. It's those other dreams, the ones that aren't nightmares, that really wound her, the ones that cut the deepest, right to her core.
Charlotte, tending a garden outside a little yellow house with a white picket fence. Charlotte, ruffling the hair of a curly-headed little girl, and bright-eyed boy. Charlotte, laughing as her husband sweeps her into his arms and plants a delicate kiss on her cheek.
Vivian tries her hardest not to linger on these dreams, because it's the thought of what might have been – what should have been – that really gets to her. But even as she lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling, images of that life flood her mind, unwelcome and unyielding. She tries not to think about what Charlotte would have named her children, or whether or not they would have shared their mother's love of learning and bees. She doesn't want to imagine the way Lilly would have pretended to be upset as the boy, Charlotte's youngest, would clamber all over the furniture, but would break into a smile the second he'd left the room. She can't help but muse on the fact that Charlotte's husband, once faceless, now shares the features of that young man who once lived next door.
He would have liked Charlotte, had he met her again, Vivian decides. But she banishes the thought quickly, because it doesn't matter anymore, it really doesn't.
But still, Vivian can't deny that she yearns for the warm feeling that bubbles up inside of her as she drifts off into those fantasies. Maybe it doesn't matter that it's foolish, or that it's only going to break her heart when she wakes in the morning to realize that it really was just a dream. Maybe it's worth it, just to pretend that everything's alright.
So Vivian lets her eyes slide shut, and as sleep claims her, she finds herself smiling, if only for a moment.
END
Please review!
Child of a Pineapple (aka orangeyarn on LJ)