I don't own American Dragon: Jake Long.
Rose shot up from her bed and clutched her chest. Her heart was racing a mile a minute as her mind showed her pictures and events of another life lived. Racing through her head were pictures of:
Skulls.
Masked men with skulls on their head.
The beetles, trolls, leprechauns, trolls, pixies, snakes.
And...and the dragons.
And the boy who turned into a red dragon.
The boy with the spiky hair and cute smile, the boy she had loved with her whole heart, the boy who once upon a time she couldn't imagine her life without. The one she was prepared to give her life for. Jake Long.
Remembering his name made her gasp. The onslaught of memories reminded her of his wish that she had heard while inches away from going into the vortex. She had a sudden urge to go look for him even though it had been 10 years since the incident.
What stopped her was the fact that it was middle of the night and she had no idea where he was. Rose slowly rested her forehead on her upright knees and took a deep shaky breath.
The memories of her other life had stopped slamming into her and now were just a trickle as she remembered how the huntsnannies had babied and cuddled her when she was a small child. Rose took more deep breaths to calm herself down and after a few minutes the memories had stopped coming.
She now knew everything. Remembered everything. And it made her heart ache. Her heart ached for the boy she had lost and the years they couldn't be together. Her heart also hurt for herself and her family.
What was real now? The life that she had lived before or the life that she lived now? Rose pushed those thoughts aside and focused on the alarm clock at her bedside. It read 2:28 am.
Her throat was parched and she was covered in sweat, but she had never felt more...complete. It was like all the puzzle pieces had finally come together and she could finally breathe easy. The memories of the two lives had nearly arranged themselves into two separate boxes.
Boxes was the best way she could differentiate between the two. It felt like there were two boxes in her head. One held her magical life and the other her mundane one. And no matter what she cherished both.
Rose threw the covers aside and went to get a glass of water from her fridge. While sipping on the water she looked around her house in New York. What had once felt home now felt empty and strange to her.
Rose put the glass down in the sink and looked at another glass kept beside the sink. It had belonged to Douglas. Rose couldn't determine whether he had deliberately left it there while moving out of her house or was it something that he had genuinely forgotten to pack into his belongings.
Putting her hands on the sides of the kitchen sink, Rose tried to remember why she had been so attracted to Douglas. She had met him when she moved back to America at 17 years of age.
A few years of living in Hong Kong had made everyone realize that the States were better for their family. Also, it was time for Rose and her sister to attend college and they wanted to be in US for higher education.
But there was something more. Her intense dreams back then hadn't let her rest till she moved back. But she didn't tell her family that. After all, she didn't want them to look at her like she was crazy.
So it was ultimately decided that the family would move back. It took her dad sometime to find a job and when he did it had been in Connecticut. So at 17 years of age, Rose and her twin Lily had begun their last year of High School and there she had met Douglas.
Douglas with his cocky smirk and better-than-thou ego hadn't impressed her at first. In fact she hadn't felt anything for him at first. He was a no good slacker and skater who skipped classes and got detentions galore.
That boy also had spiky hair and always wore a red jacket. Douglas obviously had shown interest in her, just like a bunch of other guys from school. "Who wouldn't want to date the new hot blonde in school huh?" Her high school friends had informed her.
But she hadn't been interested in anyone. And yet Douglas kept coming back to her mind. His skateboard and red jacket made her feel like he resembled someone important and familiar to her. But Rose never could pinpoint who this someone was.
Her dream man was allusive. It felt like he was behind a translucent curtain and she was trying too hard to get a look at him. But she couldn't get a full picture of him and neither could she touch him. He felt near but also a world away from her. And this hurt her heart.
She wanted to be near her dream man so much that sometimes it was painful to her. So when Douglas had asked her out, she had said yes. It had shocked the entire school population. And Douglas as well.
"What did he have that the other guys didn't?" Many guys had asked. They had concluded that it was the bad boy attitude that had attracted the hottest girl in school. Rose hadn't bothered to correct them.
After all, what was she going to say? That he reminded her of someone she didn't even know and just felt in her dreams sometimes? Yeah they would immediately ostracize her. So Rose had kept quiet and simply continued meeting her new date at school.
After a few dates they had begun a relationship that would ultimately become nothing but toxic. But Rose couldn't deny that the first few months were good. Douglas was funny and his smile charmed her. He was attentive and loving to her. Rose was never in love with him but she had loved him and enjoyed spending time with him.
But then began the fights, cheating, and missed dates. Her friend had said that getting her had emboldened the skater and now he wanted to see what other fish he could get. Yet Rose hadn't wanted to let him go.
Her friends had intervened and tried to tell her to dump him, but she hadn't listened. It felt like he was the closest she could get to that someone from her dreams that she couldn't ever touch, feel, or know. So she held on and tried to make the relationship work.
She had tried to appease and understand him. There were long conversations that ultimately went nowhere because they were full of lies and half-hearted promises of faithfulness from his side.
When that hadn't worked, Rose had thought that maybe sleeping with him would do the trick even though she wasn't ready. And for a while it had worked. And in that short time he had proposed to her. She had accepted, wanting to keep him near.
After all, her dreams of that someone used to become stronger when he was with her. And she was desperate to be closer to her dream man. So she had married Douglas after graduation in a small ceremony even though her family wasn't quite accepting of the match.
After marriage and two happy weeks of honeymoon, the two of them had enrolled to the local community college. At college she had tried her best to excel in her studies and carve a career out for herself. But Douglas wasn't interested in all that.
He wanted to remain in High School with his friends and parties. His grades had dropped low and he had dropped out of college after a year. After that he had skateboarded, slept around, and did odd jobs to support himself.
Rose had turned a blind eye to it all because at the end of the day when she saw him, it made her feel like she was in a dream with a certain someone who was like him, but also not. Her dream man didn't look at other girls, he respected her and their relationship, and most importantly he loved her more than himself.
Once college ended she had secured a paying job and got a little apartment for herself at 22. Douglas had moved in with her of course and proceeded to be a free loader. She was supporting them both financially as well as in the home since her then husband refused to do even the dishes.
Sometimes Rose wouldn't see him for days, and when he would come back he would reek of alcohol, cigarettes, and sex. At this she would simply turn around and do whatever she was busy with as he went straight to bed. Things kept on going like this for a year.
Two months after the New Year which she had spent with her family sans Douglas, she got a great job offer from New York. Rose had accepted the offer almost immediately, but Douglas wasn't so sure.
He had talked about missing his friends and the connections he had built there. Rose could read between the lines and knew that he would miss the girl he was seeing for months now. She had discovered their sexts and nudes on his phone one day. But she hadn't paid heed to those pics or his then pleading words to not move.
There was nothing between them anymore. Whatever love was there had evaporated in college after he had cheated on her after marriage. Their sex life was non-existent because she never felt aroused by him and he didn't care mostly. Also, she was worried about STDs and wouldn't let him touch her even when he wanted her.
But she still kept him because she wanted to be closer to her dream man. Sometimes she hated that someone in her dream who made her stick with Douglas even though her rational mind screamed at her to run as far as possible from him. She hated herself for being crazy and believing in a dream.
But she couldn't help herself. Whenever she tried to leave Douglas, it felt like she was losing that someone in her dreams and that made her heart break. So she stayed.
The move to New York had been smooth and she had started her new job without any hassle. But her home life was a different matter. Without a degree or substantial job experience of any kind, Douglas had struggled to find any jobs.
So he sat around at home blaming the world and her. Rose would often come from work only to find her husband smoking and watching TV sprawled out on the couch while dirty dishes piled on in the sink.
Frequently this would start a screaming match between them that ended with her going out to the balcony to get away from him. During one such fight she had stepped out onto the balcony to take a breath of air and looked up to see a long red thing flying in the sky.
She had squinted her eyes to see the thing clearly and felt like she had seen two wings protruding from the thing. Staring at the thing as it flew past her, igniting emotions of trust, confidence, and safety, the word Dragon had popped up in her head. But she had laughed at herself.
But there was something different in her after this. When she turned back to go into the apartment, there was resolve in her eyes. Rose knew that today was the day their relationship would end.
When she stood in front of Douglas, he instantly knew that this was coming to an end. So he switched his entire personality. He had begged her, cried and hugged her while whispering sweet promises of changing in her ear. But Rose was unmoved. 4 months later they were finally divorced and Douglas had moved out.
Rose shook her head and pulled herself out of her memories. She moved back to her room and pulled out her laptop, firing it up, and typing in Jake Long in the search bar. A thousand results popped up and she spent the next two hours scrolling through them. Drinking in any result with the slightest hint of him.
But he wasn't in anything.
She had tried looking at Instagram handles, Facebook profiles, and more, but he wasn't anywhere. Rose scrunched up her eyebrows. The boy she remembered was an extrovert, the life of the party, cocky, and full of confidence. There was no way Jake wouldn't make a social media profile to show off, she thought with a small smile on her face.
But then a thought hit her. Would she even recognize him now? After 10 years he was bound to change as well. But surely he wouldn't have changed so much that she wouldn't be able to recognize him? Or was he even alive?
The job of the American Dragon was dangerous. Even with the Huntsclan gone, there were bound to be other threats. Had one of them taken his life? Rose pushed such thoughts out of her mind. She couldn't focus on them now. Her heart and mind were still fragile and just the thought of him dying made her heart hurt.
Rose closed the laptop and set it aside. She would look for him tomorrow at the electronics shop they hung out in when they were children. Whether there would be a relationship or not was a question she couldn't answer now. Her feelings for him had flooded her heart. But there was still a distance of a decade.
And who knew, maybe he was with someone now. Rose closed her eyes for a second and opened them again to look at the clock. It read 4:53 am and that meant that it was time to get ready for work.
Author's Note: Reviews are much appreciated.
