Disclaimer:

Question:

My Answer:

Characters: Anyone, really. You, me, the person you passed in the hall today; maybe even your teacher, back when he or she was a teen.

Summary: This is a little snippet taken directly from my own emotions. Enjoy : )

Any Other Way

The counselor's office was small, with a run-down couch and two chairs surrounding an old coffee table. The bell attached to the door jingled a greeting as I pried the door open, but the counselor- a middle-aged man that went by the name Mr. Karp- continued to flip through his papers, not noticing me. That was the way it always was, of course; I was invisible until I made myself seen.

"When do you give up a dream?" I asked in form of a hello.

He glanced up, startled out of his reading. His glasses hung crookedly off the bridge of his nose, and with his index finger he pushed them back into place, leaning back in his seat. Despite his mundane appearance, he had that look to him: the look that told me that he wouldn't stare through me, but at me. He would listen to whatever I had to say.

"You don't," he answered eventually, puzzling slowly through the words. "You don't give up dreams."

I crossed the room in three steps, and eyed the stack of papers in front of him. "I'm sorry. I can come back another time if you're busy."

"No, no." He pushed the stack hastily to the side. "Please sit down. Your name is?"

"Unimportant. But, for giving up a dream, is it a flash of realization, or does it take years?" I resumed. The chair wheezed a complaint as I sat down in it.

Mr. Karp scrubbed at his receding hairline, squinting at me from behind his lenses. "Why would you give up a dream?"

"They're consuming."

"Consuming?"

"Time-consuming. Thought-consuming." I eased a crick in my neck. "Hungry things, dreams."

He threaded his fingers together, his eyes flicking over my face in an expert manner. "What sort of dream are you talking about, exactly? Do you mean a dream job?"

"A dream life," I replied.

His brows dipped in thought. "I don't think I understand," he said after a moment, his voice thick with contemplation.

I took a breath, preparing to launch into a speech that I had practiced a thousand times in my head but one that I knew would change when coming out of my mouth. "I don't want fiction," I told him, weighing each word before speaking it. "And yet, the only things that seem real to me are fiction."

He leaned towards me, both feet on the floor. "Elaborate."

"Dreams… I dream of finally feeling alive. I dream of waking up, and feeling. Feeling grief. Feeling excitement. Feeling something. And yet…" I couldn't speak with these words on my tongue, but I had to. I had to try. "…And yet, fiction seems more real to me than anything in the real world. Fiction makes my life seem washed-out in comparison. Fiction makes my life look fake."

His forehead had smoothed out, but confusion lingered in his eyes. "Life can't always be as exciting as books and movies make it," he responded. "I-"

"No, no." I waved him down, frustrated that I couldn't convey it properly. "I know that. I'm not looking for adventure, or anything like that. I'm looking for realness."

"Realness?" he echoed, one eyebrow arched.

"Realness," I confirmed. Sighing, I closed my eyes briefly, scanning the darkness behind my eyelids for some sort of answer. "I don't know how to explain," I admitted.

"Explain any way you can," he replied.

My exhale was a slow drawl, my inhale a shallow intake of breath. "Love," I said after an immeasurable passing of time. "I think it all boils down to love."

"How so?" he queried.

"Every night I wrap my arms around myself, and pretend that someone else is doing it," I said. "I'm desperate for a relationship, and yet whenever I look at a boy I feel nothing. Well, not nothing- there's attraction, sometimes- but nothing ever clicks. Nothing ever feels right to me." Another exhale, inhale. "The only thing I feel my heart flutter is when I'm reading about a character, or watching one on a screen."

When I opened my eyes he was staring intently into the middle distance. "It sounds like your desire for an unattainable ideal," he opined.

"An unattainable ideal…" Images of the various animes I had watched, games I had played and books I had read flitted single-file through my mind, marching like soldiers through a battlefield.

"Yes, an unattainable ideal." The words came out sounding uncertain, as if he was unsure whether or not this was my diagnosis.

"Is the desire for someone that will love me unconditionally, and will need me as much as I need him, so unattainable?" I asked, thinking of N from pokemon.

He blinked, his lenses gleaming in the bad lighting.

"Or friends that actually care, and don't have a different personality depending on who they're talking with?" I continued, thinking of Murph and Lunick from the ranger games.

Mr. Karp shut his mouth, and continued to blink.

"See, this is why I need to know how to give up dreams," I said. "A life of new beginnings, and genuine people, and actual love… It is an unattainable ideal. And no matter how much I try to tell myself otherwise, I'll always be living inside my head. And life will always be washed-out to me."

He stared at me for a long moment, and I stared back, my hands trembling slightly.

Then he said, softly and quietly, "You can't."

The quaking in my hands spread to my arms.

"You can't give up dreams," he explained. "No matter how much you want to."

"No matter how much you need to?"

"No matter how much you need to," he agreed. "You can try to consume them, but they'll always end up consuming you." He took his glasses off, and, with empathy etched in every line of his face, began cleaning them. "But really, do you want it any other way?"

I wanted to say yes. Every part of me wanted to say yes- every part except for my heart, which ached like a cavity in my chest.

"Do you?" he repeated when I didn't answer right away.

Yes, yes, yes.

Taking a deep breath, the air bubbled back up my throat, and brought the truth along with it.

"No."