Chapter Two

The sun was so fucking hot. 

I was standing in line to take my drivers test with my mother, and we were some of the lucky ones who got to wait outside rather than in the nice air conditioning. 

"You had better pass this, because we're not coming here again." She says, patting at her hairline which is beginning to collect sweat. She's a small woman, even more so than me. I got curves from my dad's side of the family, so I'm not a complete twig like her. But somehow she's still kind of terrifying, and I admire her for that.

"We both know that's not true." I smirk at her, and she rolls her eyes, but she's smiling.

"I got this." I say, stretching my neck forward to see the front of the line.

It's been four days since my dream. 

    The day of the dream, I hadn't really done anything. I had fed my dog breakfast and then gone back to bed until three, until I had to get up and get ready for work at five. Work had been busy, a pleasant distraction from thinking about my dream. The next days I spent mostly trying to busy my mind. I cleaned the house and my room (a pleasant surprise for my mother) gave my dog a bath, sorted out some clothes to sell for extra cash, stuff like that. My mom thought I was on drugs and I think she was seriously considering buying an at home drug test.

I've obviously slept since then, and no dreams like that have happened again. I had a dream that I was a mermaid trapped in disney world, and I swear to god, I could see the boy from the field standing outside my tank, watching me with those blue eyes that captured the moon so perfectly. I mean I know he had said he was from my dreams but... I heard that you can't dream about someone you haven't seen before, so where did he come from originally? A magazine maybe? Instagram? Just a random attractive stranger that my mind weirdly clung onto? Is it possible that my mind captured a snapshot of some random guy, added a personality onto him, and has been putting him into my dreams for years? Because the more I think back, the more I think I can remember him from previous dreams. Never really acting like a main character. More like someone walking by, or a bird with suspiciously blue eyes flying over me. 

I was snapped out of my thoughts by my mother pushing me by my shoulder. "Let's go, Dee." She looks at me from the corner of her eye as we slowly shuffle forward. "What were you thinking about?" She asks.

I shake my head. "I just had a weird dream is all." I feel her fingers tighten around my shoulder, and I look at her. Her face looks pinched, like she's trying not to let me see some emotion. 

"What kind of dream?" She asks, avoiding looking at me.

"Well, the dream itself wasn't all that impressive…"I look at her face, wondering if I should tell her something so personal. "But when I woke up, It felt more like a memory rather than a dream."  She was quiet for several minutes, her eyes glued to the back of the woman ahead of us. "Mom…?" I ask after the silence begins making me sweat worse than the burning sun.

"Look, I need you to promise me a couple of things." My mom is suddenly pulling me closer to her, so that she can speak more directly to me without others overhearing, as though she was about to tell me the meaning of life or some other big secret. 

I nod, staring at her suddenly wrinkled and worried brown eyes. "First, I need you to know, dreams can be very real."

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, stepping closer to her. 

"All I mean is… dreams have meaning in them, Dee. You don't just dream stuff for no reason. A lot of people think dreams are like foreshadowing, visions, if you must. I myself am one of those people. I take every dream I have very seriously, and I suggest you do too. Do you understand what I'm saying?" She stares into my eyes, and tightens her grip on my shoulder as though that's going to make me understand better. 

"Yeah… got it. And the second thing?" She stares at me for a second longer, like she's considering saying one thing, but then decides on another, and then lets go of my shoulders. 

"I need you to promise me that you're going to go in there and pass this fucking thing, because I literally never want to come back to this place ever again."

And then she was pulling me back into line, straightening her crisp white shirt, and facing forward, acting as though she hadn't totally just sounded like she knew exactly what was going on in my life right now.

    That night I didn't get home until almost one. 

I worked a late shift, and since I could now drive myself home, I decided to stop at a burger joint and get me some late night dinner. And because I was avoiding my own damn dreams, I ate inside and took my time, ordering seven soda refills. Which may have pissed my cranky waitress off, but bought me a little time to continue thinking about my current situation. 

I had compiled a list of observations: 

One: this guy was obviously some miserable creation my own lonely mind created to compensate for the lack of male presence in my life. 

Two: my mother probably thought I was dreaming about becoming a doctor and wanted me to take that into consideration when choosing what I was going to college for, and that's why she acted like a crazy person when I mentioned dreams. 

And three: I couldn't avoid sleeping forever. While I had been sleeping okay the last few nights, I had a weird sense of dread tonight. Like my brain just knew, that tonight, I would be returning to the field.

The last observation was extremely prevalent as I laid down in my soft bed after taking the longest route home possible. My mom had already gone to sleep since she had to work in the morning, and my dog too was asleep at the foot of my bed. I slipped my cold feet under her warm belly.

I covered myself up with my soft, knitted, mustard yellow blanket. I listened to the sound of my noisy, and yet somehow soothing fish tank that sat on top of my overflowing bookshelf across the room.

The last thing I thought of before falling asleep, was how my fan felt like a cool night breeze.

"Are you okay?" An unfamiliar voice asks me.

I sit straight up, breathing heavily. A woman jumps away from me, as though I'm the one was creeping on her while she was sleeping.  She's large, both height wise and weight wise. She looks like a fat version of cinderella before she got her glass shoes.  She has a lovely, cream colored face with flushed cheeks and bright blue eyes. 

I look around. I'm laying in a field, but it's not the field I wanted to be in. This one was dried up looking, dead and sad in appearance. I looked up, and was surprised to find the same bright white moon from before. The moon assured me that I was in fact in the right place. Or, at least in the general vicinity of the right place.

My eyes fall back on the woman. She's still staring at me, but she is visibly uncomfortable and obviously wants to leave. "Yeah I just… have you seen a guy? Really tall with a tattoo on the back of his neck." I stand up, dusting dirt off my sleeping shorts. 

"Well sure." She looks at me, continuing to back up little by little. "Everyone knows everyone here." I furrow my brow at her, becoming increasingly frustrated with her avoidance tactic.

"Well can you tell me where to find him?" I ask, raising my brows at her. "Please, it's really important." 

"He's probably home or in his field." She points to our right.

"Thank you." As soon as those words leave my lips she spins around and practically runs away, her feet making loud slapping noises against the sad dead ground.

I shake my head, and turn to my right, making my way through the treeline, pushing that very strange encounter to the back of my mind. The forest is pleasantly thick, but not so thick that I can't see far enough ahead of me. I can see a house to my left a few hundred feet ahead of me. I presume that's the boy's house, which means the field shouldn't be much farther ahead.

I walk quickly, feeling slightly pressed for time. Last time it was days before I could come back, what if it's longer this time? What if it's a week, or a month, or a year? I don't really know this boy too much, but for some reason the thought of not seeing him for a year makes my heart knot up. 

The tight feeling in my chest makes my bare feet move faster. I barely feel the sticks and rocks stabbing into my bare feet. I barely notice the gorgeous, huge trees covered in wet moss and flowers blooming around me. Or the deer scampering about like I was in a god damn fucking fairy tale.

All I can think about is how much my chest hurts.

I run by the house, which I can see now is man made. It's one story, with a roof that's sagging inwards. Its surrounded by thick overgrown bushes with flowers blooming from it, and the sides are home to a dark green moss. I can hear voices leaking from the cracks in the iffy wall, and can smell meat cooking and bread baking. My curiosity peaks, but I press on. I'll try the field first, and if he's not there, then the house.

A few more hundred feet, and I come to the field. 

It's just like I remember. Long, luscious grass, vividly colored flowers scattered in clumps. 

"Delilah?" I hear his voice, and my eyes search frantically for his face. 

When I find it, my heart melts. He looks so glad to see me, but I can see a layer of worry in his eyes. 

He was to the edge of the field, but now he jogs towards me. He stops abruptly in front of me, bringing along the smell of fresh bread and blood with him. 

"How did you get here?" He asks, cupping my cheeks. His hands are rough from years of manual labor, but I still lean into them. They're warm and comforting in this strange place.

"Well, a girl woke me up and I was laying in the middle of a different field. She kind of gave me directions to you but she was acting really sketchy-" 

"I didn't invite you here." He interrupts. I furrow my brow at him, shifting my weight to my other foot and grabbing his hands that still cupped my face with my own. 

"Do you not want to see me?" I ask, the inner corners of my eyes tingling. Was I about to be rejected in my own dream? 

"No, no. Of course I want to see you. But Delilah …" He pauses, looking around me towards the house. The forest seems quieter than before, more still. Even the wind is waiting to see what he's going to say next. " I can't explain this to you here. It's not safe… too many people may be listening." I furrow my brow at his words, looking around us. There was literally no one.

What did he know that I didn't? 

"Please, I need to understand. Why do these dream seem so real? Who are you? Where did you come from?" I drop our hands down, taking a step away from him."I will explain everything. I promise, Delilah. But you need to find this field outside of your dreams." He says, backing away from me. I hear that dammed whistle coming from behind me, and he moves me out of the way.

"You mean to tell me this is a real place?" I ask, my voice going up an octave. 

"Yes." Is all he says. "Now I must go. Please, be careful about coming here. The next person who finds you sleeping may not be such a gracious host." And with that, he runs off, leaving me alone in the field with a million questions burning on my lips.

This time when I wake up I'm not so sad and lonely feeling.

I'm confused and a little irritated.

I sit up, trying to process what I just dreamt about. 

What the hell did he mean, "find this place outside your dreams?" 

Were my dreams more than dreams? Was this a real place and a real person I was visiting and talking to? 

    I sat there in my bed, my fan blowing freezing air on my flushed face, my dog still sleeping at my feet. It was barely even dawn, my mom had only left for work a few minutes ago, and yet I felt as though I was ready to run a mile.

    I was confused and curious about my dreams, so I got up and grabbed my laptop off of my desk. 

I typed "what do my dreams mean" into the search bar and got a million and a half results, all telling me I was either going to die or I wasn't getting enough Vitamin D. 

    I tried googling, "dreams," "vivid dreams," and about a hundred other keywords. In the end, I came out with a few theories. I reinstated my previous theory, that my mind had just weirdly latched onto a stranger. But on a more supernatural (and unrealistic) note, I could be psychically linked to someone. But I'd never met field boy in real life, so could I be connected to him? 

    And then I started thinking about my mother. 

    Why had she reacted so strongly when I told her about the dream? Scratch that, I hadn't even told her about the dream in detail. I had literally just said, "I had a weird dream." Did she know what was going in? Did she too have these dreams? In the end I realized I would have to ask her if I wanted to get any actual answers.