give her love » james potter

45

I don't have dreams anymore.

For most of my life, I remember dreams plaguing my nights. They were strange and random, always making me feel confused in the morning but then forgetting them soon after. It was a nice escape from the world and sometimes I'd try and close my eyes so I could continue the story my mind had created.

Then September hit and it was filled with nightmares and waking up in cold sweat because the nightmares were plagued with death and guilt and so much longing. But after a few days, even the nightmares went away and those good dreams I'd experienced for most of my life didn't seem to want to come back.

They say dreams are all your hopes and internal wants being projected by your brain.

Maybe hope dies when you realise you're going to outgrow your older brother. It doesn't seem right, to ever possibly be older than the person who you'd seen as this great entity that was so much smarter and taller and . . . older, for your whole life.

I'm only seventeen and I don't anything.

But I know that the idea I'll one day turn twenty-three while my brother is always stuck at the age of twenty-two doesn't sit right with me.

That's not the point though because all that unresolved trauma isn't what I want to delve into. Rather, it's the fact I have a dream after months of darkness. Maybe, I expected a nightmare to be the road back to nights filled with something rather than nothing.

"Lina," Will says, pulling me into the blanket fort, lit up with flashlights and decorated with pillows from every room in the house. "You're always away."

I smile, slouching as I sit on a lime green pillow that's definitely from my room. His fort building skills are quite impressive and I see that he's supported it fairly well. The interior is nicely decorated with an assortment of brightly coloured nick-nacks. He's a maximalist like my mother but it's endearing.

"Well, I'm here now."

He shakes his head. "But then you'll be gone and it's not the same without you."

Words mean the most when they came from someone seven years younger than you.

"Will," I shake my head. "Remember, you're Pietro and I'm Wanda. We're together forever."

There's a flicker of pain passing through his face, he moves over to hug me and I can smell peppermint all over him. "I'm sorry for dying."

"It's not your fault," I whisper, holding him tighter.

"It didn't hurt."

"Pardon?"

"Dying didn't hurt," he tells me, a serious expression on his face. There's an unfamiliar cut on his cheek and my fingers skim it, he softens. "It just felt like a tiny pinch, Lina. Mum says that you beat yourself up about it but, I need you to know it didn't hurt."

I nod. "It didn't hurt."

Then he moves to grab some comic and lay down on the ground, reading about X-Men and mumbling something about how he loves Jean Grey. I sit back and find a magazine in my lap, looking through some quizzes about what type of dog breed I am.

Spoiler alert. I'm a border collie.

"James seems nice."

The magazine disappears from my hands I stare at him in confusion. "I've never told you about him."

He shrugs. "You learn a lot of things once you die."

"You've always been quite the gossip," I say, teasingly though my heart is growing heavier by the second. I didn't realize that you could miss someone when they were right beside you. "So what do you think of him?"