In Your Dreams // phan

f i v e

The dream was everything I wanted. But also much more than I knew what to do with.

It began simple enough. A little boy with scraped up knees and floppy brown hair clung to what I assumed to be his mother's hand, staring hesitantly out at the playground in front of him. His eyes were welling up with tears and his breath was coming short.

It was nothing like I'd thought it'd be. I wasn't just watching a movie, sitting back and enjoying the show. I was right in the middle of the action, so much so that I could feel the little boy's fear clutching my own heart in it's terrible grip, rolling my own lower lip into my mouth in order not to cry. I breathed hard, trying to remind myself that it was just a dream as I  examined the playground. The little boy took tentative steps toward the other children after his mother shooed him in their direction.

He faked a grin as the other kids observed him, pausing their swings and glancing down from the cue on their way down the slide. Then, all at once, the children approached him, their words loud and brash and their fingers sticky. The little boy began to whimper as the kids volleyed him with questions about where he was from and why he was there, asking to touch his hair and the little bear key chain he had strapped to his over-sized knapsack. He looked back to where his mum had stood moments ago to find she was nowhere to be seen, and, at the sight of the empty doorway, he began to cry.

His sobs were loud and strangled as he fought to catch his breath, the kids only surrounding him closer in their juvenile attempts at consolation, their hands all reaching out to pat his back or give him a hug. His sobs turned to screaming, the sound shrill and panicked, and the children backed away, leaving the little boy alone, crumpled on the ground, curled up into the smallest ball he could manage.

His mum ran to him quickly and shushed him down to a whimper, his tiny hands over his ears in an attempt to block out the world.

I opened my eyes with a start, sitting up quickly and gasping as I pushed my sheets away from my feet as fast as I could, fearing the feeling of being trapped in my slightly tired state. I swallowed and took a few more deep breaths, running my hand through my hair, looking around the room. I didn't know what to do.

I pressed a shaking hand to my chest, my heart pounding with the tempo and intensity of a snare drum in a storm. I gulped again, my brain turning back on as my breaths became fuller and slower.

Two things came to me suddenly.

One, that little boy was most definitely Dan. There was no mistaking those eyes and that hair and that grin.

And two. Two was the most important.

Two was that I had a dream. And that dream was about the most amazing boy I had ever met. The person I was destined to love since the second I was born. My soulmate.

A smile crept onto my face despite the situation. I knew it. I knew he was the one. I knew he would appear to me tonight, I knew I would dream, I knew because it just felt so right being with him. We spent just a little over an hour together yet I felt as though I had known him for a thousand years. And I wanted to spend another million with him by my side, his hand clutched in mine, his eyes locked on me, his dreams and my dreams intertwined.

I hadn't known any people who hadn't married their soulmate. I knew of a few, mainly because they discovered their soulmate was some terrible person or that they hadn't survived long enough to seal the deal. That was one of my constant fears regarding the whole thing. That my soulmate would turn out to be a murderer or that they had two days to live when I first met them.

But no. Dan was perfect. Or so I thought when I first met him.

Dan was going through something I didn't understand. I had experienced a fraction of a fraction of what he had gone through at such a young age and it still left my heart racing. I knew what I'd have to do.

I'd have to hold his hand throughout all of it. I'd have to be his support system, his tether to reality. And I was so, so willing to do that. Anything that meant he would open up to me and let me help him through whatever it was that he was going through.

I glanced at my phone. No new messages. This barely got to me, my heart too inflated by the mere thought of Dan being somewhere out there right now, either dreaming of me or awake and thinking of me. I was desperately wondering what it was he saw, what his first of many dreams showed him of my past. I hoped that whatever made this happen, the universe or fate or God, I hope that it'd have mercy on my poor soul mate, and I hoped it was something happy. Something that made him smile.

I hoped with all my heart it didn't skip right to the bad stuff.

I suddenly realised the time, my eyes glancing over the display at the top of my phone screen.

Four AM? It seemed much later than that. I still had to wait three hours until I got to see Dan again? I even had an hour and a half until my alarm even went off, yet there was no way I could get back to sleep. I pulled my laptop out from under the bed, intent on doing as much research as I could on whatever it was that Dan was going through.

Fear of school. Fear of crowds. Fear of people. Fear of social interaction. Fear. Fear. Fear.

I found it after about twenty minutes of searching, and I couldn't believe I had been so dumb.

Anxiety, or Generalised Anxiety Disorder, is a disorder characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry. This could be around anyone or about anything, and no one knows what causes it. No one even has a clue.

I read into it as much as I could, finding treatments and other symptoms I might have missed, ways to console and comfort those with the disorder during attacks and after, and tried to get as much of an idea about what Dan was going through. He was maybe six or seven in the dream, so I knew it must have been childhood onset. One thing I didn't know, however, was how often it happened. If I had to feel like that every day or more I'd never want to leave my room. Not even for new books. And I'd especially never wish that upon my worst enemy, let alone my soulmate.

My alarm startled me out of my educational spiral, reminding me of real life and the school I had to attend. And a certain boy I was bound to see.

I slammed my hand on top of my clock with a flourish, an insane smile dawning on my face. Even after the rough start, today was going to be a great day.

Hey, I dreamed about you last night. I sent the message before I could give myself a second to think about it, figuring I didn't need to say too much. He knew what that meant.

A few minutes later, as I was pulling on my jeans, toothbrush dangling dangerously from my lips, I heard my phone buzz on my bed where I had tossed it earlier. I nearly pounced on it, my heart racing as I read the beautiful, amazing, wonderful, perfect name, followed by the best thing anyone has ever responded to a text like that ever.

Yeah. Me too.