bleeding hearts [h.s]

four

I stared at the mirror in front of me. My eyes were bloodshot and the bags under my eyes were dark and prominent. The florescent light of the bathroom made me look ghostly; the freckles on my cheeks seemed to jump off my pale skin.

I have not slept well the past week and half.

My tank top loosely gripped my body, and my eyes traced the exposed line of my scar that travelled up the center of my chest. Sometimes, I would think the scar hurt. It is a kind of pain that I might purely have imagined, but it does not stop it from being uncomfortable. It is a strange pain to describe, it is some sort of nagging pain that hardly hurts. The moment I have thought I have felt it, it is gone.

Ever since the dream about the boy with the curly hair, it has seemed that I am unable to shake the feeling that I somehow know him. Which is absurd, I know for a fact that I have never have met Harry or even someone that has an English accent. It had been the strangest thing; when I had woken up-- I could still smell the sunscreen and I still felt the heat of the sun on my skin.

But I had woken up; in my bed next to Matt; chilled to the bone from the early winter air that had seemed to leak into to our bedroom. Such a stark contrast from the warmth that I had just felt seconds before.

Matt did not budge from his place in bed, he just continued to snore beside me. I had panted from the abrupt shift from the dream world back to reality. Even now, as I stared at myself in the mirror, Matt laid fast asleep in the other room. It was still early, very early in fact.

I glanced at the watch on my wrist; it was six in the morning. I had an early shift at my new job. It was a simple retail store job, and I had been enjoying it thus far. The hours were quiet and the store always seemed quite empty. It was kind of a hole in the wall place in a small shopping center; now that I had thought about it, it was kind of hard to find. They had a few customers here and there, but nothing strenuous.

Matt would often come visit me at work, which was great and all, but he would often overstay and I would run out of things to say. My coworkers seemed nice enough, but they also could be quite nosy when it came to Matt. They were younger than me, two teenage girls that went to the local high school. They seemed utterly enchanted by Matt, and I couldn't really blame them, he was attractive and charming.

The thing I loved most about my job was that the store was wedged between a bookstore and a music store. So my days were filled with piano music streaming in through the air vents and a good book that I picked up on one of my breaks. I like my job, but it wasn't permanent. I supposed that at some point I would have to go back to school and get a college education, but for now I am content.

Matt and I had dinner with my mother last night. It was uneventful, Matt was his usual self, and the moment my mother and I stepped into the kitchen alone she was questioning me if I had morning sickness. To which I had to explain to her yet again that I was not nor am I planning on getting knocked up.

I didn't tell anyone about the dream though. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I liked the idea of having something to myself. My whole life the past few years have been monitored. He is my secret. I don't have to share Harry with anyone. Besides, I hadn't had a dream like that one since that one night.

No summer. No pool. No Harry.

I had read once that anyone who appears in your dreams you have either met or seen before. For the past week and a half, I had raked my mind and was tirelessly trying to figure out who Harry was. I have come up with nothing. There was no trace of the curly haired boy anywhere in my head.

It was frustrating.

One: I wanted to know who he was.

Two: Was he even real? Was it just some dream that my brain had developed because my subconscious was up to something.