Help Me Close My Eyes

8 ~ take what you want.

"I don't want anything in our broken home.
Not the memories or the things we own.
Not the picture of us on the wall,
So take what you want and go."
- ONE OK ROCK

***

Liam's POV

"What is this?" she asks, frozen in shock.

"Don't you think if I knew that I would've told you already?" I reply.

"I don't know, Liam, you knew about me for a year, and you never felt the need to tell me about that!"

I sigh heavily. She's right. I should really go easier on her. I was pretty shocked when I found out too.

I mean, it's not like seeing a picture of yourself from before you were even born is an everyday occurrence.

"Who are these people?" she asks, pointing to the picture and looking up at me expectantly.

"What do you mean who are they? They're us," I reply.

"How do you know though? How do you know they aren't our grandparents or something?"

"Well, I know it's not mine," I say. "My grandpa died when he was like 20 in 1962. This picture is from '74."

"And neither of my grandmas looked anything like me when they were young," she says, shaking her head. "How can this be us? I don't - I don't remember this," she says.

"I know, me neither," I reply. I glance over to the other photo albums piled in the corner. "I hate to tell you this, but it gets weirder."

"How could it possibly get weirder?" she asks, tearing her eyes away from the photo for the first time to look up at me with wide eyes.

I stand and grab the remaining two albums off the floor. "This one is from 1943, and this one is from 1910." I set them in her lap one after the other.

A small smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. "So you just make a habit of stealing from libraries then?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

I let out a short chuckle, glad that she's able to keep some humor during something like this.

She's strong.

I sit down on the couch next to her and open the photo album from the forties. Flipping to the earmarked page, I point to the picture in the top right corner.

I look down at the image. This time, it's a picture of just me and Adira. We're sitting on a wooden bench on a pier, and it looks like the ocean is behind us in the distance.

We look younger in this one, high school age maybe.

Even though I've seen all of these photos before, seeing my own face smiling up at me from a life I can't even remember never ceases to make me uneasy.

"Seriously, what the hell?" Adira says. She scoots closer to me to get a better look over my shoulder, and I feel the warmth of her against my side.

I have to fight back a shiver, and I curse myself for the reaction. It's not fair that she can make me feel like this.

I mean, I know I only just met her, but I swear to God, this girl's been ruining my life for years now.

You know, I used to have a normal life.

I went to school, I had a job, and I had a girl. But the dreams were always there. Ever since I was little, the dreams have been there.

I tried to ignore them. In fact, I never talked about them to anyone until I met Lydia. She was different. For once, there was someone who seemed to be interested in all of me. In the parts I hide from everyone else.

For the first time, I had a way to live with the dreams that didn't involve sleeping my days away. Finally I had something important enough in the real world to get back to - Lydia.

She would hold me when they were bad. She would help me forget when they were good.

It was what brought us close...at first.

But eventually, the dreams took their toll.

Every night, I'd dream about this other girl. I tried for as long as I could, as hard as I could, to keep fantasy and reality separate.

I thought I was doing a decent job.

Until I found out that Ira was real.

I don't know what changed exactly, all I know is that something in me must've shifted.

Because that was when Lydia told me she couldn't do it anymore. She said it was hard enough sharing me with someone else when they weren't real. Now that the other woman in my life was a reality, she couldn't do it.

I tried to convince her to stay. I begged, I pleaded, I promised her that I'd never look for Adira. I told her that she was enough for me, that I didn't need a fantasy if I had her.

But it wasn't enough.

I guess there's only so long you can stay with a man who wakes up every morning with another girl's name on his lips.

Ira shuts the final photo album and looks up at me, snapping me out of my thoughts. "There has to be some explanation for this, right?" she asks. "What do we do now? How do we figure out what all of this means and how it's connected to the dreams?"

I grab the book from the seventies and flip back to the correct page. Carefully, I reach underneath the plastic covering and slip the photo from the page.

"We," I say, flipping it over and handing it to Adira, "are going here."

She looks down and reads the faded writing on the back on the picture.

"Is that an address?" she asks.

"Yup," I reply, taking the photo back from her and slipping it in my jacket pocket. "Hopefully at least one of the people in this picture is still alive and has some answers for us. It's only a day or so drive from here. So come on, let's go," I say, standing up.

"Awesome," she replies following suit. "If we're going somewhere for another day though, do you mind if I get a change of clothes? I'm kind of starting to feel gross."

"You can't be serious right?" I ask. "You can't go back to your apartment, Ira. I already told you, someone's after us, and they know where you live, remember?"

She sighs heavily and wraps her arms around herself. "Yeah, you're right, I don't know what I was thinking. It's fine, let's just go."

Immediately I regret being so blunt with her. She's strong, but she's freaked. I mean, who wouldn't be?

"Look," I say, raising a hand to rub the back of my neck, "I probably have some of my ex-girlfriend's stuff here.. If you want to try that."

"Oh," she says, visibly uncomfortable as she looks to the ground. "I don't want to- Won't that be weird?"

"Please," I say, motioning for her to follow me. "As if this could get any weirder."