Dreamers [#Wattys2020]

9.

Noah.

When I wake up, I don't know what it is, but I feel like I'm falling right through my mattress. It's as if this is the moment in time when the universe decides that it wants to swallow me whole because I've started asking questions about its motives. I just need it to tell me what is going on or at the very least reassure me that it doesn't want to cause any harm.

I find that I'm holding my blanket with a death grip as I think back on everything, yet I keep going back to the fact that Rover wants me to send him a message. I don't think I can count on any of this being real, but I know part of me does. What if he's right? What if there's so much more to this than I could imagine? I could live in my version of a perfect world and I could show it to him. I could prove to him that staying in one place forever isn't the answer.

I haven't dared to look at a clock yet, but I know that I've at least missed one class already. Maybe two. I just don't think I have any energy to care about it.

The buzzing of my phone on my night stand startles me back into reality. Diana's name shows up on the screen, but it goes dark before I have time to read what she's sent and instead I now have to reach for it. I can feel the muscles in my arm stretch and the burning is somewhat uncomfortable, yet as soon as I'm able to grab my phone and sink back into my bed it all goes back to normal. I unlock my screen and see that she's sent me a text.

"How's school?" she asks. "I'm just checking in to see how that book cover is coming along."

The book cover... I honestly feel too distracted at the moment to even look at it because it makes me think of him. I'm sure if she knew about my hesitation at the task she would swear that there's something really wrong with me and although I wish that this wouldn't be the case I think she would be right in some sense.

"It's coming along great," I write back. "Going to work on some of the placement later."

I'm thankful to be a much better liar when people can't see my face.

Unlike her vigilant attachment to her emails, Diana doesn't tend to respond to texts as quickly and thus I might as well just wait for her to get home before I receive any kind of response.

On the other hand, there's that message that Rover wants me to send to him. For all that I know my dreams could just be that and nothing more. I could have literally bought into my fantasies and am simply going insane now, but I can't deny that I also have this nagging in the back of my head that keeps telling me to just do it, talk to him. It's this uncontrollable urge that makes me open up his profile on twitter and stare at it for over an hour, internally fighting with myself to just make up my mind. A few times, I even throw my phone to the other end of my bed so that I don't look at it, yet it never lasts long as I'm always going back to pick it up. And I don't get it, but my cellphone keeps giving me a static shock when I grab it. It's as if it doesn't want me to look at his profile and maybe I should take it as a warning but finally I click the direct message link.

"Hi," I type before immediately backspacing it.

"It's me," I try again, but still I erase it anyway.

Over and over I attempt to think of something to say, yet just like before I end up tossing my phone to the edge of my bed.

I'm certain that I repeated this cycle for what felt like hours, because Diana eventually walks through the front door.

"Hey No, you home?!" She shouts from downstairs.

"Yeah," I reply.

I can't tell if she's heard me or not because she doesn't shout anything back.