Chapter 25

 

She felt like she could puke at any time.  In fact, that’s what made her change her direction.  Pacing had usually always been contained to around her couch and coffee table, but this time it included the kitchen and when the threat of vomit came to her she made her pacing further and detoured by the bathroom.  Jingles was plopped on the back of the couch lazily tapping his tail in rhythm to her pacing. It was thirty minutes past the time he claimed he would be there and he wasn’t there yet and he hadn’t called.  She had been a nervous wreck ever since she gathered up the guts to call him.  In fact, it didn’t take much to persuade herself to call him, but once her fingers had rapidly dialed the numbers she panicked, and when Trace picked up the phone she immediately started to cry.

 

Her decisions the past month had been rash but she was hurt and confused and frightened.  And she wasn’t quite sure what she was frightened of.  She didn’t want to believe she was scared of him, but something about the whole situation had scared her enough to where she ditched the one man besides her brother and father who had ever truly treated her and loved her properly.  She didn’t want to put faith in her brother at first and that showed her something.  The one man she had always, always trusted with opinions and decisions was the one man she didn’t want to believe.  Her entire life she had put her trust in Alden, but when this news came out, when he told her about Justin, she wanted to call him liar.  And that’s just what she did.  She yelled at him, accused him, threatened him, and she knew he was right. 

 

But she soon realized her brother was frightened as well.

 

It was silly really, being frightened over someone that was harmless.  Justin had never, ever threatened her or put her in danger.  He had never yelled at her or beat her or did anything like that.  And it wasn’t necessarily him that she was afraid of, but really it was his mind.  She was afraid that he had built her up to be something she could never, ever be.  When he finally realized that, if he hadn’t already, her heart would be smashed and she couldn’t deal with that, not from him.

 

Every other man she had been with before Justin was obsolete.  He was all that mattered to her and that was why she had to leave before it got any worse.  She had to leave before he became like every other man she had been with, before he wished she was something that she wasn’t.

 

But it only got worse and the more time she spent without him, without even letting him explain or talking to him about this, the more she felt herself going crazy.  And now she wondered if he was just doing this to get her back.  She had disappeared on him, so why shouldn’t he just not show up?

 

He would show up. 

 

She knew he would. She hoped he would.

 

She sat down on her couch and sighed.  Her eyes were tired from the crying she had done recently and the lack of sleep.  She wanted to rest, but her body was too on edge and her mind was too anxious for rest to come near.  She longed to see him, to ask him how he was doing, to try and have him explain all this to her.  Actually, she didn’t even know if she wanted him to explain or if she cared anymore.  She missed him, terribly, and felt that ditching him was the biggest mistake of her life.    She had done it in a moment of blind fear and when she finally opened her eyes and realized what she had done, she was terrified to go back and find her way.  She decided to remain lost in her own world, alone and miserable.

 

Self torture wasn’t something she normally liked, but for some reason it fit here.

 

And it hurt.  It hurt to be without him, to keep him from herself.  It hurt not to be able to call him, not to know how he was doing.  Waking up alone was miserable when he was recording, but after Alden broke the news it became unbearable.  She stopped sleeping in her bed and took to the couch, but then the couch brought back too many memories for her so she packed up her stuff and came back to New York earlier than planned.  Classes started back in two weeks and she was thankful to have the distraction.  But the worst part was that he hadn’t left her.  This was her own doings.  She was hoping she’d be able to cut herself off from him and slowly be able to get over him, to stop thinking about him.  But it only made things worse.  Everything around her reminded her of him.  She knew her grades were going to fall if she kept this up. 

 

She cared little about school, about shopping, about anything.  Most her time was spent at home, alone, listening to music and panicking, calling Alden and asking him if he had heard from Justin.  Her few friends were either still overseas or working for the summer.  She had no one to talk to, no one but Jingles.  Reynolds had brought him to her a week after she moved back and she was so, so thankful for the company, even though it wasn’t much more than an occasionally rub against her legs and the soothing sounds of a soft purr.

 

A small grey cat curled up at the foot of the bed every night couldn’t compare to a warm body next to hers.  She missed him so much.  And her last memories of him were so wonderful that it was hard for her to keep up her disappearance.  She almost called him several times, almost bought a ticket to Virginia Beach, almost gave herself up and gave in.  The thought of the last time she has spent with him, golfing with her dad, making love in her bed in Connecticut, being naked with him on the porch of the boat house wrapped up in a big quilt, having him wake her up in the morning with him humming a soft Lionel Ritchie song, which would make her laugh and make him smile.

 

She curled up on the couch and held onto her sides, she missed his smile and his laugh.  It couldn’t be fake, those times when he would look at her, it couldn’t just be some fantasy he was playing out.  It felt so real to her and seemed so real to him.  Sure at first, some times things were weird and forced but, but the last few weeks of their relationship had been perfect, easy, so fucking easy.

 

She hoped he would show up soon.  She needed him to explain, to make her understand.  She needed him in her life again. She needed them to talk this out, figure this out, and find out what to do to make everything better. 

 

A glance at the clock on her wall made her nerves jolt.  It was now nearing eleven.  Why hadn’t he called?  She stared at her cell phone, lying on the coffee table and watched as Jingles hopped from his space on the couch to the table and laid right by the phone.  He stretched out and in doing so pushed the phone off the table, towards her.  She took it as a sign, picked up the phone and dialed his number.

 

It rang.  And rang.  And rang.

 

“This is Justin, leave one.”

 

“Fuck!”  She cried and threw the phone at the other end of the couch.  He was now doing it to her.  The pathetic voice on the phone earlier, the sadness in his tone and the desperation in his words were all a lie.  He was making her pay for what she did to him.  She knew she deserved it, but it hurt like hell and she didn’t want to do this any more.

 

She was tired, so fucking tired. 

 

Her eyes hurt even more as she burst into tears, hitting the side of her couch and softly asking her cat “why?”  But she stopped suddenly, sat up, sniffed and listened.  She had heard a distant ‘ding’ and could hear the squeaky doors of the elevator outside her room opening.  She had complained about those doors for months now, but now she was thankful they had never been fixed. 

 

She couldn’t move as a crackled hollow voice came from the small speaker by her door. “Miss Height, someone here to see you.”  She took a breath and before she knew it she was at the door, swinging it open, staring at the man she had missed for longer than she should.

 

She didn’t blink and neither did he.

 

Joseph, the doorman and guard for the condominium was there, looking in between them, but she didn’t notice and she didn’t care.  “Thank you Joe,” she said in a quite tone and held the door open for Justin to walk through.

 

He looked miserable.  His beard was fuller than she had ever seen it, his hair longer, his face look sunken in, and light bluish grey skin hung beneath his dark blue eyes. But he looked beautiful to her. He slowly stepped through the foyer and into her condo.  She glanced at Joseph only for a moment as he got back in the elevator and then quickly closed the door to her foyer and locked it behind her. 

 

He turned around suddenly and she stared at him as he explained his tardiness. “I’m sorry I’m late.  We couldn’t land because of some runaway mess up and, and my phone battery died and I didn’t know your number ‘cause it was in my phone and…”

 

Darcy shook her head and stepped forward.  “It’s ok.  You’re…you’re here now.”

 

She watched him pace within the three feet he was standing in.  He grabbed at his hair and let his hands fall down beside him.  He looked at the ceiling and then at her.  His voice was choked with emotion when he said, “I’m lost here Darcy. I…I want to touch you and I know I can’t.  And I want to just tell you everything and just make you understand in a minute, but it’s not gonna be that simple.  I missed you and I…I feel like I should be holding you right now instead of just standing here staring at you, but that’s not what you want.  And, and I understand. You just want an explanation, right?”

 

He was breaking down and it made her lose it.  She covered her face with her hands and leaned back against the doorway.  “I don’t know what I want.  I...I don’t know anything.”

 

She was confused.  She wanted to take him back right then, to run to him and kiss him and forget everything and just be with him.  She wanted to lock out the world and the truth.  But the truth was written on his face.  She didn’t understand how this had happened, what his dreams meant, what they meant for their relationship and she wanted to find out.  But something in her was sure and so scared that when she did find out she might not want to go on. 

 

It was too much.  A dream girl?  That didn’t happen.  She loved him, she loved him more than anything, but she knew if he was mentally unstable than being with her probably was the worst thing for him, especially if she was the cause of that instability.  Nothing made sense to her and she hated not being in control of their situation.

 

“Please...”  She wiped her face as he begged her, “please don’t cry.”

 

One look at him, one glance to see that he was in as much pain as her, it made her cave. “Just…”  She waved him over, but didn’t look at him, couldn’t look at him.  “Come here,” she whispered.

 

He was holding her quicker than she could imagine.  He as holding her so tightly and it felt good and safe.  If he was so dangerous to her, if he was so bad then why did it feel so good to be with him?  Why did this make everything better, instantly?  She could feel him crying into her shoulder, feeling his tears on her neck.  She just held him and held him and fingered the curls at the back of his neck.  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered harshly into her shirt.  “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t tell you.  I couldn’t tell you at first.  I knew it would scare you.  I...I should have told you sometime.  And I wanted to.  God, I wanted to. I just, I wasn’t ready yet.  I was afraid something like this would happen.”

 

She pulled away slightly, wiping her nose and face with her hand.  “Come on…”  She took a much needed breath.  Standing there holding him was wonderful, but they had so much more to go through, so much to talk out, and delaying that was just going to make it harder in the end.  Plus she knew if she didn’t break away then, she never would, she’d hold him and kiss him and she’d never be able to figure this out.  “Let’s sit down.  Do you want anything?  Water or something?”

 

He walked further into her condo, looking around for a moment and then turning to look at her.  “Maybe later.”  She watched him sit down and gently rub the top of Jingles head. 

 

She came around and sat on the couch near him, but not too close.  He didn’t look at her for a moment, just stared at her cat as it began to purr from how Justin was scratching behind it’s ear.

 

“This is a nice place. Big.”

 

She sighed and looked away from him.  “Lonely.”

 

“It doesn’t have to be.  It didn’t have to be.”  She looked back at him and he looked away, as if he was ashamed of what he just said.  “I…I understand that you were scared, that...that you probably still are but, but why didn’t you just talk to me?”

 

“I was terrified.  I couldn’t understand it and Alden…Alden told me you were sick.  He said that, that you needed help and I didn’t know what to do.”

 

This look came over his face and she tried to decipher it, but it was hard to see his true emotions, especially when he wasn’t looking directly at her.  He looked hurt, betrayed maybe.  He looked as if something dear was taken from him and she didn’t understand it.  It was like he was tormented, like he had been for a long, long time.  He looked wearied.  He didn’t seem confused like she was, but she could tell that he was in more pain than she realized, more pain than she had been. 

 

Maybe that was what was so bad.  She was scared and upset because she didn’t understand it.  But he did.  He knew everything and here he was, more lost than she was.  Suddenly she thought that maybe talking this out wasn’t the best idea.  Maybe, maybe she really didn’t want to know. “You don’t understand what that did to me Darcy.  I know I fucked up.  I know I should have told you, but how the hell do you tell some one that…that they’re your…your..”.

 

“Dream girl,” she finished for him, since he was having so hard of a time.  She smiled at him barely, and he shook his head.

 

“I know, it sounds like the most ridiculous thing.”

 

“Then explain it to me,” she asked.  “Tell me…tell me about them, I could barely hear what Alden was saying.  My...my mind had exploded when he told me and…”

 

He cut her off and ran a hand threw his hair.  “It’s been a while, several years since I started having them, the dreams.  And since I’ve been with you I haven’t had a single one.  They were so real Darcy, so fucking real.  And…and I know people say that it wasn’t you.  My mom knows, and she’s convinced that it’s just a coincidence, that you just happened to have the same name as her, but I swear, the girl in my dreams was you.  Maybe, maybe you didn’t act the same, but there were similarities and you are her, she…she looked just like you.”

 

She was confused.  He wasn’t talking fast, but she was having a hard time keeping up.  What he said didn’t make sense.  She was his dream girl, but it seemed at the same time she wasn’t.  And did he mean that she was actually in his dreams or did he just mean it in that figurative way.  She rubbed her forehead.  “Similarities?”

 

“Well…”  She watched him look around.  He eyed her cat for a moment and then his eyes lit up.  “For instance, my dream Darcy had a tabby cat, named Jingles.  She…she liked to walk in the rain and, and…”

 

But he had just said they didn’t act the same.  She herself was staring to have a hard time figuring out what he was talking about.  Was it real or fake?  Was he talking about her, or the other her?  And who was this other her?  She huffed in a sigh, “But we didn’t act the same?”

 

“There were differences.  Like the first dream I had was that I was in Tennessee.  My car had broke down, in the dream I mean, and I went down this dirt road and you were at this little cabin listening to classical music.  But I had dreams later, dreams where I was actually fighting with you, fighting to figure out if you were real or not and, and one time you said you were from Virginia and were in College or something.  I don’t know.  All I know was that they were so real, so real that they took over.  And it wasn’t just that I had the dream once or twice, but you would come back and come back, for like five years Darcy.  We’d go places in my dreams, we’d talk, we’d…”  She watched him suck in a breath and blush, something very un-Justin like.  “We’d have sex.  We had sex a lot in my dreams.  It’s…it’s what made Britney and I break up.”

 

“What?”  She thought it was that the girl had cheated and dumped him.  This, this was turning into something much bigger than she thought.  No wonder her brother was so worried.  It was like he was possessed, controlled by something other than himself.  As he talked about the dreams he had a strange look in his eyes, like he was out of control.  He started to talk faster and it was strange to see him act this way.

 

“She…she thought I didn’t love her any more because I was occupied with something else.  She didn’t know it but it was, it was you...it was my dreams.  I…I withdrawed I guess.  One day she heard me moaning your name in my sleep and….and we got in this huge fight and she told me she had cheated on me and, and in a way I guess…I guess I had cheated on her.  ‘Cause I had fallen in love with someone else.  She just happened not to be real.”

 

She looked away from him and curled up a little bit on the couch, bringing her knees up to her chin and rocking a bit.  It was slowly piecing together in her brain, but she was still rather lost.  Did he think she was just a dream?  Did he even know that she was really there?  She felt his hand on her back and was startled for a moment.  She looked at him and swallowed the lump in her throat.  He was right by her. 

 

“But you are real Darcy.  I was in therapy for you…for my dreams, for…for that.  And that one random day during my session I went out to go...I don’t know, the bathroom or something, and I ran into you.  I ran into you and you were real, fucking real.”

 

“I don’t understand.  How can…I didn’t know you!  It’s not like we knew each other before.”  She grabbed her hair.  It really wasn’t the actually material of his dreams that confused her.  She got it.  Before they met he was having dreams about her, or about someone that was her exact twin and had her same name.  But she didn’t understand why.  They didn’t know each other, how could he even imagine what she would look like.  How could he have known to dream about her?

 

“I don’t understand it either.  But my dreams were about you.”

 

She started to wonder if this dream girl he had was someone else.  Maybe she had been faceless in his dreams and maybe he was just so messed up that when he met her he put her into his brain and pretended or really thought she, her, Darcy had been in his dreams.  “How can you know that?  How…maybe you just think I’m something that I’m not.”

 

“You’re her Darcy.”  She stared at him and his blue eyes were unwavering and he looked so sure of himself.  He immediately sighed and stood off the couch.  She watched him begin to pace in her living room, but she didn’t stop him and she didn’t uncurl herself.  “And, and when we first started to date, like really date in real life I…there were times when you would do things that weren’t, weren’t like my dreams.  Darcy, dream Darcy was, was mysterious and deep and angelic almost, other-worldly, and I’m not saying that you’re not that way, but, you’re so down to earth and fun and just giggly and bubbly and this girl was like a fucking ghost.  But you weren’t a ghost you were real.  You are real and you would say that to me over and over and over in my dreams.  You’d keep saying ‘I’m real, I’m real’ and I never believed it.  But then I met you.”

 

“I can’t just believe that you had some weird telepathic knowledge of me.”

 

“Darcy.” She watched him clench his fist and then come to kneel down right before her.  His eyes were pleading with her, and he grabbed both of her hands.  “I don’t even believe in that shit.  I don’t believe in psychics or that crap.  I can’t explain this.  I can’t tell you how I knew of you before I met you, how you invaded my dreams.  But you did and you didn’t let me go.  You didn’t let me go until I started therapy.  In fact, I didn’t even know your name until really really late, until only a few months before we met, right before I was forced into therapy…”

 

“Forced?”  Things were clearing up for her, but she seemed to be getting more and more confused about what all everything meant.

 

He sighed and pushed him up, beside her on the couch.  “The only person who knew about my dreams was Trace.  Britney, I tried to explain it and she thought I was just making shit up.  After Britney and I broke up I…I kind of went to this really dark place.  I guess you could say I was depressed.  I couldn’t get out of it.  One day I had this big intervention with all the guys in the group and Johnny and my mom and Trace and, and it was ugly.  Trace had told them about my dreams and they told me I had to go to therapy and so I did.  And…and at first I was terrified of the idea.  I think part of me was scared because I didn’t want to be alone.  Yeah, my dreams haunted me and fucked me up but, but I was without Britney and I didn’t want to be without…”

 

“Without me in your dreams.”

 

She was starting to understand how much this had affected him and felt bad for assuming that he was just plain crazy and that she needed to get away from him.  It was never that simple, but she felt a need to try and oversimplify her actions since clearly this was not a situation that was going to be easily dealt with or explained. “Exactly.  But it got better and I started going out again.  In fact, the day I bumped into you I...I had this hot date planned with this girl I knew, and…and after I saw you, really saw you I just went home and paced all night.  I couldn’t sleep. I…I called up Trace.  He thought I had lost it.  And the next day I decided to go to the doctor’s office and just wait, and hope you would show up.  I knew I couldn’t just go in ‘cause I had bailed on my session the day before.  So I waited in the parking lot in my car.  And I saw you.  I saw you and then…”  He sighed and a deep red came over his face.  “I fucking stalked you, to be serious Darcy.”

 

He began to laugh at himself and rubbed his hand over his face in an embarrassed manner.

 

“What?”

 

He bit his lip and looked away from her.  “I was parked my car and waiting when saw you come out of this other car.  I watched you walk into the office and I flipped.  I can even remember how you pulled down on your shirt and pulled your hair out of a hair holder thing.  And you got about half way to the door and forgot that you hadn’t locked the car and you stepped on the ends of your toes and lifted your arm up to lock it with the remote.  And when you went inside I panicked.  I fucking got out and ran after you, but didn’t know what to say, so I fucking waited behind this bush.”

 

“You what?”  She just blinked at him.

 

“I’m psychotic, I know.”

 

She began to laugh and it felt so damn good.  She hadn’t laughed in so long.  He looked at her kind of hurt for a moment and she said, “I’m just picturing you hiding behind a bush.”

 

He smiled at her and touched her neck and then her face, looking at her sweetly.  “When you came out and sat on the curb I...I knew I had to do something.  I thought up all the lines in my head, what do I say to a girl that’s haunted my dreams but clearly has no idea about this?  When I bumped into you the day before I thought you knew me.  I thought for a moment when you recognized me that that maybe you had been real that somehow my dreams were actually real.  But then when I found out you were a fan I…I didn’t know what to do.”

 

“So you approached me on the curb.”

 

He nodded. “I thought I was going to faint.”

 

‘So did I.  I couldn’t believe that…that you were approaching me.  This celebrity guy that I had had the hots for since I was sixteen was actually approaching me.”

 

He sighed and stood up again, back to his pacing but not as anxious or quickly as before. It seemed to her that he just needed to be moving around, doing something.  “And ya know, I guess, I guess in a sense it was the dreams that brought us together ‘cause, honestly Darcy, I would never date a fan.  You’re beautiful and you’re amazing, but if I had just bumped into you and never knew anything about you, dream or otherwise, it’d be really hard for me to trust you with more than an autograph.”

 

She sucked in a breath. “And that’s what scares me.  I mean, what…what if I’m not who you think I am?”

 

He shook his head and stared at her right on, standing before her.  “Come on Darcy. I’ve known you for months.  The dreams…I got over them.  I, I tried to forget them.  You were new and you were different from my dreams, but at the same time you were wonderful, better.  The dream Darcy was someone I’d, I’d probably actually never go for in real life.  She was over my head at times and had too much power over me.  She would say she loved me but I knew she was in control.  And you control me now, you do, ‘cause I love you and I’d do anything for you, but I know you don’t have power over me, Darcy.  You don’t make decisions for me, you love me for me.  I adore you, but you don’t possess me.  And…and I do love you for you…”  He sat down suddenly, very close to her and held her face in his hand. “I just…I have to get you to believe that.”

 

She brought up her hand to hold it to her face and closed her eyes as he stroked her cheek.  It felt so good just to have him touch her like that. “I’m sorry I cut you off,” she whispered.

 

She didn’t fight when he brought his arms around her and pulled her into his chest.  He leaned back against the couch and held her there, close against him.  She felt good laying next to him and knew that she was just going to have to work through this.  She going to have to work with him and figure out what they could do to stop making their minds run on empty.

 

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be with him, because God, she could barely live without him.  She was just scared of what all this meant.  It was hard for her to be with him and not really understand what happened to him before they met.  And as much as she was flattered by the fact that he dreamed her before he met her, it still made her worry and made her uneasy.  As much as he said he knew her and loved her she couldn’t help but wonder if he still thought of her in such an adoring light.  Yes, she wanted him to adore her and worship her, but not like this, not like she was some miracle.  She could tell that the dream girl, whatever she was, had obsessed him, taken over him completely, enough to make his family and friends force him into therapy, ruin his relationships, maybe even change who he was.  But that wasn’t her.  The girl in his mind that caused all of that wasn’t her.  And she didn’t want him to think they were the same.

 

She believed in fate, but this was all together a different, strange, eerie way for fate to work.  She thought it was fate that her brother worked at Justin’s therapist office.  That had been enough for her.  This dream stuff was beyond her comprehension, beyond her beliefs, and she couldn’t help but be a little hurt by the fact that she knew, deep down she knew that if he hadn’t dreamed of her, or thought of her as his “dream” woman he would have never, ever approached her that day.

 

And that made her doubt his feelings, as much as she hated to admit it.

 

“Please don’t disappear again.”  She looked up at him and he was looking down at her, crying.  It was too much and at the same time she couldn’t look away.  “When I had the dreams, you would sometimes go for months without visiting me and sometimes I would be happy for it, but, but when I was really bad, when I was really obsessed with you and would try to sleep as much as possible just in hopes that you’d visit, when my real life got so fucked up and all I wanted to do was grab hold of you and be with you ‘cause I could touch you in my dreams and be with you and it was more real than anything else.  Then, when you stopped visiting me, it broke me apart Darcy.  And then, here you are, real, right in front of me, touching me in the real world and then you vanish…I just, I lost it.  I fucking lost it Darcy.”

 

His tears started to come faster and she shook her head, buried it in his chest unable to look at him.  “I’m so sorry I did that to you.  I so sorry.”

 

“Please don’t be scared of me.  I’d never hurt you.  Ever.  In any way.”  His voice was quiet, a whisper, and it was begging her.  She just held on, crying quietly to herself, unable to answer him.  She wanted to believe that and she knew he’d never intentionally harm her.  But she couldn’t live up to these expectations, and she had to wonder if being with him, for the long run, no matter how happy it made her, might eventually break her heart.  “You have to know that, right?” She gulped and breathed deeply into his chest.  “Darcy?”

 

“I know…”  She whispered, hoping that she wasn’t lying.  At this point she barely knew her own thoughts.  She glanced up at him and she knew he loved her.  She could feel it.  She knew that the time they had spent with each other, getting to know each other, had been genuine, weird and maybe little biased on his part at times, but she had been biased, too.  She had assumed he was just like the way he had been described in all the magazines she had read.  And he was the same to some extent, but he was also very different.  The real Justin was much more sincere.  The cocky pop star she knew before was still there, but deep down he was searching for approval and respect.  She sniffed and lifted a hand to wipe some of his tears away.  “I know.”

 

He attempted to smile at her, but she could tell there were more tears on the way.  Watching him cry was making her nauseous.  It was unnerving and horrible so she lifted up against him and sat in his lap.  She looked him in the eyes and then kissed him just once.  “I do love you Justin.”  A pained expression came over his face, like he was going to cry some more and she couldn’t stand it.

 

She couldn’t stand watching him break.  So she kissed him again.  And then again.  It shut him up, and shut up her mind and right then that was all that mattered.  She was at peace and he seemed so as well, and she knew that whatever else they had to deal with and figure out could be done later.  He needed her so bad in that moment and she planned to give him as much as possible.  She just hoped he could give her what she needed in return.

 

And she hoped they make it through and that she could last without breaking as well.

 

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