Dream Girl
“That goofy smile is on your face again,” Marissa teases. My heart immediately drops and I remove my face of any expression.
“Sorry, I… I had that dream again,” I stammer slightly turning away from her in embarrassment.
“Hmm…” she inches closer to me in bed, “Sally still trying to steal you away from me? When will she learn to back off?”
I give her a sheepish smile, almost squirming under her gaze. She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and rolls out of bed.
“Where do you wanna go for breakfast?” she calls while heading to the bathroom.
“Margarine’s Pancakes would be nice. I could go for their chocolate-chip pancakes,” I roll myself out of bed, desperately trying to force Sally out of my head. When it gets bad, I replace my memory of Marissa’s face for Sally’s whenever she’s talking to me from out of my vision. Her gleaming, brunette hair. Her piercing, blue eyes. Her intoxicating laugh. Her — gah, I’m doing it again!
Outside, Marissa and I walk hand-in-hand to the nearby diner. She looks at me worriedly.
“You wanna talk about it today?” she pries.
“Yeah, I… I dunno, it just doesn’t make sense. I mean we’ve been married for two years, you’d think Sally would just, you know, go away or something.” I shrugged. It was nice to talk about it with Marissa, knowing nobody else will indulge me in this. I pulled her closer. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? C’mon, Mike, I’m more mature than that! Apologizing for your dreams. They’re just dreams. I’m more concerned that it’s been occurring for so long now. It seems like it distracts you most mornings. You wanna talk to someone about it?”
I opened my mouth then stopped dead in my tracks. In front of Margarine’s stood a girl, open-mouthed staring at the two of us.
“Mike…” Marissa looks to the girl, “who is that?”
“Mike!?” the girl screams, running toward us.
“Sally!” I gasp, taking a pace backwards. Marissa stares at her, wide-eyed.
“Sally?” she repeats.
Sally throws her arms around me, giggling. I don’t reciprocate, still frozen in my daze.
“Mike…” Marissa whimpers in disbelief.
Sally steps back to take a look at me and strokes my hair like she’s done so many times before. My eyes are lost her seas of blue. My heart is hammering, begging to run away from this nightmare.
“All these years, I thought you were a dream.” There are tears of joy brimming her eyes.
“No,” is all I can muster.
Sally’s hand pulls back from me instinctively.
“What?” she asks, crestfallen.
“Sally, no. You’re not real. You’re exactly what you’ve always been, a dream. An unattainable idea. You…” I hesitate, heartbroken by the pain in her eyes, “you need to go.” My voice is breaking. “You need to leave, to get out of my life. I’ve been with Marissa,” I pull her closer to me, “and I plan on staying with her for the rest of my life. I’m sorry Sally, I truly am, but you can’t be in my life in any way. You are, and forever will be a dream I long for in sleep, but Marissa is your incarnation when I am awake. Nothing will take me away from her.” Marissa looks up at me, not breathing as Sally shakes her head in disbelief.
“But I…” she begins, but I turn away from her, trying to let these feelings of immediate regret pass. I hear her start to cry and I put my arm around Marissa and turn us back to our apartment, away from Sally.
Having walked a couple of steps, Marissa whispers to me, “I’m so sorry. I never knew she meant so much to you. I — “
“Sorry?” I choke, a tear rolling down my cheek, “she’s just a dream, nothing to be sorry about.”
I never dreamed of Sally again.