Dreamers (The Dreamers Series)

by Brooklin Skye

  “You really think tonight is the night?” I sob into her shirt as her words melt my insides into a mess of emotion and fear. The pit of my stomach stings with a blazing emptiness on the horizon.

  Cayden watches Heather warily from the sidelines. Stress creases his forehead and I think I catch a shine developing in his eyes. If Nick disappears tonight, he will lose his brother—for the second time. My heart aches not only for myself, but for this wonderful man standing by my side, willing to fight for me—willing to save the soul of his tormented, beloved brother. He keeps his words tucked neatly in his brain. It’s obvious that if he were to open the flood gates he might not be able to focus on tonight’s task—doing right by his brother, righting the wrongs of his untimely ending.

  Heather pulls back slightly, observing my face carefully. Concern clouds her eyes, turning them into a deeper, more concentrated shade of chocolate brown. She’s scared—that terrifies me.

  “Sydney, I don’t know what will happen after tonight. Just know that I will be here—always. No matter how difficult, I will get you through this. I promise you as long as I’m still breathing I will make sure you’re okay. Just don’t give up hope yet. If we can’t accomplish what we are setting out to do, he might still remain here until we can figure out the rest of this mystery. Tonight has the potential to either be the best or worst night of your life. We just don’t know which yet, honey. Put all that out of your mind, just for tonight and focus on love. Leave the rest to us. Okay?” She kisses my forehead lightly.

  I shake my head, pitifully. She is right. If everything comes out tonight, Dominick could very well disappear, but maybe it won’t. Maybe she won’t find what she’s looking for—whatever that is.

  “Now, go get your man. I love you. We all love you.”

  We are united—finally—as we all fall into a circle of comfort for each other. Tears fall from every eye in the room, as I begin my march to the end of the road.

  “I’ll tell him you love him, Cayden.”

  He nods as his face lowers into his palm. Mia takes over, laying his head on her shoulder.

  “It’s okay, baby. We’ll see him again. A brother’s love will survive everything—even death. I’m here, baby,” she whispers as his shoulders quake in trying to retain his sad whimpers.

  That is all I can handle watching. I mentally document their somber faces as I turn away, willing myself towards my worst nightmare. It’s time.

  The air in the room is electric, as if it were waiting for me. There is a telling chill in the air. This is the night Dominick will leave this dream world. I can feel it in the depths of my soul. Somehow I drift into sleep easily, excited and terrified of seeing my love for the last time of my earthly life. My world has never felt so black.

  ***

  “Why the dark mood, Kitten?” he asks sweetly.

  “I need it to be dark right now, just for a minute,” I whisper.

  “Baby, what is it? Did something else happen?”

  For once I will shelter no emotion, I won’t protect myself from harm, and I won’t protect him with silence. I am giving him everything which is pure and true. Our last night together will be of love and honesty.

  “This is our last night together.”

  He looks at me expressionless, yet nodding in agreement.

  “I feel the same thing. There is something different about the air tonight,” he adds.

  The only option for us is to forget about what will be, and enjoy what we have for the moment—right now.

  I close my eyes and take us to Savannah, the same courtyard I saw him in the first night I ever laid eyes on him. Tears pool easily, as I begin reminiscing our first encounter.

  “When I saw you standing there, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I knew in that moment my life would somehow be different forever.”

  His arms wrap tightly around my waist from behind as he lays his chin on my shoulder, turning sideways every few seconds to softly kiss my neck.

  “You took my breath away, Sydney. You still do. Maybe that’s what I’ve been waiting for—to experience true ecstasy, passion, love and harmony. That’s what I feel from you. You completed me—I can move on now because I have finally lived every emotion offered in this life. I found the missing piece of my soul—I’m whole again because of you. My beautiful, Sydney. I only wish I could have married you and held our son, our sweet little Dominick Michael—Mikey, if that’s okay.”

  A smile spreads across my trembling lips.

  “Heather told you the name I like?”

  “Yeah, I think she and I have finally found our middle ground. I guess she isn’t so bad after all. We had a little chat when I asked you to leave earlier. I needed to make sure she would be here to take care of you when I can’t. I know she will. She and I made nice—she’s not the enemy. She’s a friend.”

  With those words I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. This is something I wished for more than anything. To think of Heather and Nick as team makes me indescribably happy.

  A past promise Nick made not too long ago chimes into my thoughts. I use my dream powers to alter the scene, just like we had agreed on if this time ever came.

  The road spins quickly into shards of sharp glassy ice, statues of monsters and goblins constructed of frozen liquid paint a freezing picture for us. Smoke clouds stream from our mouths as we breathe. The shocked look on Nick’s face is priceless as he wonders where exactly I’ve dreamt him into.

  “What kind of place have you taken us to now, Sydney?” His eyebrows rise.

  “Well, Nick…it’s hell. And it appears to have frozen over.” I giggle.

  His eyes light up as he catches the drift, remembering how he had claimed hell would freeze over before he would ever befriend Heather.

  “You’re so freaking funny, aren’t you, little girl? I love you so damn much.”

  We walk hand in hand, morphing back to Savannah, to our beach, to the rainforest where we had such a magical night.

  “What do you want to do, princess? Tonight is all yours.” He pulls me a mere breath from his face.

  I touch his creamy pale cheek, drinking him in to me like a water-deprived flower.

  “I want you to close your eyes and imagine you had just one more day on Earth—alive—and I want you to do everything that would make you feel like you had the best life a person ever had—like you lived the life of an eighty year old and weren’t cut short. Can you give me that?” I ask.

  “I can do that. Now, close your eyes. Open them only when I say.”

  My mind is taken by what magic Nick is creating. I can’t wait to see what he would wish for if he could have anything. My eyes threaten to open as wind begins brushing my hair against my cheek. It feels like we are outside. I struggle to be patient.

  “Open your eyes.”

  The world before me is so simple. I’m at a park in Lawrenceville, a place I’ve been a hundred times. Funny, it’s nothing extravagant. I’m sitting on a park bench with an old rail car on some tracks behind us. It’s the same rail car that has sat there behind the park for years and never been removed. It still sports the same graffiti as the last time I saw it in person.

  Nick is next to me; we are holding hands. He is simply wearing a pair a blue jeans and a Social Distortion t-shirt. The weather is warm—like a Georgia May. The sun is nestled behind a few clouds with a damp and teasing threat of a spring shower on the horizon. The wind whips his scent across my face and I lean into him, breathing in every last fragrant drop of his signature aroma.

  “Welcome to our REAL first date, Sydney.”

  “It’s perfect, Nick. I love it.”

  We walk a circle trail around the park ending up at our bench again where we started. I stand before him, considering if it would be proper to kiss him on the first date. I move closer to him and offer an innocent hug, inhaling him once again. As I pull back our eyes meet and I move in closer, fighting with myself on being prop
er and exercising good etiquette. As thunder crashes through the empty park I lose control of my senses, leaning forward and catching his deliciously pink lip between my teeth, pulling back and flicking his bottom lip with my tongue. He is so beautiful. His eyes are closed and his body is tense as he waits for me to move in and take some more of him, but I stop myself, trying to react as if everything were truly happening in sequence and this was actually our real first date.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this. It’s our first date.” I smirk deviously.

  “You’re right. But that’s okay, we have more stops to make. In a second it won’t be our first date anymore, and you can’t kiss me all you want. Close your eyes.”

  I do as I’m told, anxious to see what he has in store for us next.

  “Open,” he commands.

  I laugh as I realize where exactly we are. He shrugs with a brilliantly beautiful smile.

  “What can I say, I was a simple dude. Plus, who doesn’t love a waffle joint anyway?”

  “I hear you on that. Let’s go in. I want you to order for me; I want what you would order when you came.”

  “Alright then, if you think you can handle it.”

  The waitress is lifelike and honestly looks like one of the waitresses who keeps my coffee cup consistently full when I visit my local waffle joint on a late night photography gig.

  “What are you two love birds having?” she asks politely.

  “Well, I’m ordering for her and she’s ordering for me,” he says with a smile. “Ladies first.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t even considered what to order for Nick. I quickly decide to go ahead and order what I would typically order for myself. “He will have a chicken melt, add bacon, and hash browns with chili, cheese, onions, and top it with pickles.”

  “Wow, my lady did good, huh?” he brags to the waitress. “Now, she will have a Texas cheesesteak, add bacon, and hash browns with cheese and mushrooms. We will finish up with some heated and treated pecan pie.”

  “What’s heated and treated mean?” I ask curiously.

  “They take the pie and heat it with butter and it melts all over the place. So good,” he answers with an excited smile.

  “That sounds…um, gross.” I giggle.

  “You’ll see.”

  We devour our meals, both quite impressed by the other’s selection. And he was so right, the pie was amazingly delicious. He walks me to the car, which seemed to appear out of nowhere, opening the door for me to step into the passenger’s side. I make a mental note of everything around me, even noticing that the car was entirely trashed from the inside. Soda bottles and junk everywhere.

  “Is this your car?”

  “Yes. It’s a Sunfire. I should have cleaned it out, but I never would have done that if this were really real.” He blushes.

  “So you were a slob? I love it.”

  “Admittedly, yes.”

  The clock reads 2:06 a.m.

  “Sydney?”

  “Yes, baby?”

  “Will you marry me?” He looks serious, and tears glisten his eyes.

  I pause momentarily, wondering if this were a hypothetical, or if we are living his life—our life—in real time. In any event, I answer.

  “Yes, Nick. I would love nothing more than to be your wife.”

  He pulls a small gum wrapper from the center compartment of his junky car, twists it into a long silver string, and then makes a circular ring out of it, placing it on my finger. We finally enjoy that long passionate kiss we were impatiently waiting for since our first date. It’s perfect.

  “Close your eyes, Syd.”

  This time when I open them we are in a field. It’s a beautiful old field of dry grass and what looks like hay that was left for animals to feed on. It’s abandoned and there is nobody here other than a preacher waiting in the distance. I think I know what comes next.

  I am wearing a flowing black dress for the occasion, topped with a beautiful corset-style bodice. I feel like a queen of darkness. This scene perfectly suits Dominick’s offbeat personality and detoured version of any traditional-style wedding. I’m so in love with it—and so deeply in love with him.

  “Your hair is blonde!” I comment, shocked at his change in appearance. “It looks great on you.”

  “Yeah, I thought I might spruce up for the occasion and look extra good for the second most fantastic moment of my life.”

  “Well, what is the first?”

  “You’ll see.” He grins.;

  The summer wind blows a heated breeze through us as we take vows in the middle of the abandoned field. The preacher waits as we caress each other with our everlasting promises.

  “Sydney, from the first moment I saw you I knew you would be my reason for living. I will continue to live for you, for our son, for the rest of my life through the eternity of my death. You are the beat that has kept my dying heart alive. You remain the only sunshine in the darkness of loss. I will love you—forever.”

  I cry as his beautiful words melt me from the inside out. My lips tremble clumsily as it’s time for me to recite my vows—which are completely unrehearsed and from the heart.

  “Dominick, you have flipped my world into an extraordinary world of emotion. From the moment I saw you I belonged to you. You captivated me, and still do. I have given you my heart, and it will continue to beat for you until the end of my days. No matter how far apart we might be I will be your wife, and you, my husband, until we are united for a beautiful eternity in the aqua sky. I will love you—forever.”

  The preacher fades into the sunset as we are pronounced husband and wife.

  If this moment had been more perfect, I would never have believed it was true. But it is—here I am, Mrs. Sydney Manning. No matter how we got here and what roads we had to wind through, I will never think of myself as anything other than this. He is my husband, and I am his wife.

  He proudly takes my hand as we walk away from the altar. I simply cannot believe it. I’m married—to the man of my dreams. I smile admiringly at him as we head towards nowhere, wondering if there could possibly be two luckier people in the world than us. I’ve been blessed with a dream come true—literally.

  “Mrs. Manning.” My name dances off his tongue.

  “Yes, Mr. Manning?”

  “Close your eyes—again.”

  What could he possibly do to make this any better? We have already experienced our first date, our engagement, and now our wedding. How much more perfect could this really get?

  “Open.”

  I am in the middle of a room, hundreds of orchids of several colors strewn around the place. We are on a high balcony, fitted with a bed overlooking a bright glowing green sea. The time of day is dusk, dark enough to feel private and alone, yet lit enough to enjoy the view and sound of the softly swaying ocean below us. Nick is in a pair of khaki shorts and no shirt. The tropical salty smell in the air is breathtaking. After such a wonderful and romantic day worth of dream scenes, this is the most stunning.

  “Honeymoon, Mr. Manning?”

  A sexy grin covers his face as he takes my hand, pulling me towards the soft bed. He softly cups his hand around the back of my hair, holding my weight as he leans me backward to a lying position. It seems he is taking his husband role seriously and wastes no time taking control of my body. His lips begin high and drag achingly slow downward, nipping and kissing until no part of my skin remains untouched. He darkens the sky and speeds up the waves of the ocean. The stars pop from the black sky, glowing my favorite aqua color.

  “I want to make love—to my extraordinarily beautiful wife,” he whispers into my ear.

  For the first time in my life, those words don’t make me cringe. This is the most romantic display of love I have ever seen on him. Lust isn’t anywhere to be found here tonight. I suppose that is the difference between the two—making magic and making love. And this is love, no doubt about it. For what seemed like an entire night, we fall into each other swaying with the rhythm of the sea,
melting into each other with erotic, beautiful love.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “No, I want to stay here,” I complain.

  “I want to make sure we get everything in. You said I had to display one full day of everything in my life that would have made it complete. We have one more stop. You still haven’t seen the best part, yet. Close your eyes.”

  As I open my eyes this time I’m slightly confused. Everything is sterile around me. I lie on an uncomfortable, thin mattress that seems to have absolutely no support. Nick is next to me, gently holding my hand.

  “Here it comes, Syd; get ready,” he quietly warns.

  Before I can ask what he is speaking of, a pain like a blow torch to the muscles of my stomach overtakes my entire body. I begin screaming, wondering why he would put this awful scene into place. Using my dream knowledge, I quickly remind myself that pain is not real here. I take a cleansing breath and release. I still remain in his scene, yet I turn off the pain that came along with it. Feeling better immediately, I can now think clearly. I see now why this is to be Nick’s favorite part.

  “One more push,” Mia yells.

  Nick holds his breath with me as I strain, bringing our little Dominick into the world.

  The sight of Nick’s face as he holds his child is pricelessly genuine and amazing. Tears stream down his pale cheeks as he whispers something in our son’s ear. I don’t need to know the exact words he said. But the somberness taking over my stomach is evident; he is saying goodbye.

  We fade from the scene and back into the small apartment room where it all began. I refuse to let go of him. I hold his body so tightly that nothing could be strong enough to pull him away from my grip—not even death. I breathe deeply for what seems like forever until something hits me—I can’t smell him anymore. I dare to open my eyes, terrified of what I might see—more terrified at what I might not see.

  Without a word—without a goodbye—he’s gone.

  Knowing this was coming does nothing to soothe my breaking heart as I fall to my knees begging for him to come back to me. The sorrow runs heavy, anchoring me to the cold hard floor. Every muscle is writhing in agony—burning. My dream has become a nightmare, a frightening experience of screaming with no sound, movements that feel as if I’m under water, entirely labored and fruitless. Everything about him has disappeared. Everything is black. For the first time in my life I am utterly petrified of the dark. I can’t be here without him. I focus the small amount of energy into waking myself up—urging myself to wake up.