The Girl of His Dreams
She laughed and leaned in, and Lee finally kissed the girl of his dreams.
There was an enthusiastic cheer from the crowd, and the pair’s lips nearly separated from smiling. The cheer died down, a couple stray whistles breaking the silence. Lee was still locked onto her face, brow furrowed in concentration. Gently, she took his face in her pale hands and pushed away, glowing despite herself. She waited patiently for him to return to reality.
Lee’s eyes uncrossed and she giggled.
“Wow,” he said.
“I’ll say.” she beamed, blushing up to the roots of her hair. She had just noticed how much attention was being paid to them. “Do you mind if we step off the stage? The band needs to start the next song.”
“Uh... can we stay?” Lee asked, eyes wide.
“I’ll kiss you again later, Lee,” she said under her breath, smiling out at the crowd.
“No, I mean... if we leave, then it’s over. Isn’t it?”
“Not by a long shot, big guy. This is only the beginning.”
“No, I mean, this was the moment. My time to become a man, claim my prize. And I don’t feel any different. I mean, I feel a lot of things, but... do I look like a man to you?”
“Relatively, yes.” She raised an eyebrow. The routine was cute, but it needed to end soon. Almost everyone on the dance floor was staring at the pair on stage, and a few were starting to crack awkward jokes.
“Well, I don’t feel like a man.”
“Lee, I’m sorry you feel that way. But can we step down off of the stage and finish our conversation?”
“No! Because if I step down off of this stage the same boy I was when I stepped onto it, everything will have been a gigantic waste!”
“I’m sorry?” There was a definite stiffness in her frame now.
“Everything has built up to this! The school pranks, confessing my love to you, the confusing mix-ups, beating up your boyfriend...”
A well-muscled guy toward the back cracked his neck, wincing.
“...It all ends here. With a kiss. With you.”
Lee brushed his hand over her cheek, tracing the lines.
“I just don’t understand why it’s not enough.”
“I’m not enough, Lee? You just told me last week that you would gladly die for a minute in my arms! In iambic pentameter!”
“Maybe we didn’t do the lead-in right. Not enough conflict. Maybe I should have beat Dylan up a bit more.”
Dylan limped away from the punch table, shaking his head.
“Are you telling me,” she breathed, “that you made me break up with my boyfriend just so you could reenact a high school movie.”
“Yes.”
“This whole Homecoming confession, this ‘spontaneous’ moment with the stage and the kiss, this was you orchestrating me?”
“Not so much orchestrating as manipulating. Orchestrating implies that you were conscious of it and responding to all my cues. As it was, I had to do a lot of the legwork myself.”
“Lee.”
“Wait, I have an idea.”
“Will you--”
“I love you!”
Another brief commotion from the crowd of dancers. Most of them shushed each other.
“Lee.”
“I love you...”
“...Say my name.”
“What?”
“If you’re going to go all the way and say something to me that no one besides my family has ever said to me, I want you to say my name. And mean it with all your heart. Because I will not accept anything else.”
Lee’s mouth opened and closed.
“I don’t believe this.” She said, turning away. Her ears burned red, and tears formed around her lashes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say what you don’t mean.”
A droplet fell onto her red dress, soaking the fabric darker. She took a step away, then another, then she was off the stage. She looked him in the eye, the man she thought she was in love with, and Angela walked back into her own story.
Lee was left alone for everyone to see.
Dylan cleared his throat.
“Can I beat him up now?”
The crowd roared in agreement, rushing into the boy without a story.
At the edge of the dance floor, there was one person who did not murmur angrily or move toward the hapless boy in the center. She merely smiled, tilted her head a little as the breeze caught her hair and tousled it against her woven dress. She stood just outside of the bright stage lights, arms crossed behind her back, politely watching the events unfold with eyes that glittered with wit and caring. Every once in a while, her toes drifted low enough to brush her shadow on the floor.
This is the woman, and she will need to be described at least in passing before we move on. She was frail, uncertain, like a dandelion about to lose its seeds with the next gust of wind. Her skin had a dark earthy hue to it, but still came across as pale, as if the sun had not kissed her skin often enough. Her dress was a little too elaborate for the event, bedecked with flower patterns and a rainbow of colors stacked together, but since she hadn’t interacted with anyone and she wasn’t pretty enough to draw the attention of the boys or the girls, she hadn’t caused a stir.
Her name was Cordielle, and this was her favorite dream.
She had had many others like it, and they were never quite the same. But they all seemed to center around the entertaining life of this boy she called Lee.
He was a real character. She had no idea where in her brain he had come from--a bedtime story, or a passing bard’s song perhaps--but she had grown to love him in his many faults and quirks. Often she had chuckled at his improvised singing when he thought no one else was around, or his cringeworthy attempts to play it smooth with the girls at his school. Tonight’s dream was part of a series that she had been following with much interest. Her father hadn’t even had a chance to tuck her in to her bedding tonight before she had screwed her eyes tight shut with anticipation and reentered the world of her visions.
Tonight’s installment was particularly good, and Cordielle sent out a quick thanks to the god of night for being so faithful in telling these stories. Lee had finally worked up the courage to ask out the girl of his dreams, but he hadn’t trusted himself enough to merely be able to land a date. So, he had spent all week antagonizing his competition, creating more problems for himself, and then overcoming those problems by moving when the universe’s logic turned a blind eye. In retrospect, Cordielle had to admit that this seemed to be Lee’s modus operandi for his whole life.
The crowd separated, and two burly students ran through holding Lee’s panicked frame like a battering ram. He scrambled to turn around and apologize to someone, anyone, but no one was listening to anyone but themselves. With an unceremonious thump, Lee was dumped onto the wet grass, smearing mud all over his suit. “I’m not-- I was just-- I thought you were the one, Angela!” he cried out to the open doors. A girl turned her back, and they slammed shut.
He stood, brushed off his crumpled shoulder pads, and rubbed his face, streaking it with more mud. He was tall and thick, a feature that Cordielle found quite amusing. If he had been closer to elfin proportions, she might have found his soft eyes and short black hair attractive. As it was, he was just a galumphing oaf compared to her. It was just as well--Cordielle had enough problems without falling in love with a boy who didn’t exist.
“The trouble is that you didn’t think you were the one, Lee,” she whispered to him, brushing her fingers on his side. He jerked and turned around, eyes sweeping the air a foot above her head. Whoops. She had forgotten that people could still sense her if she wasn’t careful.
It was time to go. The night was growing old.
She spread her arms and looked up into the starry sky. The cold, glittering lights were so much further away than the loud ones on the stage. If you stared long enough, you almost felt like you were falling into them.
And that’s exactly what she did.
The tops of the trees rushed past her, slapping her fingertips before giving way to silky wind. She glanced down and saw the dance fading away below her, Lee slowly trudging home.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
And she faded into the stars. If Lee had looked up, he would have seen another sparkling light wink at him before zooming away.