[font="times new roman"]In between Dreams[/font][/b]
[font="times new roman"]By: Sarah Hibbert[/font]
[font="times new roman"] We started spinning. We spun so fast that the light from the street lamp became one horizontal blur and we lost track of who we were and where we were going. We spun until we could barely breathe or think and than we closed our eyes and spun even faster. Just when I thought there was no possible way I could keep my balance for a second longer, I heard him yell. It wasn’t a yell of urgency or pain; it was a yell of loss, of anger, of sadness and of freedom. It was the most beautiful and heartbreaking thing I had ever heard and I joined him with a scream of my own as we both hit the grass at the same time, getting soaked by the morning dew. As we lay side by side and watched the stars spin in circles above our heads as the world tried to right itself again everything seemed right for the first time in a long time. If only we could of stayed in that moment forever.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"] When I could see straight once more I turned over on my side to look at Derek, my best friend. He had a toned, but skinny body and long eyelashes that I have always been jealous of. His brown, shaggy hair was unruly and almost completely covered his icy blue eyes. Every day he wore the same worn out blue jeans and a ratty t-shirt, and it suited him just fine. Everyone at school knew that Derek had a pretty tough life; he was always showing up with black eyes and the guys that changed with him for gym said his body was covered in bruises and welts. Derek was never one for sympathy however and the last guy who asked him where he got his black eye got two of his own, and no one mentioned it again. I knew where he got them.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"] I was Derek’s age, sixteen, and was pretty much the most average teenage girl ever. With average looks, brown hair and green eyes, average skills at most sports, never particularly good at any, average marks, just making honor role every year and an pretty average home life. I hated not having anything that made me stand out and I found myself going out of my way to be extraordinary. I tried being extra nice, I tried being really mean, I tried being intellectual, I tried being a party animal, I tried being stylish, I tried being ----ty but no matter what I did I never really felt special. The only time I felt worthy of anything was when I was with Derek.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"] We had lived next to each other since we were born and ever since we could walk we had been inseparable. While we were secretive people when it came to the rest of the world, there were no secrets between us. When Derek got fed up with his dad we ran away together, when my dog died Derek made a gravestone for it because he knew how much it meant to me, when I came home drunk from my first high school party Derek took care of me and when Derek was too hurt to go to school I called the school and pretended to be his doctor. He made me feel like I was needed and wanted and that is the best feeling I have ever had. We had never talked about being boyfriend and girlfriend, our friendship just evolved as we grew older and one day he kissed me, and it felt like it had been that way forever and like it would stay that way forever.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"] That day when we sauntered home from our spinning episode in the park, I was feeling on top of the world. Ironically it was that exact moment that the world decided to come crashing down on me. [/font]
[font="times new roman"]“I love you,” stated Derek, quietly but firmly. The way that he said it had an air of finality to it and I got the sense that he knew something that I didn’t. I pushed my doubts out of my mind though, and repeated the three magic words back to him as we split up to enter our respective houses. That morning I awoke to the sound of sirens and somewhere deep inside of me I knew what had happened. [/font]
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[font="times new roman"] He was gone. Instead of melting into tears when my mom told me, I simply looked at her with a blank stare, I was furious. I couldn’t believe that he would do this to me. I knew that he had it bad. Ever since his mom left them his dad was either ignoring him or piss drunk, beating him senseless. He once told me that he almost preferred his dad when he was hitting him because those were the only times that his dad even noticed his existence. I knew some kids that hated their parents and could care less if their parents ignored them or didn’t care about them but Derek was different. He loved his dad and it hurt him more than anything to know that he wasn’t loved back. I thought he was the strongest, most brave person in the world to take all that pain and not even shed a tear. Now I found myself selfishly calling him a coward and a cry baby and wishing he had persevered, for me. I began to think that maybe I wasn’t worth surviving for. From that horrible day in July on, I started slipping away from myself.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"] Without Derek I had nothing to fill that part of me that was always hungry to be something more. I practiced longer, studied harder, laughed louder, and dressed better. Than one day in November, I realized I could never fill that part of me. It was a fire that just ate everything I tried to feed it, and never stopped growing, and never stopped wanting. So I stopped feeding it, and tried to run away instead. I had run away with Derek before, but that was different than this type of running. Those times we had been running away from the world, this time I was running away from myself and it was terrifying. I started making all the wrong friends, breaking all the wrong rules, taking all the wrong drugs. I lived for those few moments where the world completely slipped away from you and you forgot who you were and nothing mattered. I became addicted to that feeling of nothingness.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"] It had been almost year and I still hadn’t forgiven him. I hated him for abandoning me and I hated the world for not understanding. I hated myself for hating him and I hated that I hated everything. I wouldn’t let myself feel anything but hate. Life started to seem pointless. You are born; you live and than you die. Some people died sooner than others but in the end, everybody died and there was never a truly happy ending. In the end it didn’t matter if you were loved or hated by many, if you were smart or dumb, if you were rich or poor, black or white, eighty or sixteen, you still ended the same way as everyone else. If you are lucky you will have people who care enough about you to mourn your death but then they move on and you are nothing but another branch on some kid’s family tree that he has to do for English class. This reality terrified me, and encouraged me to run faster and faster away from myself. [/font]
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[font="times new roman"] I had become consumed by the fire that was inside me. The same fire that had been slowly eating me had finally gotten the best of me had moved on to everyone around me. I screamed at my parents, punched my friends, lied, cheated and stole. I was poison, just like the drugs and rage that had taken over my body. On the anniversary of Derek’s death, I lay in bed, the whole room spinning around me and incoherent from the amount of toxins in my body. Then a memory popped into my head, as clear as day, clearer then I had seen anything for a long time.[/font]
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[font="times new roman"]“What do you think dying feels like?” Derek is sitting on the swing next to me, and brushes the hair out of his face to reveal eyes that were cold at first glance, but longing and desperate if you looked long enough.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]“I don’t know, and I prefer not to think about it,” I replied, used to Derek’s random questions.[/font]
[font="times new roman"]“Well I think that it feels like that moment right before you fall asleep. When you can feel yourself falling asleep, and your body relaxing and all you have enough time to do is hope for a good dream,” as he was talking Derek started pumping his legs, and he started swinging higher and higher. “Maybe death isn’t the end of things; maybe it’s just the start of a new dream.” When he got to the highest height possible, Derek laughed and jumped off and started running. I ran with him, and we both laughed all the way home. That was the only time that Derek had ever mentioned death and I could remember it like it was yesterday. The scene played over and over in my head. [/font]
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[font="times new roman"] I couldn’t fall asleep after that. It played over and over. I could see Derek’s reckless smile, his haunted eyes, his worn out body. I could see every muscle in his arms flex as he leaned back to get the most from each swing. It played over and over. I was finally able to see that it was time to forgive him for hoping that his next dream would be better than this one. I got up from bed slowly and waited to feel sure that my feet would listen to me, and took a step towards the basement window. I unlatched it and crawled out onto the cold, hard pavement of my drive way. I had done this many times before and I had mastered it in every state of mind possible. I walked down my driveway, turned left and crossed the road that led to the park. I had no shoes on and I could feel the dewy grass squeezing itself between my toes. When I got to the middle of the field, I started to spin. [/font]
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[font="times new roman"] I spun until the streetlight became one horizontal blur and I didn’t think I could go one more second without falling over. Only this time it was different, instead of losing track of who I was and where I was going with each spin, the opposite occurred. With each spin I remembered who I was. I remembered what I loved doing, I remembered how much my parents loved me and I remembered what it was to feel. I remembered how to cry, how to sing, how to dance and I remembered a sixteen year old boy with icy blue eyes. Than I screamed and fell to the ground, watching the stars spin, and wishing that they would not stop. I lay there until the sky righted itself and my head stopped throbbing, my body relaxed and I could feel myself falling asleep. Right before I fell asleep I came to the realization that my dream had just begun. [/font]