Nightmare

Chapter 4

Tobias’ POV

I plunge deeper, feeling it rise above my head and making it so I’m totally surrounded by water. There are various different places where people like to go to be alone, and the beach is mine. Underneath all the water, I feel completely cut off from the rest of the world. Even if people are shouting and screaming all around me, the water drowns them all out.

Meghan decided to follow me to the beach to apologise for bringing it up again, and in public. But while in her opinion following me around, baking me things and doting on me is the epitome of sweetness – to me it’s just really, really annoying.

In small doses the girl can be tolerable, especially when she acts more like bratty self rather than being nice. I can take her being bratty; I know how to deal with it. But you can’t shove being nice in someone’s face, you can’t get angry at them for it. Even when they’re like it all the time and so much so it just makes you want to shake them.

I really don’t have any idea why she still likes me. I’ve never done anything to encourage her. But still, she never gives up. It’s admirable, but it’s also pointless.

Feeling myself running out of breath, and hearing Meghan’s muffled voice calling out my name, I push myself to the surface of the water and suck in a deep breath. “What?”

“Tea’s ready,” she shouts, jumping up and down on the beach with a hamburger in her hand, “your uncle does a super duper barbeque!”

My uncle I know for a fact does not do a super duper barbeque and if I had known he was cooking I would’ve gone out of the water to do it myself. Everything of his turns out something akin to charcoal, and it’s no different this time judging by the look of Meghan’s burger.

I let out a sigh and rub my temples; I feel so much better after a day of surfing, would’ve been better had I been alone though. Meghan is just one of those people who are exhausting to deal with, the type that talk all the time and get offended if for an extended period of time you don’t respond. Instead of, you know, just taking the hint that you’re not in a talkative sort of mood.

Maybe I’ll get my cousins to take her out on a shopping spree tomorrow…but the question is, do I really want to subject them to her? She’ll spend the whole time being bitter about how she could instead be bothering me.

But then again, she’s always been nice to anyone related to me as she figures if I’m going to be her future husband she’s going to be seeing a lot of these people. A scary notion, but a notion that could provide me an escape for the rest of the weekend.

Feeling better already I start to swim towards the beach, running up it and towards my uncle’s front yard when my feet meet solid ground. Meghan is struggling up the hill, nearly falling backwards it’s so steep. I decide to give her a little help, poking her in the stomach as I rush past and grinning when I hear an angry shriek resound behind me.

It’s not so good on my ears, but it’s totally worth it.

Kelly, my cherub faced nine year old little cousin, bursts into giggles at my efforts, “I love you Toh.”

She’s so adorable she almost makes up for Meghan being around. She’s got these cute little pig tails sticking out in every direction out of her head, having done her hair herself. Much to her mother and the rest of the family’s amusement.

I love little kids; they’re just so much fun.

I pull her up into my arms, whispering into her ear as she wriggles and giggles and near kicks me in the guts in protest, “Has your daddy burnt all the barbeque food on me again? Has he?”

“Yes,” she giggles her little face off, “I tried to go and tell you but you were way out in the ocean and you didn’t hear me. Mummy said I couldn’t go after you until I’m older and have had more swimming lessons.”

“Mummy’s right.” I squeeze her, planting a kiss on her forehead which she makes a face at and gently dropping her back to the ground.

Looking up, I spot everyone sitting around on my uncle’s massive picnic rug, the pile of charcoaled meat in the middle on a tray. Shaking my head at it and catching my uncle’s eye I grin at him while he smirks back at me. I swear to God he deliberately does it to get on my nerves. I’ve told him time and time again how to do it right, but he keeps on doing it wrong.

Nonetheless I don’t comment, plonking myself down on the rug and grabbing the Princess Barbie plate my cousin apparently laid out for me.

I shake my head again; my family is just full of jokers.

As I’m piling on the meat Meghan finally makes her way over and sits down next to me, pressing right up against my side like a hungry dog. Only instead of being food she’s after, she’s after a plate of human male meat with love on the side. It’s not something I like to think about while I’m eating however.

“You’re mean,” She tells me, pouting and making her eyes go as wide as the plate she’s picking up, “why are you so mean to me?”

“You love it.” I respond lightly, pouring coleslaw onto my plate too.

“I do.” She says, cheerfully, grabbing the coleslaw bowl from out of my hands and heaping some onto her own plate.

I sigh; usually when someone says that they mean it platonically, but I know Meghan really means it. I feel bad for not liking her back that way but what can you do? I wish she wouldn’t say it all the time, but forcing her to keep her feelings to herself would be selfish.

Picking up my knife and fork, I look down at my plate mournfully; it’s going to be a long, tiring night.

Yawning, I look up from my book and to the time. It’s nearly twelve and I’ve locked myself up in the guest room since ten to get away from Meghan. It worked pretty well, once I told her I felt sick and might possibly throw up on her and her new t-shirt. She didn’t like the sound of that so much she nearly tripped over her own feet trying to get away from me.

But now it’s kind of late, and I kind of want to get up early in the morning to go surfing since after convincing my cousins to take Meghan away on a little trip tomorrow – I have the entire day to myself.

It didn’t even take much to get them to go. I gave them a bit of money to get a decent amount of pizza afterwards and that was about it. Meghan’s even got kind of excited about it after they mentioned looking for new bathing suits, because she ‘needs a new one’ now that she’ll be spending more time at the bench.

Which sucks for me, but maybe she’ll make a bunch of friends who she isn’t horrible to for once in her life and will spend less of her time bothering me…

Well, a guy can dream and speaking of which I think I’m going to hit the sack.

Pulling off my t-shirt and laying my book on the bedside table I push myself under the sheets and close my eyes, beginning to realise how very tired I am. So tired I forgot to turn the lights off. Opening my eyes, I go to get up and rectify that when I realise I’m asleep. And dreaming. Again.

I look around the room again, making a face at the heart shape pillows and with a sigh getting up out of bed. This isn’t normal. I don’t think it’s normal to have the same dream twice in three days. I hardly ever dream to begin with, and when I dream it’s all a blur when I wake up. But on Friday morning I pretty much remembered every single detail.

Walking hesitantly over to the balcony I find myself wondering whether she’ll be here too. I’m having a funny sort of feeling that she will be.

Bumping the doors open with a kick I walk out and there she is, looking out onto the empty road with a frown on her face. Sophia.

Feeling my gaze on her she turns her head and near jumps out of her skin, pointing at me with wide, bemused eyes. “You’re here again. Why are you here again? Why am I here again?”

“Hello to you too.” I say, a little coolly.

After all if it’s the same girl from the other night I recall her being prejudiced and a tiny bit up herself. I’m not going to let her off easy for judging me. Because I am so not who she thinks I am and I’m going to make sure she knows it. If these dreams are going to become a regular occurrence, I’m not going to put up with any crap from her in them.

Noting my tone right away she looks at me curiously, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest. “Okay, looks like somebody is in a bad mood.”

“Looks like someone else thinks they can get away with being rude.” I counter, raising my eyebrows at her and causing her to blink.

It only takes her a few seconds to click and when she does she furrows her eyebrows, “Okay, what am I supposed to think – just look at you do you really think you look like the kind of person to give about anyone else?”

“It doesn’t matter what I look like.” I inform her, trying to refrain from getting irritated. “So I’d like it if you’d just apologise for before and for now, we can just get over all of this.”

“Believe me. I’m over it.” She says, sticking her tongue out at me and then walking back inside her house.

I stare after her, feeling the irritation bubble up inside of me; I think she irritates me more than Meghan, more than my friends when they’re being assholes. Because at least they know they’re being assholes – she just thinks she’s right.

And God. She’s something my own mind is coming up with. It’s not even her fault she’s acting like this in my dream. But it made me kind of angry, seeing her before at school after all the things she said in my dream. I’ve got to put distance between the real her and the dream her or she’s going to drive me crazy.

I’ve never met a girl in my life so infuriating, and even worse I think I’m starting to like her for being different. It’s probably because she presents a challenge to me I’ve never had to face before; someone not liking me.

Because her disliking me is making me want her to like me even more.

Letting out a frustrated sigh I stomp back inside and slam the balcony doors behind me. It doesn’t make me feel any better, though. It’s completely mental liking someone because they feel the opposite of you, not to mention masochistic. Is my brain trying to punish me for some crime I don’t even know I’ve committed?

Because I sincerely think this is cruel and unusual punishment.

Okay. Okay. Time to simmer down, soda pop. I’m not getting anywhere getting frustrated with her or the situation I’m in. It’s just reinforcing her bad behaviour because if I get mad at her she has a reason to get mad at me back. It’s like giving a dog a bone, and not expecting them to gnaw at it.

But no more bones, no more anger, I’m just going to have to suck it up like the real man I am.

Taking a couple of more deep breathes I try to push the things she’s said to the back of my mind. I’ll just leave her alone for a while, go take a walk in town. That’s what I’ll do. Figure out who the strange people who ran away the other day are and find out what their deal is. Better to be doing something productive than getting all mad over something stupid.

I walk quickly downstairs, looking around as I go. The house is definitely not from my time, that’s for sure. Unless the people happen to have really weird looking, old fashion telephones.

Trying not to get distracted with it all I make it to the front door and venture outside. Everything is so green, way greener than it is back in my time. I allow the door to swing closed behind me and then slowly make my way over to the pavement, watching out for anyone walking around and then grimacing.

Sophia turns her head and once again I am met with her rolling her big, hazel eyes at me, “If you’re going to follow me at least act discreet about it.”

“Wishful thinking?” I question her lightly with a wink, walking up and falling in step with her. It’s not very hard, she’s not short but she’s not any taller than the average female.

She doesn’t bother to reply and we walk down the street together in silence, observing things as we go along. It’s kind of nice. I’m not much used to silence, at least when I’m not surfing. The people I normally hang around like to talk, and a lot. It’s kind of interesting to hang around with someone who is perfectly content not saying a word.

Because that’s what it is, looking at her she doesn’t look agitated with me at all anymore. Just thoughtful, taking everything she’s seeing in. In fact Sophia looks kind of pretty when you’re not being assaulted verbally by her blunt, opinionative self. Much softer, less cold.

Well it’s more like she’s always pretty it’s just she doesn’t give you time to notice it about her. She’s got this long, black hair that is a little messy but really nice nonetheless. In contrast to her hair her skin is pretty pale and her lips are a colour of red I didn’t know existed. You know, without lipstick anyway. So bright.

“What are you looking at?” Sophia turns, raising up her eyebrows and clearly very bemused.

I take a little while to snap myself out of the staring, but shaking my head I bring my eyes back to hers. But the damage is already down. I’ve apparently made her a little self-conscious if her next words and actions are any indication. I feel a little bad. I feel more amused that she even cares.

She holds a hand over her face, hiding it. “Is there something on my face or what?”

“Not that I know of.” I tell her aloofly, turning my gaze back to the path in front of me.

I do it just to get a rise out of her, and though she doesn’t bother to comment any further on the subject it does bug her. I can tell by the way she sends me irritated looks the whole way to the main street, only stopping when she spots a few people looking at us strangely.

No, that’s not right. They’re not really even looking much at me. After giving me a seconds glance all them turn right to Sophia. I watch their eyes change as soon as they catch sight of her. Every single one of them starts to look sad. More than sad. It’s like looking into the eyes of someone whose relative just died.

Bemused, I look to her and she’s looking back at them like they’re nuts. It’s obvious she doesn’t recognise who they are and why they’re looking at her like that. I don’t have a clue either.

We’ve stopped walking and Sophia’s actually started walking slowly backwards. But the people appear to be matching her step for step, one of them holding up their hands for her. I blink; it’s a little girl with sad eyes and two black little pig tails. She doesn’t look like she’d hurt anyone but this fact isn’t comforting Sophia very much.

“What the frak,” she says, looking a little freaked, “stop looking at me like that. Don’t come near me.”

The little girl stops, and drops her arms and her head. She looks at her feet miserably, opening her mouth and closing it as if she’s holding back from saying something. Another lady with hair of the same colour steps forward, putting an arm around the girl and hushing her. The lady looks miserable too and flinches when Sophia looks at her.

Sophia blinks at the lady’s reaction, clenching her jaw and spinning around to face me. I watch her red lips, they’re moving around slowly and dramatically. How does she get her lips that red? Is she just born like that or? And what is she trying to do?

Oh. Oh I know. She’s trying to communicate something to me without actually speaking…but unfortunately that’s not working out very well for her. I have no idea what she’s saying and she looks like she’s getting pretty frustrated at me for it. I can tell by the way her brows are getting all furrowed and her lips all thin.

“Oh for God’s sake,” she grabs me by the collar and drags me down to her level, “let’s just get out of here before they try and eat me.”

Grabbing her hand away from my shirt I snort at her, squeezing it and turning my eyes to the people in front of us, “Are you going to eat her?”

The lady blinks, looking a little mortified at my suggestion. I wouldn’t have asked her if I didn’t know what her answer would be. Everyone around here sure looks a little weird, a little more than shady…but they don’t look like they’re killers at all. They just look inexplicably sad and that’s something they shouldn’t get judged for.

Beside me Sophia rips her hand from my own and hissing at me, gives me a good whack over the head. I turn my eyes amusedly to her and she glares back at me with her hazel eyes fury filled and lips narrowed to the extreme, “What is wrong with you?”

I tell you guys to review and then you decide to review even less :P Protesting out of stubborness? Anyway. I can't be bothered saying much. Too many stuff to see. People to do. Witty cliches to use.