Inspired by #deepwaterwritingprompts - find the post here:
https://deepwaterwritingprompts.tumblr.com/post/642561204651458560/text-there-was-nothing-more-valuable-than-dream
Freyja and I hit it off surprisingly well, right from the start. Where I come from, we have a saying that introverts never make friends unless an extrovert finds them first and is willing to adopt them. I often wondered if Freyja ever saw himself that way in our relationship – a forlorn puppy, taken in by an utterly bewildering, but apparently well-meaning creature from an entirely different race. This is getting out of hand. I think, for you to understand, I first need to tell you about how I met Freyja.
Unless an extrovert finds her first. When I first found Freyja, she immediately intrigued me by being everything the others were not. I had been the new kid in class, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, near the end of the first semester, and as soon the Math teacher’s ramblings in second period gave way to the bell that set everybody free for break time, I was surrounded by curious 12th graders, a tittering of girls all dying to pick at the shiny new kid who had just been put in their midst. I might add that, for some reason, this new school, bizarrely called Veldt Academy, was an all-girls school. I was very much not a girl. And so, all the girls in 12C stood around me during break and asked me all manner of questions. Where was I from? Why was I here? What was my name? How tall was I, look at him, he’s huge!
And then there was Freyja. Unless an extrovert finds her first. Freyja was sitting in a small huddle on the floor, in the corner of the room furthest away from all the excitement surrounding me. She had her legs pulled up, her bare knees peeking out through a pair of jeans nearly touching her chin. Strands of auburn hair hid her face and an impressively chunky pair of headphones cut her off from the world, connecting her instead to her mobile phone and whatever hid within. Spotify, as I was to find out. But that came later.
By the time I had managed to disentangle myself of so much unwanted attention, the break was nearly over, but the girl in the corner intrigued me. There was something, call it an intuition on my part, or an aura on hers. Somehow, even at that first glance I had got of her, she struck me as a dreamer. Dreamers are always fascinating to me and mine, and I wanted to meet her. I went over. I considered grabbing a chair from the nearest desk, but the girls had been right on one point – I was really tall. Came with my origins probably. I decided to settle on the floor as well, seating myself cross-legged opposite her.
She showed no reaction. I pondered. Should I tap her foot or something? Say something? It probably wouldn’t get through her headphones. Before I could decide, she looked up at me. Her headphones came off and she shook her head to clear her face from all the errant hair. “You want something,” she asked.
“I was wondering what you were listening to,” I ventured.
“Debussy,” she said and back on went the headphones.
Well, this had just got even more intriguing. “Au Clair de la Lune?” I asked, enunciating clearly so perhaps she might see the words even if she didn’t hear them. And sure enough, she took off her headphones, only to look at me suspiciously.
“Okay new kid,” she said. “Maybe I’m impressed. These silly geese would never have known who Debussy is. So here’s the deal. Every other song you can name gets you one more minute of conversation time, new kid. Then you leave me alone.”
“I only know Reveries and something something Burgermask. Sorry.
”She laughed and – call me stupid – but I felt her aura light up instantly. This was a dreamer indeed. The potential here was so beautiful that it hurt. Even that early, I already dreaded what this meant.
“Okay, funny guy is funny. What’s your name then?”
“I’m Nodens. And you are?”
“Funny guy with a funny name, eh? But I’m not one to talk, sitting smack bang in the glass house. In their infinite wisdom,” she said and gave a sarcastic little bow as well as she could sitting down, “my parents called me Freyja.”
I shuddered involuntary. I hadn’t counted on hearing a name that would fill me so with longing to a place I was forced to leave behind. I tried to hide my roiling emotions as best as I could. “So here, we are,” I tried to quip, “two kids with a love of Debussy and weird parents.” That time, we both laughed, and from there it went all too smoothly.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I spent as much time with Freyja as I could. I chose a seat next to her in class. I walked her home when she let me and coaxed her into conversations, mostly about music at first, and slowly I got her to open up more and more. I invited her out on a few dates. Some went horribly wrong, like that time I tried to take her clubbing. Others went splendidly, when I took her to a quiet little café that had a bookstore in the back. I probably couldn’t tell you anything you haven’t heard before – Freyja and I were classic boy meets girl, girl likes boy. And then, she is just that one story. There are so many more, and they all swirl together for me. I grow tired of the gloop that the swirling colours turn into. I’ll move on.
The moment I had been working toward finally came, you know. I went to sleep one night after I’d dropped her off at home at the end of another date. For a second, it even seemed as if that night could have been our first kiss. There was no kissing that night.
As I was saying, I went to bed, I closed my eyes and I opened them on to her dream. She looked even prettier in her dream. She had a different pose, fuelled by more confidence. And in her dream, we were back in front of her house. The darkness that had been getting colder in the real with the onset of autumn was warmer here, and the light of the streetlamp was softer. She was closer to me and her face was turned up to me. Her eyes were closed. She leaned in for a kiss. And here, in her dream, I could not spoil the mood. Her innocent will ruled, and I obeyed. I leaned in as well, and as we kissed, her love and her hope and her longing washed into me through her half-parted lips in a stream of liquid honey. It was thick and luxurious and sticky. It coated my throat. It filled me up. Pungent sweetness kept on pouring, threatening to choke me. But then, as sudden as I had been allowed into her dream, I was cast out and back in my bed. I knew then that the time had come.
The next day, I found a quiet moment with her in a corner of the school cafeteria. “Finally,” she said. “I have you all to myself for a moment.” She grabbed my hand and touched it to her cheek. “What have you been up to?”
I shook my head and said, “No, that’s not like you. Small talk? Really?” I twisted my hand in her grip to grasp hers and planted a kiss on it. “Here’s a much more thrilling idea! Tell me about your dreams.”
“Your dreams,” I said. “Did you have one last night, for example?”
Her eyes looked at me intently, narrow with suspicion. “I did have a dream, now that you mention it.” A heartbeat of hesitation later, she went on, “I’d nearly forgotten it, actually. But it’s all clear in my head again all of a sudden.”
“There’s a good girl. So, tell me about it,” I said.
“Not so sure about this, Nodens!” She pulled her hand away.
“Come on! I want you to tell me. After all, I was in it too, wasn’t I?”
Freyja jumped and a quick yelping noise escaped her. “What are you saying, silly,” she cried. “You couldn’t know that!”
“Trust me, Freyja. I know,” I said. I tried to hide the sadness in my heart, but I suspect I wasn’t doing all that well. Freyja looked very concerned all of a sudden.
“You are creeping me out,” she said. “You know that?”
“Here,” I said, “I’ll tell you. You dreamed of yesterday evening. That moment under the streetlamp before your house. You dreamed of kissing me. You dreamed of love and of a future for the both of us.”
Freyja was pale now. “How could you know?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I got up. “This is it. I’m leaving. And your dream will never come true.” I turned my back on her and walked away. Out of the cafeteria. Out of the school. Out of her life. I never once looked back at her to see if I had shattered her dreams, but I knew I had. I felt the energy which her dream shards gave off resonating all throughout my body, cutting through my sorrow and self-hatred, as I left her world behind.
There was nothing more valuable than dream shards. I wished shattering a dream were a less violent act. I wished we had any other choice.
