dreams feel like reality part two

For the next six days, I ignored his calls. And then, when he showed up at my house, I pretended I wasn’t home.

Why was I doing this? Was it because my pride was wounded? Was it because I was afraid of what would happen? Was I afraid of what he could make me feel?

That seventh day I took a walk, to clear my mind, to get away, I’m still not sure. I just know that for some reason, I felt the need to leave that giant house and walk down that long driveway – to that small secret opening in the bushes. I walked to the one place I could find comfort, our place.

I went to our place.

He was waiting for me there.

He was standing right in that spot where the clovers grew.

Right in that spot where the sun broke through the trees and reached the ground, that’s where he was.

His large hands, which looked as though they could crush something so easily, searched gently through the small green clovers. My mind flashed back to when we were younger, searching in this same spot for a four leaf clover. I close my eyes and remember our excitement when we found, not a four leaf clover, but a six leaf clover.

“That’s extra luck!” I said, staring down at it in his hands. “I can’t believe you found that!”

He looked up at me through his long, dark eyelashes and then placed it in my hand. “I want you to keep it.”

“What? No, you found it. It’s yours.”

“Yes, but now I’m giving it to you, Clementine.”

I searched his eyes and as he smiled at me, his lips moved. His voice formed one single word – my name.

“Clementine.”

I broke away from the memory and stared at that same boy. He’s grown taller since then, his black hair has grown thicker and longer, but he is still the same as he’s always been.

“Clementine.”

Just by his calling my name, the tears began to threaten to run down my cheeks again. My bottom lip began to move again and that heat rose in my body. Then, I was in his arms and he was in mine. And my tears were released and as were his. The rain began then. How cliché is that? The rain fell through the open spots in the trees, sliding off of the leaves high above. Those rain drops mixed in with our tears. As I look back at that moment, I realized that his tears that day were for me, for the pain that I felt.

Tim Daren.

That was the first time that I realized how much I truly felt for him.

That moment, it just felt, so real.