Her, To Home

She was standing in the park. The image felt so real and yet she knew she wasn’t there. Looking down on her hands, they almost felt transparent in the evening sun which was passing its brightness right through her.

Familiar laughs made her freeze for a second before she slowly turned to see the memory chasing past her. The two children holding hand felt so out of place.

She couldn’t breathe.

She didn’t know she still had this memory.

She recognized them almost immediately. How could she not? Dean looked older from his eight-year-old self and she looked younger compare to her four-year-old. She could still remember the touch of his hand as he had held it tightly since her mother had told him to take care of her.

She watched in awe as he patiently walked, matching the pace of her younger version as she kept falling and tripping over nothing. Every now and then brushing her clothes for the dirt and trying his best to support her little body with his own.

Now, looking at everything from someone else’s sight- she could see it. In that little boy’s eyes, and touch and laugh- she could see it, the adoration he held for her. How his eyes never left her face, how he would walk beside her. Each action was already screaming that he was in love with her.

Dean has been in love with her since she was four. Or maybe even before that.

Why have she been so blind since forever?

She could her heart race so fast it was getting painful.

The wind suddenly picked up and she closed her eyes tightly, it felt like the earth was spinning with full speed till it suddenly stopped. She opened her eyes carefully to see herself standing in her room. But it was not the sight she had seen since she entered high school. The walls were green and the bed was small. Stuff toys were spread all over the room. Her younger version was crying while being held by Dean. She remembered the memory; she was ten and it was the first time Dean had come to her bleeding.

She could hear her own silent cries echoing in the silent night. Dean was whispering something but she didn’t bother to come closer to hear because she still remembered them.

He had kept telling her that it’s okay, he was fine. He was okay. It didn’t hurt. It will heal, it was okay. He loved her, more than this life.

“Stop crying, I beg you. Stop crying.”

In the light of moon, she saw something she had not noticed that time. A silent tear which had fallen from Dean’s eyes as he had begged her to stop crying, twisted everything inside her.

If she could shout, she would have shouted for her past self to stop crying.

But she couldn’t do anything- like a paralyzed body, she could only see it all helplessly.

The wind picked up again and this time she didn’t close her eyes but kept her eyes on the disappearing image of her memory till a new memory was standing in front of her.

It was her middle school hallway. A few high schoolers had surrounded her small figure, caging her against the bathroom stalls.

They did not feel as big as they had at that time. She could see her figure staring at them in confusion, not knowing what they were doing.

She wanted to laugh. It seemed too obvious now. Why was it so hard to figure at that time?

But instead of looking at herself, her eyes were on the door of the bathroom. She knew it would burst open any second and it did. Breaking the whole door, Dean had entered looking as furious as she could ever remember. She knew she had never seen him this angry. It was the first time she had come eye to eye with Dean everyone feared and she remembered feeling nothing but relief seeing that side of his.

She watched him carefully this time, observing that his body was shaking. His hands were clutched so tightly as so they were turning white. And his eyes, they were terrifying, hazed. He looked like a mad man but watching her past self, standing in the middle of those high schoolers- she looked just confused.

Dean stalked towards them and grabbed the nearest girl from her arm, twisting it in her back. She had cried out in pain but his eyes didn’t change but they took a round of every face there except her and warned them to never show their faces to him again.

When they all left, she watched from the just five feet away how he pulled her to his chest and suddenly, his anger was gone. The change was so quick that even now, she of the present was surprised. She shouldn’t be.

He was asked her if she was hurt when once again the wind picked up. She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to go back.

Everything had changed. Times had changed. She didn’t want to be bitter anymore. She wished she could walk those halls again, could sit beside Dean as he drove around finding an open ice-cream parlor at two am just because she wanted to. She wished she could still open her eyes in morning and see him beside her. Always not touching her but still beside her.

The time she could touch him, feel his warmth. She could see herself dance in her eyes, sometimes pretend to be asleep when he would trace his fingers on her face while whispering her name to the silence. Or to the million times she had felt his lips brush against her forehead or fingers.

The wind had stopped and she was once again in her room. The walls color had changed, red seem to be running whole around the room with the coordination of black.

Her fifteen-year-old self was sitting on the bed, eyes filled with tears but there seem to be no sound of crying. The door burst open and Dean entered eyes so afraid, face so white that Sara couldn’t take her eyes off him.

Was he really that scared? Why was he scared? She remembered that she had called him and had barely managed to say his name before she hung because she couldn’t speak. She could hardly breathe at that time.

And as Dean embraced her younger self, she felt herself in the home of his arms as well.

The room shook when she started screaming and God, she had cried. She had cried till she was unable to produce anymore tears but now watching herself cry like it was the end of her world- she saw Dean.

He looked pale, grieved, sickened.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Deadened.

She could see his shaking hands as he tried helplessly to control himself for her.

His eyes were wide, she knew he wasn’t breathing.

For the third time in her life, in this land of somewhere between reality and dream- her world once again broke in pieces. Seeing Dean like this, seeing his horror-struck face like his own world was crumbling down in his hand- she wanted to shout to her past self to stop crying. She wanted to scream for her to stop because Dean couldn’t take it. He couldn’t breathe but before she could shout anything- the wind picked up again and once again, she was standing still and everything else was moving too fast.

And when it stopped, she was standing in a darkened room. Her past self was fast asleep on the bed and a shadow sitting beside her. She slowly walked closer to see it was Dean. She couldn’t remember the memory from anywhere.

Dean was stroking her sleeping self. She stilled when she saw he was crying. Silent tears were flowing from his eyes and yet, his expressions remained blank. But his eyes, God his eyes- they looked the same way they did that day. The day she had cried her eyes out when she found out her father was dying. They looked dead.

She watched as his lips touched her sleeping self’s cheek and stayed there. She didn’t know for how long. Maybe for hours or was it just few seconds? She couldn’t tell at all but when she could see his face again- it had lost its whole composer. The deadness in his eyes was now all over him. He was clutching his jaw so tightly that she could make out the veins. But he had stopped crying.

She wished he had cried.

She hated herself for it.

Why had he not cried?

Without looking back, he walked towards her window and jumped down. She watched as he raced toward a black SUV and drove away.

It wasn’t her memory. It was his or maybe the part of her unconscious mind.

It was the last time he came to her room before leaving.

This time when wind picked up, she didn’t notice because she no longer knew what to feel or do or to think. It was like getting to know a whole different world. She couldn’t understand it.

This time, she was standing in the graveyard. The sight of her father’s funeral and watching herself who wasn’t crying but just standing there- eyes blank, face cold was in front of her now.

A suddenly movement from the side of her eye made her look at the far corner of the yard where a silver car was standing and against it- he was standing. She could recognize him from there, it was impossible not to. His eyes were on past self.

He did come.

He had come!

Slowly, she walked towards him and the closer she came- the more she saw how much he had changed. He had fresh wounds on his face and he was carrying a bandaged hand. His face looked older from the last memory. But this time- instead of grieve there was a sickening expression on his face. She noticed he was shaking slightly- as if getting ready to make a run and he almost did. Before he could pounce, someone grabbed him from behind.

His growls started so harshly that she was surprised how she didn’t hear them that day.

She stood there in shock as his growls slowly changed into silent cries as he tried to fight off three people away from him. When finally, tired, he slides down to the ground and sat there, eyes returning to her past figure as it stood alone on the newly put grave.

The wind picked up again but God, she couldn’t remove her eyes from his face.

This time it didn’t stop on one scene but images of Dean flashed around her. Dean sitting outside her window at night, Dean in her room- putting her birthday gift on her side. His face kept flashing around, she could no longer tell if this was a dream or not.

Her head was hurting so badly.

She just wanted to wake up already.

But the images didn’t stop and she couldn’t breathe any longer.

She wanted to wake up now!

She tried to gain her conscious.

“Sara!”

She was choking now. The pain in her head got stronger.

“Wake up, baby open your eyes! Sara, hey- don’t dare close your eyes.”

Not knowing whether she was dreaming his voice or not but she wanted to answer so badly but she felt so helpless when no words escaped her mouth.

“Please, baby. Open your eyes! I am begging you!”

She could have shouted if she could.

And suddenly it all started to fade away- Dean’s voice, the pain in her head and her breaths.