The Dream

   It was midnight. Emily was sitting in her room thinking about the things that happened the day before. How could that happen? How could her parents be so cruel? How could they think only about themselves? What about her and Ted, her little brother? He was too small to realize what was going on but soon everything would be different. Different from what used to be usual and normal. Her mom fell in love with another man and now she has left. Packed her things and just walked away. Just as simple as that. Can you imagine that? How could she leave her children? She was the one to give birth to them. Emily was taken aback. She didn’t even know what to do, how to react or what to say. All she knew that it couldn’t be true. It was a bad dream, a nightmare and when she woke up early in the morning everything would be as before. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t anything like that. Instead she has found her dad drunk sleeping on the sofa and her little brother was playing with the ball. He looked so happy. Poor thing, he didn’t know that their mom had left and there was no turning back. She realized that there was no future. At least that stunning, wonderful, happy future that she was planning to have. Next year she was going to college. But now how could she leave dad and Teddy? What would their life be like? She had thousands of questions and no answer to any of them.

      Now when she was sitting alone in her room, looking at the stars, she didn’t see any future. Future was like a mirage. She knew that life would never be the same again. She always thought that they were friends with mom as she could tell her everything. But as it happened mom wasn’t sincere with her. How could she lie to her? How could she be so careless?  Emily never thought her mom to be a selfish woman. She used to be so kind, attentive and understanding. What has happened? She didn’t know.

     When she woke up the next morning she knew that she had to do something. Dad was totally broken but it wasn’t a reason for Teddy to suffer. So she called to her grandma, Sophie, and asked her to sit with him for a while until she understood what to do and planned her further actions.

    Sophie was a wonderful woman. She was forty when her husband died and she never got married again. She was an attractive woman and had a lot of admirers but she couldn’t let anybody in. She had a wonderful boy, William, and she wasn’t sure that they would love him as their own. She couldn’t be happy if her son would feel not safe and comfortable in his own home. So she dedicated her life to raising her son and giving the best she could. She was always eager to help even when he got married she was always near trying to protect him from any trouble. Unfortunately she couldn’t anticipate this happening. Nobody knew.

   As it appeared Julia was a secretive person and never showed her real feelings. She had an affair for 3 years already and nobody knew about it. When she was leaving she told William that she couldn’t live like that any longer. Having a family was not for her. When they got married she was young and after some time she realized that she wasn’t ready to have a family but it was late to change something as she was pregnant. Then lived for some time and she tried to convince herself that domesticity should be that that. She thought that when Teddy was born it would make things better but it became even worse. She understood that she never wanted to be a mom and this kind of life chocked her and she started hating her life and her family.
 
    Emily couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell anything to dad and tried to change the situation. Was he that blind not to see anything?  Maybe he didn’t want to see what was going on as he loved her so much and didn’t want to lose her.
    Now everything was crystal clear. Julie would never come back. They should have learned to live without her. So they did.
 
   Emily has found a job. After classes she worked at a shop as a consultant and she really liked it. Sophie moved to their place so they didn’t have to pay for a babysitter. Life was getting better.
 
    The year has passed and it was time for Emily to move to college. It was pretty far from home. She didn’t know what to do. She was dreaming of entering that very college since she was eight. She wanted to become an artist. So she succeeded. But family mattered much more. Maybe she could stay with them one more year? College could wait. She could find a job and save some money. She could leave her dreams behind but it would make her unhappy. 

    Her father understood that.  They had a talk and after that she decided that she would go to college as everything would be all right. Dad pulled himself together and was even laughing and smiling from time to time. After all she could come back at any time. It was a hard decision but it was the right one. So she packed her things and left. 

    She loved travelling by car. It was a wonderful opportunity to see new places and when she liked a place she stopped and took pictures.

    When she arrived to the place of her destination she couldn’t believe her eyes. Everything was exactly as she imagined. Even better. She knew that everything would be different. Much more better than it used to be. This place was like a reward for her sufferings. She was so happy. But at the same time she felt herself guilty. How could she be so happy when she was so far away from home and from her family? She knew that only hard work could make things right. She came here to make her dreams come true. She should work hard, be the best not to deceive people that believed in her. It was her chance to be noticed and to show everybody how much she loved and liked her profession. Drawing always helped her to calm down and relax. She was from a small town and nobody really understood her desire to become an artist. She never had real friends. She used to dress in her own manner. People found it strange and didn’t want to communicate with her. She liked arts and architecture. She always dreamt of travelling to different countries. There she could study architecture, go to galleries and museums. She knew that some day all her dreams would come true but she needed to study well to make all that happen.

   The first day was a nice one. Her groupmates appeared to be very interesting people. Now she was at home (the place where everything was in its place). She wasn’t a freak. Everybody had the same interests, the same goals in life. That was fantastic. It gave Emily wings to fly. She was so happy. She had friends. People that surrounded her liked the same things that she did. Definitely life was becoming normal again. Her classes were so interesting that she didn’t even want to go home. She absorbed everything like a sponge. She wanted to get the most out of each class. Emotions overwhelmed her. Everything went perfect.
 
   One day when she came to classes she noticed that they had a new guy. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She felt like she knew him for ages. After the class she came up to him and introduced herself. His name was Michael. He was from New York. He had wonderful blue eyes. Emily wanted to sink in Michael’s eyes. His curly hair made him really good-looking. His athletic body was for making love. She never felt anything like that before. She was in love. Definitely she had a crash on him. He was so calm. He didn’t pay attention on her. She could give anything to see him smile. He had a wonderful smile. His smile made her day.

   Emily stopped thinking about classes. All she could do was only think about Michael and he was the reason she still went to classes. Her marks began to go down. One of her professors suggested that she took extra classes. If things went as bad as that she could have failed to pass the exams. To her great surprise and luck Michael was one of the tutors that could help her.

  They began to spend a lot of time together. He was so smart. He told her a lot of interesting stories. He had travelled a lot and could tell much more than Emily could find out from books or classes. She was deeply in love with him. She was suffering as he wasn’t noticing her. She decided to ask him out. It wasn’t a real date. They went to a gallery. Michael was so impressed by everything that he saw that when they were saying goodbye to each other he kissed her. It was not a real kiss. He kissed her on the cheek. Emily melted. It was a fantastic feeling. Though it hasn’t been a real kiss it was only the beginning. Now she had to win his heart. But how could she do it? She had never been in love before. She had never dated anyone. If she asked him to come to her place and had a romantic evening with dinner, candles, romantic music she could scare him off as she wasn’t sure that he really needed it. She didn’t have experience in things like that. She needed advice. Advice from experienced people.

   So she asked her friends for a piece of advice. One of them told her that she should be more feminine and wear dresses and jewelry. Guys watch. So the first they see is how you look. If you look hot then almost all is done. Another told her that she needed to dance nicely. As when one dances others imagine how good she/he is in bed. She should move soft and sexy. Emily took everything into consideration and took the chance.
 
   She asked Michael to come to her place as she needed his help with studies. When she opened the door she saw the way he looked at her. Yes, she looked amazing in that dress. Her eyes were shining and her make-up made it more vivid. He was amazed and didn’t enter for a minute. He was astonished. He smiled and entered. He asked if she was cooking something. The smell was wonderful. Emily told him that she thought that he could be hungry and decided to cook a little bit. She smiled and went to the kitchen to see how the things were going. She came back and told him that dinner would be ready soon. Meanwhile they could study. Michael couldn’t concentrate on studies. He couldn’t take eyes off her. He has totally forgotten about the studies. He was sitting and watching at her.At that moment he realized that he was in love and already for a long time.  Emily couldn’t understand what was going on.

   Finally the dinner was ready. To her great surprise it was really delicious.  After dinner she offered him to dance a little bit as she wanted that so much but hasn’t done that since she came here. Michael agreed. He was in her power. Emily felt his heart was beating faster. After the dance she offered him to sit near the fireplace as it was becoming colder and they could continue with the studies. But to tell the truth she didn’t want to study. She wanted him to say that they didn’t need any fireplace as he could warm her and give her a kiss. She wanted him to tell her that she was beautiful and he loved her, wanted to grow old with her, to be always there for her, do everything together till death did them apart. When she was thinking about that he suddenly approached her, hugged her and kissed her. The kiss was so tender and sweet. She couldn’t believe that all that was real. After the kiss he looked deep into her eyes and told her that he was in love with her from the first moment he saw her. He was a shy guy and was afraid to come up to her, to ask her for a date as he wasn’t sure that she liked him. Even after all those days that they had spent together doing homework he was still afraid to get a rejection. But he couldn’t take it any longer. She was so beautiful and the dinner was amazing so he decided to take a chance. He told her that he wanted to be near every single moment of their life, he wanted to be the person she could rely on no matter what.

   Tears ran down her cheeks. He wiped off her tears and kissed her again. She was so happy. Words couldn’t express all she felt. Her heart was throbbing so that she thought it could explode. She couldn’t say a word. Michael didn’t need those words. Everything was written on Emily’s face. He turned Emily’s world upside down. She was happy like never before.

   It was holiday time. Emily thought that it was high time she introduced Michael to her family. Michael wasn’t sure about that as he thought he wasn’t ready to meet them. Emily assured him that her family already loved him and was looking forward to meeting him.  So they decided to spend some time at Emily’s place so that she could be with her family and Michael could get to know them and see the town where she was born and lived.
 
   To Michael’s great surprise Emily’s family accepted him like their own son. They were very friendly. He felt wonderful there. They were so attentive and loving. The time had come to return to college. On their way back they wanted to see Michael’s old friend. His town was on their way back to college. Emily agreed to step by and meet his friends.

   Emily had found out many interesting things about Michael’s childhood. He used to be a naughty boy. The guys wanted to spend some time together and Emily wouldn’t mind. So they went for a walk and she stayed there to help Adam’s girlfriend to do the cleaning up.

   They were out already for a long time so Emily decided to call Michael to find out when he was coming back as they had a long trip to college. They were far from it and it was getting dark. Nobody answered the phone. She tried again in an hour but nobody picked up the phone so she left a message. She was nervous. Her intuition was telling her that something was wrong. She called again. A man picked up the phone but it wasn’t Michael. It was a police officer. The police officer told her to come to the police station so they could talk but she didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to know immediately. She was listening and then she didn’t even manage to hang up the phone. She fainted. As it appeared there has been a car accident. Both Michael and his friend died. 

   After the funerals she had found out that she was pregnant. She realized that it was Michael’s gift to her. A part of him would always stay with her. She never got married. She loved Michael till the end. He was the love of her life. The first and the last. She became a famous artist and travelled a lot. She only wished that Michael was near to share all that with him. But she had Mark. He made her happy. She died when she was 85.

   Mark opened a gallery after her death and called it E & M (Emily and Michael).