The Difference Between Dreams and Reality[CHPT 10]

A/N: Hey all! I’m, as usual, pleased to see the few new reviews and rates...and it seems views, as well. I’m so glad I was able to battle my writer’s block and keep up on this story(even though I’m still posting this chapter ridiculously late, I’m sorry!). My beta has just begun to redo the first two chapters. I haven’t posted the beta’d verisons of chapter one or two yet, but if you feel like re-reading it...the beta’d version is sure to be an easier read.



As it has been lately, this chapter has yet to be betafied, so please do not be harsh with all my errors. I’m looking to get the chapters out in a timely manner(though I’m sure you can tell that has yet to happen, haha) and it would take even longer if I had my beta go over every chapter before I posted them!



Bear with me on all the mistakes and tardiness of this chapter and enjoy the story as it is! :D



Chapter NINE:



It had been three days since I had last spoken with Brian fuller. He hadn’t even given me the slightest glance since the kiss I had given him. The media was still all over me as it had been the first day the graffiti had gotten out, but things were settling down a little.



I missed Brain somehow. My thoughts had lately been revolving around him. Sure, I still thought about Nine sometimes...but I dreamt about Brain. And I watched for Brian. And, more than anything else, I ached for Brian. But Brian never came.



And neither had nine.



As I sat thinking about it at our lunch table I was rudely awakened to reality when I heard “...right, Melissa? Hah. Yeah, who is our little graffiti prince? I wonder...” I looked over and there was Kenneth spouting bullshit again. “Damn him,” I thought in my head. That asshole. He had just been walking past us with a girl, or should I say slut, on either side of him. His arms graciously wrapped one around each size 0 waist(Please see below for A/N). Sometimes he made me so mad!



“Shut the fuck up,” yelled Darcy as she stood. I felt as though she was speaking what I couldn’t. We were sitting at our lunch table in the center of the cafeteria. I was on the end of the right side of the table. To my left was Hannah and to her left was Zeal. Across from me was Darcy and to her right was some new guy. I hadn’t even caught onto what his name was yet. Darcy slunk back down in her seat and took a deep breath, I imagined her counting back from ten in her head as she had done throughout all the years I had known her. Kenneth just laughed with his skinny *girlfriends(PLEASE SEE EDITED A/N) and walked past us.



We let it go this time. If it had been on the wrong day, Darcy might have given him a piece of her mind. And, if it had been before Zeal had existed in Hannah’s life, Hannah would have been right next to her. Zeal was still with Hannah happily. The two of them were practically inseparable. They didn’t really fight often and, when they did, it was over in less than an hour. Zeal was really good at listening instead of bickering. They really were a perfect match.



Darcy took in another deep breath before she changed the topic and conversation rolled off to a new start. I didn’t really take part in it. I was too lost in my own thoughts to join in. And I didn’t feel like sharing them.

It hadn’t been until Nine came along that I had ever been so well kept to myself. I mean, I had never been the kind to run off and spill my worries to the whole world...but I had also never been the secretive type. And I was very secretive now. I hadn’t informed Darcy or Hannah about Nine. And that was surprising to me. They were the closest things I had to family it seemed. Seeing as how my mother was never home because of work and my brother was just a plain asshole.



And then there was Toby. Good old Toby. Clueless Toby, actually. Because he knew nothing as well.



Quicker than it had come, lunch period ended. Everyone was off to the last of their classes. I always found this time of day to be the most depressing. It was like this: You work hard all day in your morning classes. Then you have break and you get refreshed. Then there’s those two classes before lunch where you are motivated by hunger. At lunch you enjoy your friends company and fill your stomach. But, after that...there’s the dreadful afternoon classes. I always feel like “There’s more? What do you mean I still have classes to go to?!” It’s like lunch was the best thing of your day and then it’s all momentarily ruined until you accept your fate.



And what is the fate of the afternoon classes? Classrooms that are so hot at times that you feel like you’re melting in your seat(Or the complete opposite in winter). And also the fact that you need to use the bathroom shortly after because you just had a meal. But you can’t go to the bathroom because your teacher is an asshole who knows nothing of the subject he teaches but seems to have written the book on human torture. You’re boiling in your seat, that just happens to be the only seat next to an open window where the sun pours in and makes you feel even more uncomfortable and sticky in your own sweat all the while you still have to go to the bathroom but must suffer until the short amount of time before your next class.



You’re thinking “why me?” and then the man you once called your teacher picks you to go up to the board and do a problem that you have no idea how to do. He knows that you weren’t paying attention and smiles at you cruelly while he hands you the chalk. You stand there for a moment and try to connect the dots. You can’t because your brain is boiled down to practically nothing and then the same asshole of a teacher who damned you to going to the board for your humiliation excuses you back to your seat, says something about your lack of a brain, and calls on the class suck up to do what you obviously couldn’t.



That’s how it feels. And every single detail is true. It’s a cycle that repeats almost everyday. I say almost, because the afternoon teachers do have different forms of suffering to put upon you...but that is an entirely different story, and an even longer one at that!



I bitterly made my way to class knowing of the following two hours to come. The longest hours of my day. I sat in class like a drone. I took all the right notes and I said all the right answers but I wasn’t there...not really. If you asked my teacher while he was taking attendance if I was present he’d say yes. If you asked the kid sitting next to me the same question he’d say yes, too. But mentally I was lost. Lost in a sea of memories. Not of Nine but of Brian. Again with all these Brian obsessed thoughts in my mind I picked up my stuff and somehow ended up in my car parked in front of my house after school.

But I didn’t want to be home. So there I sat. In a shitty car with no air-conditioner. I was wearing short shorts, too. My ass stuck to the seat like a naked person on a leather couch in the summer. Minutes, maybe hours, flew by until I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t move now I’d eventually melt and become a part of the car.



This was frustrating. Don’t wanna go home, too hot for coffee, too tired to drive to get an ice cream cone, too lonely to go for a walk...so I came to the most logical conclusion: Toby. Toby had a house. Toby had a mother who is always out with her friends(pregnant or not, that never stops her), and Toby had a father at work.



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“Perfect,” I chimed allowed to myself. I peeled my now sore butt off my seat and waddled my way to his front door. I knocked and waited. No one answered. So I knocked again, politely and waited. The doorbell had been broken this past week so I didn’t even try that. No answer, still. I saw Toby’s car was there so I figured surely he was as well. Can’t go anywhere without a way to get there, now can you? And I’d have known if he’d left...I sat in my car long enough.



I tried the door knob.



“Damn,” I whispered. Locked.



So I pulled out their spare key from the wind chime decoration. Same place as it had been years ago. Typical and very predictable, as always.



I quietly opened their door. Stepping in I shut the door and it slammed. Motionless I stood at the bottom of their stairs. No sounds. I then figured I might as well make my presence known and called “Toby? To–by!!!”



Not a single reply. I made my way upstairs and to Toby’s room. I, of course, knocked first. After a minute waiting for a response I thought ‘To hell with it!’ and I opened the door.



An intense green surrounded me. I never remembered Toby’s room being green. No...it used to be a blue. I guess the people who moved in while he was away had repainted it? Well this strong green suited him better now. He had clearly grown out of that baby blue anyways. I liked it. No, I loved it. The color was that of a forest. I felt...enchanted.



And there was Toby. Completely asleep in his bed. Still fully clothed and not even under the covers. He laid on his stomach holding the pillow in his arms like a father holds a child. It was a sweet and delicate sight.



I tip-toed my way to his side. I shook him gently but he did not wake. He just stirred a bit and made a few mumbling noises. I had usually known Toby to be a deep sleeper but never had I known any person to sleep through all the racket I had made! I figured his room must be sound proof on the outside so he heard nothing on the inside.



I lifted his arm from the pillow and sat it down in one swift movement just to see how dead asleep he was. Still no response. So I talked to him. This was far more amusing than being hollered at by my brother or, if my mother was home, hearing from her either.



“Hey Toby,” I began. “I’ve got a secret. You wanna hear it?”



“Mmmm,” Toby mumbled.



I giggled to myself. “Okay, but you can’t tell a soul!”



I inhaled as I spoke “I am in love.”



Not even a visible breath came from Toby. He had no movement and no reaction. I never knew it could feel so...so, well I guess so great to tell someone! Even though I knew he hadn’t heard me the weight came off my back and shoulders just enough so that I felt I might be able to begin to sleep at night again!



Then I continued “But I don’t know with who. I mean...well, I’m just very confused.”



Something inaudible came from Toby now. Words, I believe.



“What was that?” I asked, curious to know what it was Toby dreamt of.



“...you.” I couldn’t catch the rest of what he muttered.



“Hmmm?” I requested once more.



“Love you,” he said.



At first I didn’t know what to say. Could he be talking about me? Could he be dreaming of me? Or could this be of another girl he truly loves? Maybe even his own mother?



I laughed a little. Half the laugh was a true giggle and the other half was nervousness.



“Silly. Save those words for your marriage proposal, will you?” I stated more than asked.



I decided then that I needed to go home now. It was already five o’clock! I really must have spent an hour or two in my car!



I tip-toed my way back out of Toby’s room. Once coming to the door I opened it slowly and heard Toby whisper once more “I love you” and I instantaneously knew he meant for me to hear it. I shut the door behind me, walked out the door, locked it, put away their “hidden” key and returned to my car. There I sat again. Same seat, same shorts, same “naked person on leather couch” picture in my mind as I thought. Though I didn’t know what to think at all.



I’d much rather live a life without thoughts at a time like this. Where I could just be like “thanks Toby. Don’t love you back but, hey, we’re still friends, right?” But I did love Toby. Just not the way I loved Nine...or, well Brian. Or maybe it was Nine, after all. He did come to my mind first for some reason.



Damn. Now I was even more puzzled as to who I loved.



‘Maybe I loved no one.’ came a thought into my mind.



My heart answered that one for me. Even an organ in my body knew better than to think that. I’d never felt so full. Not the kind of full you get when you just finished Thanksgiving dinner. The kind of full you get when you wake up in the morning and all you want to do is see that one person. Only, for me, it was two people and on alternating days, even. Seeing as how today seemed to be leaning towards Nine all of a sudden.



Wait a second. Where the fuck has he been, anyways? It’s almost as though he’s been gone for a year!



I was starting to get angry when I lifted my head from my hands(which had been on my face as I screamed in my head) and looked up at my steering wheel. I could go somewhere. I could drive.



So I decided to forget that my ass was stuck to the seat and that I still didn’t really feel like going anywhere and drive. Without a radio on and nothing but the sun shining in through my wind shield as company I pulled into the school parking lot.



I didn’t know why I was there. I knew I didn’t like school any bit more than the next student but somehow, maybe out of routine I drove there.



But I knew that it wasn’t out of routine. It was like something inside of me drew me there.



And I got that feeling in my stomach that told me I was where I supposed to be at that moment in time. No matter how messed up that sounds.



I opened the door to my car and stepped out. Breathing in the sun and the air and the pollution around me I walked to the side entrance. It was unlocked, which I was thankful for because I didn’t know where the school administration would hide their spare key, after all. First I went to my locker and grabbed a book out so I’d be able to pull off a “I accidentally took this book from the library without checking it out and thought I’d return it before they thought it’d gone missing!” story. I was good at that. Maybe not the best liar but I thought I had a small talent for it.



I’d be a brilliant lawyer my mother always said. And she was right.



I walked to the upperclassmen hall. I loved that hall. Maybe because I didn’t belong there and I knew it or because it had that scent...so much mystery! As I was looking at the new artwork–all by the same person as last time I heard some hushed voices coming from a classroom.



They were so tense. I could feel the energy or anger coming off them even though I couldn’t yet make out what they were saying. I figured out which room it was when I could hear them clearer. It was the room with a door that was splattered with blue and green paint. It was a messy looking door. Very artistic and random. It was like looking at clouds and trying to find shapes in them.



“I know, I know,” came from inside the classroom. A familiar voice. Brian.



Silence.



“Well you can’t be that careless, Brian!” Came the response. “How could you confess that to her?!”



This voice was deeper, older, angrier...and more familiar.



Then it clicked. Brian Fuller was in that room, that I’d already figured out, but the other voice...now it was a crazy assumption but it sounded so much like him! Brain was arguing with Nine. Which just proves that Brian really did know Nine.



My heart started beating faster in my chest. I didn’t know if it was beating because I loved Brian, because I loved Nine, because I loved the rush of ease dropping on them or because I was dead afraid of getting caught.



I hadn’t heard what ended their conversation because I was so wrapped up in my own mind. I just knew it was really silent and there were no words being said anymore. So I leaned in a little closer. It was almost as if the two of them had left. The door was half way open so I leaned in even closer, almost close enough to hit my head on–



“Hello there.”



I looked up and rammed my head right into the chest of Brian Fuller.



‘Stupid!’ I shouted at myself in my head. If I kept this thinking up in my head I was gonna have another personality soon.



“Br–Brian! Funny seeing you here all of a sudden...” I trailed off as I backed up and straightened myself out.



“You weren’t by chance, ease dropping on us, were you?” He asked.



I knew better than to respond to this. It was a trap. Say yes and I’ve admitted to it, that’s no good. Say no and I’ve denied it and he will accuse me; question what I was up to. I could lie well but not well enough to tell him the library book story.



He put his arm around me before I could back myself up farther up against a locker.



“Now, now, “Brian whispered in my ear casually. Which I didn’t expect from him after everything that happened. That and the fact he hadn’t talked to me for three days!



I tried to push his arm off of me. Tried and failed, that is.



“Don’t push,” Brian whined. We walked into the dark room. At a desk sat the person he’d been talking to. My heart thumped.



“Nine,” I said. It wasn’t a question or a greeting. It was a statement.



Brian stopped walking and so did I, as if putty in his hands. Breaking free from his arm I ran up to the dark figure that I recognized as my property and into Nine’s arms.



He held me back and I told him I missed him. I started yelling at him, actually.



“You stupid, stupid idiot! I can’t believe you! It’s been so long and...and well what were you thinking?! I missed you so much,” I couldn’t talk or yell anymore because I was crying out of frustration, confusion and all those other crazy feelings I’d kept inside since last I’d seen him.



“I know,” he replied. I wanted to stay forever in his arms. To feel forever safe. Forever loved.



Then I felt a hand on my left shoulder. It was Brian. He pulled me from Nine’s arms and I heard him grumble something along the lines of “Let’s go Melissa.”



I tried to restrain his arms. Tried to get back to Nine, back to safety. Back to whatever the fuck he was to me. We were out of the classroom and I tried to argue with Brian as he pulled me away from the man I once believed was my everything.



I turned my head back on last time only to see the green and blue paint splattered door closed now and above it only the number nine.



It had obviously once had two other numbers in front of it, “309" or something, but the other two numbers were completely faded and it now only read “9.”



As we walked out the front doors of the school I stopped fighting it. I didn’t want to walk back there. I was in a state of shock.



Nine.



Room “9.”



I knew who he was. Part of me was excited and the other part was disgusted.



‘What on earth is going on,’ is all I could think as I felt my heart splitting in two. Half going to Brian and half going to his uncle, a teacher, Nine.



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A/N: Wow. I didn’t expect to get that all out this chapter! To be honest I had been putting off Nine’s identity for a long time now and a lot of that reason was because I was afraid after people found out who he was they’d lose interest. I hope you all stick with me, though!



In case any of you have been wondering, I will be bringing Melissa’s acting more into this story soon, also more on her mother. Those are things I’ve kind of neglected as I’ve tried to develop other relationships. There are stories there, as well. This story is not yet finished, don’t worry! And yes, for any of you who are curious, I will be attempting to write my first bits of smut somewhere in this story. I apologize for the lack-there-of but I’m, to be honest, very knew to it and I don’t want to ruin the plot by jumping the gun and throwing random and meaningless porn scenes into this story. I care a lot for this story and also care a lot about the people reading it, so hopefully no one gets impatient with me! >.>



Again, I’m super SUUUPPPEEERRR sorry that it takes me forever to get these chapters out! That’ll be my resolution for the new year, ok?



If you have any questions feel free to put them in a review for me and I’ll try to answer them!



So Happy 2008 everyone and I hope you enjoy this chapter and stick with me! Keep faith in me, I’ll try to live up to it!



[Also, if you've dropped me a review check the update right after this one, it's not a chapter but a list of personalized thank yous to my reviewers!]



- Jenna



EDIT: Anon, I apologize if I upset you. I never knew that line would insult one of my readers and did not see it as such. I would like you to know that I do not personally believe anyone with a small waist to be a whore, I was trying to incorporate Melissa's frustration into the story. I believe, from my own experience, that people in high school often tend to just call people that they don't even know rude things that have absolutely nothing to do with that person just because of the person with them(judging a group of people just by the one person you don't like type-of-thing). Also, I hope nothing else has offended you(contact me ASAP if anything has and I will take care of it in a heart beat!).



Hopefully I have not lost a wonderful reader/reviewer do to this. I am truly thankful for your opinions and value you as one of my readers/reviewers! (And I did switch the terminology in that paragraph for you)



If my story, for whatever reason, insults anyone, please email me at:
Jennabebetter@yahoo.com and I would be more than happy to have a discussion with you and consider altering my story to be more pleasing. :]



- Jenna