She woke up an hour later, showered, and dressed. Her coffee was waiting on the coffee table steam billowing out the top. “Thanks,” she said still a little frazzled that he was sitting on her couch and sipping coffee out of her mothers coffee mug, but for some reason it didn’t really bother her.
“Do you always go to damsels in distressed?” she laughed
“Only when they scream loud enough to hear over kids screaming and bad country music,” he brushed his hair out of his eyes. “What were you dreaming about anyways to scream like that.”
She wondered if she should tell him the truth. Would it make her sound like a freak if she told him she dreamed of a million snakes dragging her into her mothers grave. She knew if she even mentioned her mothers name that the topic would go to her mother and she really did not want to explain the whole situation. “I dreamed that a man had shoved me onto a grave, and a lot of snakes came out of it and were biting me.” she sighed. It was the truth. The whole truth though? It was better than nothing. His right brow was twitching and his hands were clenched she notice. “what’s wrong?” she prompted. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing,” his demeanor relaxed. “My grandmother always told me that snakes biting you in a dream meant that a woman was pregnant or would become pregnant.” He rested his hand on her leg. “ Don’t put to much faith in your dreams. As I have come to realize they don’t mean anything. She looks down at his hand on her leg. His hand was hot but smooth. She knew when he took it away his handprint would be left on her pale skin.,red hot. She looked into his eyes,
“I don’t always put my faith in what I should but I don’t see how a dream could tell of anyone’s future. Besides I don’t trust anyone. Therefore I don’t know that many people so don’t know anyone that could get or be pregnant” She scooted to the other side of the couch barely glancing his way. It was foolish she knew but she couldn’t come to love anyone again. Love brings heartache to the dinner table and she feels her heart pulse when he looks at her. He is not seeing who she really is. He is seeing a person he has fabricated within the past two hours. The real her is broken and being alone has become her nature
“I hope I didn’t do anything wrong. He crossed those dangerous legs. What she would do to just close her head in the door to get the thoughts of him out of her head. “How about we watch a movie or the TV today?” he bent down in front of her entertainment center. “Zombieland?”
“That’s cool with me,”
The rest of the day she learned he grew up in New Orleans and had moved to Tennessee with his parents this year to be closer to his grandmother who has Alzheimer’s his favorite thing to do is hike, and he loves plantains. The odd thing was that he asked her the basic questions but not at any point did he ask where her parents or mother was and she was grateful. She fell asleep in the last half of Zombieland the second time through and awoke to an empty house except for a note on the coffee table. “Did not want to wake you but I hope to see your beautiful green eyes in school tomorrow. She burrowed back into the couch and continued her slumber. She slept peacefully except for the faint hissing sound that interrupted her dreams.