Dreams and Reality- 002

    "Charlie." I looked back at Rachel, who was holding back a grin and pointing at something up ahead. I looked at the large sign on the wall. "Wanna get something from Charley's?" 

    I threw up my hands, way too tired and hungry to laugh. "Does that even make sense?" Rachel was getting a kick out of it, though, so I guess it did make sense, to her, at least. "Sure, why not." I jabbed a finger at her. "You're paying."

    "I know, I know." Rachel started to waltz over to an empty table and watched as I sat. "Besides, we both know how you always blow your money on weird stuff."

    That wasn't supposed to offend me, and yet I threw my hat at her. "You hoard posters from your shows; why can't I get stuff from video games??"

    The girl just continued to laugh before running off to get us lunch. I picked up my cap again and let it lie on the table. Honestly, last night was the last time I'd ever stay up so late again. When I'd woken up, Rachel was just watching more of her series on the small tv in her room. It was like I'd just stepped out of some weird place, and I still did; I felt dizzy, tired, and I was walking a bit strangely. Rachel had said I walked like Jack Sparrow perfectly, but hey, she'll never see how I really walk when I'm drunk after downing 4 pints.

    She doesn't know that I drink, anyway. After waking up, though, we had to clean up the house before her parents came home, and we just ended up watching a movie. That was a few hours ago when we finished, and the time we left was around 12:30. We should've chosen a better time to go to the mall's food court for lunch, though, since this place was pretty crowded. We were just lucky that we found an empty table right next to us.

    "Young man?" I blinked my eyes open when I saw one of the janitors glaring at me. "Feet off the table," he said. I raised a brow at him before lowering my feet off the table. Was I so tired that I don't know what I'm doing at all, and did he really think I was a man? 

    "Gotcha," I said. The janitor looked like he flinched slightly; must've realized his mistake, and he nodded before continuing to broom up the trash. Just a while later, Rachel returned with a large Philly cheesesteak and a cup of cheese fries.

    "We're splitting this," she declared as she set the tray down. "I know you don't really like cheese on your fries... but hey, more for me."

    "You know how I get about fried food," I said with a retching noise. She cracked up at that before pulling out two bottles of iced tea. I snatched the lemon one before taking a half of the cheesesteak. Good thing it was already cut in half; things get messy while one tries to do that.

    Rachel eyed me while I started to dig in. "And you still eat a cheesesteak," she muttered.

    "What?" I asked. Rachel made a face, so I quickly swallowed my food. "I'm hungry!"

    She stuck out her tongue. "Whatever." suddenly she looked at me curiously. I stared back, wondering what was on her mind now. Whenever she gets that kind of look on her face, though, it must be a real question. "What happened to those pills?"

    Pills? After a few moments, I realized what she was getting at. Ever since I moved to live with Dad in New York with my mom and brother, my parents had me checked out by a doctor. Then they decided that there was something wrong with my vision and prescribed to me a medication... stuff I didn't like. The pills were to help relieve some kind of condition in my eyes, and I had to take them three times a day. The stuff tasted like rotten fish, so I always took them a few minutes before eating a meal so that I wouldn't throw up my food right after taking the pills. Now that Rachel reminded me about them, I just realized a very important thing. "I ran out."

    "Wait, what?" she dropped her fry back in the cup. Gross. "Since when?"

    I leaned back in my chair, wondering whether or not to tell her what happened. "Weelllll... I kinda dropped the bottle in the toilet a few days ago." Rachel squinted at me. "Two weeks ago," I corrected.

    Bam. Rachel slammed her hands on the table, laughing. "Two weeks??" she cried. "Oh my god, Charlotte! Was the bottle open?" 

    "Yes!" I couldn't help but laugh, too. I just remembered how I dropped it, and now I wanted to spill everything to her. "So I was just going to eat breakfast, right?" she nodded. "Well, that was during the project for Birkenson. That was the first time I pulled an all-nighter, since I just started putting everything together. And that was two days before the deadline, so I wanted to make sure I had everything before fixing it up and stuff." I crossed my arms. "I finished, saw it was 5 am, so I just went 'Time for breakfast' and went over to the bathroom since, y'know, the medicine's over there. It was in the small cabinet above the toilet, too. Thing was, I was so tired and jumpy that as soon as I took it out, took me forever to open the bottle. Then right after that, there was this cat just screaming or something and I literally jumped. So the bottle slipped out of my hands and fell into the toilet." I made a face. "Just took the bottle out before flushing the pills in the toilet, too..."

    By the time I was finished, Rachel had her face in her arms, head down on the table and shaking in suppressed laughter. "Oh my god, Charlie," she said in between gasps. Anyone walking past would've thought she was having an asthma attack. "You are so stupid sometimes and I wonder about you."

    "Hey. Hey!" I reached over and grabbed her shoulders. "Say that again!"

    "Nononono don't kill me!"

---

    By the time we got back to Rachel's house, the sun was close to setting. Instead of just going to the mall to eat lunch, we ended up staying there to use up the rest of my friend's money, mostly on what I wanted to get. Rachel was just making a face at me with her ridiculous robot hat (she kept calling it a Dalek helmet or whatever), while I had some shirts and a backpack. "You and your video games stuff," Rachel teased.

    I just grinned and shoved her a bit. "You and your Superwholock."

    She stumbled a few steps. "My, we're getting physical, huh?" at the door, she tackled me into it and clung to me. "Well, can't do much damage if you can't move!"

    Big mistake. We both heard footsteps approach the door, and suddenly I felt myself fall to the carpet. Rachel knocked the breath out of me, too, since we both fell pretty hard. One of Rachel's dads were there, looking at the two of us curiously. "Where were you two?" 

    "Mall," we said simultaneously. Rachel rolled off of me and pointed at me. "She blew my money on her stuff. A messenger bag for what?"

    "Hey, kid." I got up and pointed at her head. "That thing was what, ten dollars?" she grinned sheepishly. "I only got this shirt and pack, anyway!"

    "Black Ops 2 shirt?" her dad gave me a high five. "Nice, Charlotte."

    "Thanks, Nick." I saw Rachel's other parent coming down the steps. "Heya, Rob." Robert waved before running out the door. "Wait, where's he going?"

    "Got called back to the hospital for some overtime," Nick said. "Hey, if you kids are hungry, I made mozzarella sticks."

    Like I said before, I had a thing against fried food. This was an exception. Nick's food were the only things I'd eat. "They're mine," Rachel quickly said before dashing to the kitchen.

    "Kid, stop!" I followed after, tackling her away from the plastic box that Nick put the food in. Too late; her hand knocked over, and some of them went airborne. We skidded across the floor a bit, but Rachel managed to catch them. The box was started to tip off the edge, and I flipped over to my back, catching the box. 

    "Just because you're a year older doesn't mean you can call me a kid," Rachel said after a few moments. "And Charlotte?"

    "Yeah?"

    Oh great. There was another smirk. "You can catch a box of food, but not your medication?"

    I aimed the box at her; she screeched and held up her hands full of mozzarella sticks. "I said I was tired!"

    "No, don't waste all those food!" Nick cried as he entered the kitchen. "I put all my heart into that, you know!" Rachel started to eat the ones in my hand, and I offered her dad some of them.

    A few minutes later, we were all quiet and eating mozzarella sticks while watching The Walking Dead in the living room. Nick glanced at me. "So, kiddo," I cringed. "What's new?"

    Rachel suppressed a giggle when she saw my reaction to the nickname. I knew what Nick was wondering about. He and Dad go way back, whatever their relations were before, I don't know, but nowadays it's more of a casual relationship; Dad drops me off here for a few days while he, and sometimes Mom, go off someplace. That happens every few months, though, so it's not like I'm completely deprived from my family. I leaned back on the couch and just said "Chicago."

    "Ah." he nodded. "What for?"

    I thought about that for a moment. Usually, my mom would be the one telling me just a little of what they're doing. One time when they were staying in Philadelphia, Mom said that Dad was having a business meeting there; another time, they were in San Diego for their very late honeymoon.... never understood the point of that. This time, she was pretty vague about it. I even remembered the look on her face. Both parents had a troubled face while Rafael was helping them move their bags to the car. "Family business," I quoted exactly. Nick gave me a look that wanted more than just 'family business'. I shrugged. "That's all I got. They're coming back next Thursday." 

    "And today's Friday..." Nick nodded. "So you're gonna be staying over the whole week?"

    I thought about it again. "I'll go to my house tomorrow to check up on it. Rafa's coming back from Boston too."

    "Your brother's taking a break from his job?" Nick asked.

    I shrugged. "I guess. He's only staying over for two days, so I don't think it's a break. More like he asked to leave for a few days."

    We stayed quiet after that, finishing our very informal dinner before the show ended. After that, Rachel headed up the stairs to go shower. Nick grinned. "Call of Duty?"

    I shook my head. I didn't feel like I'm up to play a game that time. That, and I wanted to try out another thing I got from the mall. "Mind if I climb up the roof?"

    Nick gave me an incredulous look-- or one that was both curious and amused. "Be my guest," he said after a minute. "Just make sure you don't fall off. We don't want you in the hospital, you know."

    I grinned. "It'll take more than just gravity to make me fall." I ran up the stairs, hearing Rachel's dad follow. I entered my friend's room and opened the window, giving him a thumbs-up. Watching his dumbstruck face, I just slid out of the window and started to climb up the side of their house.

    The rooftop was pretty much slanted, so I leaned forward a bit while crawling up. Still, I reached the top fairly quickly, and looked up at the sky. Even a few years after my move here, I still caught myself looking up at the night sky to find stars. The city lights and whatnot did a great job of hiding them, though. I let out a loud sigh and leaned back on the rooftop, still staring into the night. The sky always calmed me down, and even when there's nothing up there, it still calms me. I closed my eyes, letting the night breeze cool me down. The crispness of December was evident in that breeze, too, since the air even smelled a bit frozen. Tomorrow I had to go check on my house, which brings me to the reason why I went up on the rooftop. I climbed up on the chimney stack-- just a thing to decorate the house now I guess, and squatted. The few trees that were scattered along the sides of the streets weren't blocking my view anymore, and the streetlamps were on as well, which meant it was easier to find my house. I took out a pair of binoculars from the messenger bag I bought; Rachel and I swung by a different store just for this very purpose. I held the binoculars to my face, using the small wheels on top of them to zoom in some more as well as sharpen the images shown. There's my house; one of the few houses around here with a white chimney. I felt myself grinning while I continued to observe the street in front of my house. Even at this hour, there's always a bunch of kids or some people just walking along. That was normal, so that didn't make me worried at all. I lowered my binoculars, feeling another breeze blow through, and I closed my eyes.

    Once I opened my eyes again, though, everything was pitch dark. I was standing, and just seeing nothing was enough to make my mind reel. I quickly grabbed the small corners of the chimney to keep myself from teetering over and falling. "What the..?" 

    "Charlie?" I heard Rachel call out from the window. "You alright?"

    Sudden blindness? Yeah, that's not alright at all. This never happened before-- or was this because I haven't taken any of my medication? I felt fear ball up in my stomach, and it took me a while to finally say, "This is pretty cool!"

    Rachel just chuckled, and I heard no more. I rubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the blackness, but the only thing keeping me upright was sitting on the chimney. It was the only thing that time that gave me a sense of balance. I continued to blink, feeling even more scared as the houses started to appear transparent. The blackness was starting to lighten up as well, and I started to see the streetlights. "Holy..." I leaned forward. Rachel's house and my house were glowing blue. The other houses were just a faded light, just like the streetlamps, people, and cars. Surprisingly, there was a person glowing red, a few feet nearby. I tried using the binoculars to zoom in-- and it worked. I couldn't make out the face at all, though... 

    Once I blinked again, my vision returned to normal. I was still sitting on the chimney, completely dumbstruck. How long was that thing happening, a minute? I still sat there while I thought it over. I shivered after a moment; I was sure that this was happening because I didn't take my medication. I quickly clambered down the roof and back into Rachel's room, who was lying in her bed. "Welcome back," she joked. I nodded and walked to the bathroom. "Hey, Charlie?" I just brushed my teeth and started to wash up. "Hello?" I changed into my own sleepwear and entered her room again. Rachel crossed her arms. "Did you break something up there?"

    For a moment I was confused. Then I smacked my head; I was up there for how long? Whatever. "Nah, I just..." I waved a hand. "Everything looked cool from up there." she grinned. "Rachel, let's go to my house tomorrow."

    "Pffft, that's what I was gonna ask." Rachel climbed into her bed, and I crawled into my sleeping bag. "First thing tomorrow?"

    "After lunch," I said.

    "Cool. Whatever floats your boat." she turned off the desklamp, letting the dark fill the room. "Good night, Charlie."

    "G'night." I just rested my head on the pillow while I listened to Rachel drift off to sleep. Once I heard her quiet snoring, I sat up. The whole day, I was lying to Rachel about being broke. I saved up a lot of money in a small safebox I always had with me, in case something bad happened and I needed to escape. It was Dad's idea, really. Still, I don't think he'd be upset if I used some money, right? 

    That's for tomorrow, though. Right now, I needed sleep. Whatever just happened up the rooftop, I bet it was because I didn't take any medicine for the past two weeks. I let my head hit the pillow, and fell asleep right away.