Angel Over My Shoulder (14 page)

It was him. It was her Angel, down to his sky blue eyes, the curly brown hair, and the serious expression on his face. This was her Angel, exactly as she remembered him.

“Leslie…” He whispered. Her eyes suddenly rolled up into the top of her head and the world went black.

Leslie started and sat up with a jolt. Alan was suddenly standing next to her. She was lying on top of his bed and he crouched beside her, a look of concern on his face. For a moment, she couldn’t understand if she was seeing reality or her dream.

“My mother said that I should give you some time alone. Maybe she’s right, but I couldn’t.” He searched her face. “Do you need me to leave you alone?”

She shook her head. The sun had gone down and a soft light glowed from the bookshelf, illuminating the room pleasantly. Leslie sat up quickly. “Oh my god, how long have I been out?”

He sat on the bed next to her. “Not long, about ten minutes.” Leslie stared at him. He stared too. “You look just the same as I saw you in my dreams.”

“You do too.” She murmured.

He frowned. “My mother said that you dreamed about me, too?”

She nodded. “Before you were ever born, I dreamed of you just exactly as you are now, wearing the same shoes even. Everything is exactly the same, even the way you speak; with your accent.”

He smiled softly and her heartbeat sped up. It was just as it had been back when he would smile at her, with the exact same expression.

“You’re the one with the accent; country but not southern; hard to place.”

“Ohio.”

He nodded, not seeming the least surprised that it’s where she was from. She looked up at the drawings on the wall, but when she looked back at Alan, his ears were tinged in red and his expression was slightly embarrassed. He stood up and removed a cell phone from his pocket.

“I’m sorry. I need to call my mom. She asked me to phone her when you woke up. She had to go to work.”

“Oh.”

He gave her an intent look as he waited for the ringing phone to pick up. “She would have called off, but I insisted that she leave…I thought that we should probably talk…alone.” His eyes moved away from hers momentarily as the other end picked up. “Mom. She’s ok. Yeah. I will. Ok, bye.” He hung up.

“My mother is a supervisor at a crisis intervention center.” He placed the cell on the desk, his eyes never moving from hers. “But she said that if you wanted, she will be right back here-” She could hear that he hoped she would not want that.

“No. It’s ok.” She smiled bravely. She gestured to the drawings. “You are a really good artist.”

He scratched his head and cleared his throat before smiling sheepishly. “Um…thank you.”

“Do you…understand what’s going on?”

He sat down next to her. “I thought I understood, until my Mom said that you didn’t remember being in my dreams. Is that true? You don’t remember taking me places?”

She shook her head and he looked momentarily disappointed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

“But you remember being in mine?” She thought back to the drawings in his closet and felt warm. He had captured events that had actually happened.

He nodded. “I remember you when you were a little kid. You would call me Angel instead of Alan and if I asked you why, you would say that it’s because you didn’t know my name. Even if I told you, you’d say ‘Don’t be silly, this hasn’t happened yet.’”

He had a gentle smile on his face, as his eyes took on a distant expression; recalling the events that had only occurred during a dream. “In my dreams, it made perfect sense. Then when I woke up and tried to figure it out, I would get confused again. Those dreams were rare; me as an adult and you as a kid. I suppose those were your dreams.” He continued to talk as she mulled over his words.

He sighed and his words seemed as much for his benefit as for hers. “It was weird being a kid who was dreaming about me as an adult. Then later, it would flip and I was the kid again and you were the adult.” He shook his head. “Crazy is probably more accurate. I mean, I understand now that I was reliving your dreams. Look, maybe I can make better sense of it if I start from the beginning. Is that okay?”

She nodded anxiously. He stood up and gestured for her hand which she gave to him with no hesitation. She looked at their hands intertwined.
I’ve never touched him before…

“I need to eat something. Will you come to the kitchen with me?”

“Sure.”

He didn’t release her hand as he guided her through the living room, until they reached a large eat-in kitchen with a family room attachment. Evidence that this was not just a house but a home was obvious from the photographs on the walls to the untidy books and papers strewn around the family room.

“Do you want a sandwich?”

“No thanks.” She didn’t think she could stomach anything.

He pulled out a barstool for her, allowing her to look at him as he moved from the refrigerator for lunch meat, mayo, mustard and then bread.

It took awhile for him to begin talking because he seemed deep in thought. Eventually, he looked up at her. “I used to dream about the same person in my dreams. Even though, I couldn’t always see her, I always knew that she was there.”

Leslie wanted to rush in and tell him that she understood, that it happened to her, instead she pressed her lips together and listened.

“I think my reality was a bit more complex than yours. You had your waking life and your dream life, but I had my waking life and then my dream world consisted of me as a child and you as an adult and then vague memories of you as a child and me as an adult. I thought that everyone lived like this. There was the real world with Mom and Dad and my brothers and sister. But then there was a world where there was another person, who took me places and taught me things. All of my life, I had you in the dream world and my friends and family in the real world. I knew that you weren’t my mother, obviously—but I knew that you were someone just as important. We didn’t talk much, I was just happy to be with you—and not because you took me to all kinds of cool places. I just trusted you. I felt like all would be right as long as you were there.” Alan paused and Leslie looked down self-consciously. “I knew your name but that was all. I still don’t know how I knew; it just seemed that I always did, just as I always knew you—even when you were just a little girl.”

He absently placed four slices of bread onto a plate. “I started talking about my other ‘reality’ to my family but no one else was talking about theirs.” He smiled absently and Leslie felt her tension release as she relaxed by small degrees. Alan definitely had an easy way about him. He was experiencing the exact same thing as she had and he wasn’t a nervous wreck about it. She watched him absently squirt mustard onto two of the slices of bread and place American cheese on them as he spoke.

“One day, you…she took my hand, which very seldom happened. Wherever you took me, we just happened to be there. You never did things like hug me. Of course, I was a boy and I wasn’t into any of that.” He chuckled and she smiled. “You were more of the observer, at least until my Dad died and then you pulled me out of my depression by doing more things with me.”

His face became thoughtful, before he snapped out of it and looked at her again. “But on one particular day, things were different. It was before my Dad had died and it was the first time you showed me the future. You showed me my dog. He was on the side of the road and had been hit by a car. He was in so much pain, he was whining and barking and trying to get away, his backside was crushed.” Leslie grimaced and so did Alan. He spread mayo onto the two remaining bread slices.

“I saw myself running out of my house, even though I was standing right there holding… your hand—two places at once. The dream me tried to grab my dog and he bit me. I was so surprised. He had never bitten me before and I was only trying to help him. I looked up and saw that you were staring at me like you were mad. I figured that you were mad because I didn’t check the gate before letting the dog out.

“I was only six so I started crying. You hugged me…it was the first time you ever did. And you said that you weren’t mad at me, it’s just that I was stupid for giving my hand to a hurt dog.” He smiled to himself at a memory of her that she didn’t share. “You always talked to me like I was a grown up and not a kid, and if I was stupid you said it, but you would also tell me that I was smart, or good.” He sighed and a brief sadness crossed his face.

“You told me not to give my hand to a hurt dog again and I was so happy that you weren’t mad at me that I said ok. When I woke up, I was just happy that Trevor was still alive and that you weren’t mad.”

He placed the last bread slices on top of the cheese and meat and then slowly returned the items to the refrigerator. “Several months later, Trevor was hit by a car. And like my dream I ran out to help him, then I remembered what you had told me and I stopped to look around for you. We weren’t anywhere to be seen. But I did remember what you had told me, so I stood back away from my dog, even though I wanted to hug him and help him. Instead my dad reached out to comfort him and Trevor bit him bad enough that he needed seven stitches.” He cut the two sandwiches in half and then went to the refrigerator for two bottles of iced tea. He came around to the other side of the bar and sat down next to her, passing one of the drinks to her while sliding the sandwiches to himself.

She accepted the tea and twisted the top off drinking long. “Were you mad at me?”

He gave her a surprised look. “No! I was happy that you’d warned me. Later, I thought that I should warn others…little good that did. But I tried where I could.” He took a big bite of one of the sandwich halves.

The thoughtful look returned to his face as he chewed. “You never would tell me anything. I had to piece it together. Is that how it was with you?”

She nodded in disbelief that she could be sitting here talking about this with him, with anyone. “Yes. You thought I knew everything and I didn’t know anything. Have you pieced together the meaning of this?”

He gave her a surprised look that she would need to ask. “That’s easy. We’re soul mates.” He took another bite of his sandwich and watched her as he chewed.

Her heart skipped a beat. She fiddled with her drink nervously.

“So…are you saying that you are in love with me? You’ve never met me before and you think we’re soul mates?”

“That’s right. We’re destined to be together.” He watched her intently. “And yes, I am in love with you…which seems crazy since I’ve only met you once before today. I’ve loved you for years, Leslie. I remember…that you loved me too.”

A crease had formed between Leslie’s brows. “Did you just say that you met me once before?”

Alan stood and returned to the kitchen. “Yes.” He opened the cabinet for chips, though it seemed that he needed to move more then he wanted the chips. “I saw you once.” He sat down again. “I saw you outside of the Lemongrass restaurant.”

“When?”

“About a year ago.” His discomfort was obvious as he rotated his plate slowly while he spoke. “I saw you coming out of the restaurant. You were with a big red-headed guy and I chased after your Escalade calling you. You never saw, but I managed to get your license plate. It took a long time and a lot of money, but I found out your last name and where you lived. Leslie Wilke.”

“You found me?” She was confused and a little hurt. “Why didn’t you…?”

“I didn’t come to you because I…I was confused.”

She sat back in her chair and chuckled to herself. “Yeah, I’m pushing forty and you weren’t even eighteen. Yeah…I get you.”

“I wasn’t confused about my feelings. I was confused about yours. You stopped sending me the cakes and you stopped coming to me in the dreams. And you seemed happy with that guy.” He screwed and unscrewed the top off of his drink. “And I’m…what? A guy you never met? I just…”

She reached out and placed her hand on his when he didn’t continue. “You just, what?”

He looked at her with shiny eyes. “I just want you to be happy.”

Leslie sighed. “Alan.” Was all she could say. Then she remembered the cakes and that she had stopped visiting him in his dreams. She was overwhelmed with guilt.

“The cakes. Your mother showed me the drawings.” He smiled and her anxiety began to subside.

“My family never bought me birthday cakes. They couldn’t because I never wanted theirs, only yours. I used to crave them so much. Do you know how messed up it is to crave something that you’ve never tasted; and that nothing else can satisfy?” Leslie glanced away, nodding her head.

“Even though I couldn’t taste them, I waited every year for your newest cake. Then I would get to see you, the real you. It was like watching you on television. I wasn’t there, I couldn’t make changes, but I could see for a little while. Sometimes I would be nervous about what I’d see. You would be sadder and sadder each year. The real you that I dreamed about was never happy. The only time that I ever saw the real you happy…is when you were coming out of Lemongrass.” He pushed away his uneaten portion of the sandwich. “The cakes stopped coming and you were happy. And that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“Alan, if I had known…”

He took a deep breath. “Leslie, the future can be changed. We’ve both done it. You might have changed your future. But I-I’m still in love with you. I haven’t changed mine and I don’t intend too. I figured that if it’s meant to be then it will happen for me. That’s all I was waiting for. I was waiting for you to come just like my dreams told me you would.”