#perfectmistake

The ride back from Elizabeth’s house was quiet. It was midnight, the streets were empty, the houses quiet and Isabel hadn’t turned her radio on.

She had arrived at Liz’ house around four o’clock int he afternoon and left around nine in the evening, heading straight to Carol's, who she found out was the one who had called her earlier that day. 

 Apparently Carol had just walked downstairs when she saw Isabel and Jaden leaving the house at the party last night. Too drunk then run after them and ask where they were going, Carol wanted to know every detail about what happened that night. So Isabel told her about the text and about the intentions to get pissed drunk and how she ended up falling asleep in the back of Jaden's car with mascara down her cheeks.

After processing all that, Carol left it at that and Isabel was relieved she didn’t have to lie about where he went today to not have to tell her what actually happened to her brother.

After spending three hours listening to Carol talk about what happened at the party after she had left, Isabel felt tired even though she had slept until 2:30 pm. Talking to her brother and getting her head around everything that was going on in his life had drained Isabel from her energy and she started missing the warmth and coziness of her bed. 

Laying her head on the left-side pillow of her bed she remembered what she had read about the dream she had had this morning and was glad that it had led her to make some difference to the relationship she had with her brother.

---

The same tiled floor, the same leather seat, the same beeping sound, the same atmosphere. I was in the same hospital I was in the last time I woke up in a dream. But the lights were on, they weren’t flickering this time. They were lighting the room like they are supposed to in a hospital. And I wasn’t alone this time. There were people waiting and nurses sitting in the nurses station, answering phone calls and filling patient charts.

I stood up and walked outside like the last time I was here. I pushed the doors open having to squint because the light was brighter than I thought it would be. The sun was out, taking me time to adjust to the lighting, I could hear people minding their own business but the city was the same. Hard to recognize but n second look I made out the tree-lines on either end on the road that cut the city in half.

I decided to run to the same end of the road I had ran to the time before, having to make stops because of the heat caused by the burning sun. Making my third stop I recognized a face. A boy had walked past me second ago whose face I knew. I turned around, trying to find him but the street was empty. Not a soul walking on it, minding their own business. It felt as empty as it did last night. Like no one had walked these roads for years, leaving the warm feeling behind the clouds now covering the sun. The city was looking more and more like it looked last night, making me want to wake up. 

I had never felt that in a dream, the need to wake up to stop the city from turning back into the darkness and shadow it was before.

---

That girl is dumb. Isabel thought to herself. She had been sitting in a coffee shop for twenty minutes, waiting for Alex to arrive but he was nowhere to be seen.Staring out the window, hoping that every guy who walks into the field of view is her best friend made her a people-watcher. She was analyzing their actions and behavior.

A girl was standing right outside the coffee shop, staring at her phone but every now and then looking up and smiling of even giggling to herself but then turned right back to her texting, Isabel assumed.

"You checking out girls now? Don't waste your eye on her, she's madly in love with her boyfriend who she is texting right now," Alex said and sat down.

"Oh god! Even your thinking is gay, Alex." He was always making remarks like this one, all of those on a joking note.

"And you love it! Now tell me girl, how have you been?" Isabel had asked to grab a coffee with her like they usually do on Monday mornings on a Sunday afternoon because she had decided to tell him what was going on.

"Okay um, how much time do you have, 'cause there is a lot that happened this weekend that I have to tell you about," Isabel said, nervously tugging on her hair.

"I've got my whole day, so go ahead." Isabel took a deep breath, trying to decide where to start. 

"Okay, which first, a good story or a bad story?" Alex frowned in his seat. He had never seen Isabel so serious, not even when she broke the news of her ex having cheated on her.

"Um, bad first and then lighten the mood with the good?" Alex said with a more questioning tone.

"Okay, that might work," Isabel said. She told him about the text and how it wasn't the first one she had gotten but also how it seemed worse than the ones before.

"So I decided to go to his girlfriend's house and get some answers. Basically what is going on is that he is got beaten up by a guy at uni who wanted him to hook him up with me, cause I didn't call that guy. When he said he would never do that the guy got furious and they had a fight. I met that guy here, on Tuesday. I thought there was something off about him but I never thought he was a psychopath. As my brother tells me he is the captain of their uni's football team and he has managed to build himself a reputation so fearful that everyone should take orders from him but Kye didn't and that's why he got those scars and wounds because it wasn't the first time something like this has happened between them two." 

"So basically your brother is saying he is a hero," Alex said but his tone told Isabel that he wasn't serious about it, "and you don't find anything off about it? You guys don't even chat on a daily basis and he's allegedly making all those steps to protect you?" 

"Maybe it's his weird way of loving his sister, I don't know, Alex. It took me long enough to get all that out of him, why would I argue with him? Apart from that he also warned me about him. On the day of Robert's party when he came into the bathroom in the morning. He said I should keep away from them basically and that they get out of hand when they party. I remembered just now and that makes sense 'cause Carol told me about some dudes from uni who had showed up after I left with Jaden,"

"Wait! You left the party with Jaden? So he did come?" 

"Really, Alex? That is all you made out of what I just said?" Isabel wasn't mad, just a little bit disappointed.

"Don't blame me, you are the one who hasn't left a party with a guy in all this time you have been single." Alex was right. Isabel had a rule she had promised herself not to break. She promised not to leave a party with a guy because that usually meant going to his place and waking up there the next morning only to sneak out and never see them again. 

"To be fair we didn't leave the place until six in the morning," Isabel said, slowly hiding her face behind her hair because she new what was going to happen next.

"YOU HAD SEX IN THE CAR? Wow, that is a new level, even for you, Isabel." Alex was surprised but happy at the same time and Isabel hated to ruin the happiness.

"Not really, I didn't sleep with him. We just fell asleep in the back of the car because I was crying about my brother and then made out in the morning,"

"Ew, morning breath!" Alex had to make a remark.

It had been a long day of sleeping off the hangover for Isabel and she was not going to come out of her bed. She had closed her blinds, locked her door and rid herself of all of her clothes she had worn, put on one of Kye’s shirts she had stolen a few months ago, when she noticed he wasn’t wearing it anymore and crawled under her duvet. At 4.56 pm her phone rang right next to her ear as she always kept her phone next to her left side pillow. Pressing the lock button, she silenced the blaring ringtone and turned her phone off, knowing the movements she had to make for it by heart. Starting to fall back into a dream of unknown, she smelt the lingering scent of her brother still on his shirt. I should call him. She thought at the edge of falling into that dream.

---

The hospital waiting room was empty. Only thing making sound it there was a ringing phone on the nurses desk. I looked at my hands, muddy and scratched, laid them on my thighs and continued to look around, not leaving my seat. The lighting wasn’t as bright as you would see in hospitals usually, only a few flickering bulbs here and there. When you concentrated harder, you could hear a storm outside, throwing raindrops on the windows and walls of the building. The set scene wasn’t pleasurable in any way and it made my insides turn little by little. When I finally decided to get up from my seat and look around a bit I heard a door being pushed open about two corridors away and sat back down, feeling like I shouldn’t wonder around with someone noticing me.

Another door being pushed open, the sound of it a lot more clearer than the one before, made me hide behind my knees as if I was scared of what might come from behind the last one left to open. 

I decided to get on my feet and run out of the hospital but doing so made it all a bit more frightening. The outside world looked like an entertainment city, like Las Vegas but it felt a lot bigger. I somehow knew that the city was placed into the centre of a rainforest, hence the storm going on. But the lights were as dimmed as they were inside that hospital behind me. Everything fell into a shadow, creating a lot of dark corners for anything to jump out of and that made me stop in my track. I was standing in the middle on a road which seemed to cut the city in half. You could see a black tree line on either end of that road and something about that darkness made me run towards it. I ran for what felt like an hour but I didn’t seem to run out of breath. I kept on running and finally reaching the end of the straight road, I turned back to look at the now not so big seeming city but it wasn’t there. All of it’s secrets had vanished into oblivion, leaving behind a field of red and pink roses. But there was no hint of the scent of a rose.

---

When Isabel woke up from her dream she gasped for air and the first scent she could smell was a rose. It wasn’t a deep scent, only a reminding one in the back of her mind but it made her heart beat faster. She searched for her laptop from under the bed, that was where she kept it when she had brought it to bed. Feeling the touch of the cold metal under her fingertips, she grabbed it and placed it on her lap, pulling the screen up with her shaking hands and typing in her password. She went straight for the internet shortcut, clicking on it one too many times, having to close a page before getting to do what she wanted. After typing in “dream dictionary” to the search bar, she hesitated to click on a link offering her that kind of a page. Hospital, city, darkness, forest/rainforest, rain, rose. Those were the words she had thought to look up.

Hospital

To see or dream that you are in a hospital symbolizes your need to heal or improve your physical or mental health. You need to get back to the flow of everyday life. Alternatively, the dream suggests that you are giving up control of your own body. Perhaps you are afraid of losing control of your body.

City

To see a city in your dream signifies your social environment and sense of community. If you dream of a big city, then it suggests that you need to develop closer ties and relationships. You are feeling alienated and alone. To dream that you are in a deserted city indicates that you feel rejected  by those around you.

To dream of a city in ruins denotes that you are neglecting your social relationships and allowing them to deteriorate.

Rainforest

To dream that you are in a rainforest suggests that you feel your emotions are being undermined and "cut down". Alternatively, the dream represents your waking concerns about the environment. It may also be a metaphor of the impact that you have on your surroundings.

Rain

To see and hear rain falling symbolizes forgiveness and grace. Falling rain is also a metaphor for tears, crying and sadness. Alternatively, rain symbolizes fertility and renewal. If you get wet from the rain, then it indicates cleaning from your troubles and problems. In particular, dreaming of acid rain indicates that you have been mislead. You are letting hatred and revenge take over and define you.

Rose

To see roses in your dream signify faithfulness in love and the coming of joy in some area of your life. Roses also symbolize love, passion, desire, femininity, unity, and romance, particularly if they are red roses. If you see a white rose, then it symbolizes virginity, pureness, and secrecy. It you see a yellow rose, then it refers to infidelity, jealousy, or friendship. If the rose is pink, then it means fresh love and new romance. According to Freud, the rose represents the female genitalia.

Darkness

To dream that darkness comes upon you signifies failure in some work that you are attempting.  Darkness is synonymous with ignorance, the subconscious, evil, death, and fear of the unknown. If you feel safe in the dark, then it suggests that you like not knowing about certain things. As some might say, ignorance is bliss.

Only parts of what she read made sense but Isabel was already connecting those explanations with her story. Some of the meanings of her dream were about her personally but others had to do with someone else in her life. And that scared Isabel.

---

In the car, on her way to Liz’ house, Isabel found herself thinking about what to say to her brother. She had never done something like this before because it had never felt so serious. What would make him listen to me? What would make him open up?

Pulling up in front of Elizabeth’s apartment complex made Isabel slightly anxious. She found herself afraid of what Kye might say to her but continued her ‘mission’ anyway. Stepping up on the stairs to the front door, Isabel heard someone yelling in one of the apartments which made her close her eyes and pray for it to not be Liz or Kye. 

“What are you doing here?” Kye asked in a sleepy and raspy voice.

Isabel was standing in the hallway of Elizabeth's rented apartment, her shoes and jacket still on even though she had been there for almost ten minutes now. Liz had let her in, saying that Kye was still asleep but if Isabel waited, she would wake him up for her. But after seeing him, she wished she had not come. He was a wreck, his left cheek purple like a plum with a yellow ring around it. His hand was scraped and weak looking, making him wince when he slid it through his messy hair.

“What happened to you?” Isabel almost ignored his question but also answered it with hers.

“Nothing, I'm fine!” he mumbled and turned around to walk back into the bedroom. Quickly tossing her shoes to the corner she followed him, grabbing his shoulder to pull him back but was startled when he let out a loud groan and lowered his shoulder to get out of her grip.

“You are obviously not fine! What happened? Why wont you tell me?” Isabel was almost mad at him but held her tone soothing because she knew if she raised her tone then Kye would shut her off even more.

“Why are you here when I didn’t ask you to come. That was actually the point of that text, Bella, for you or anyone to not come looking for me!” Kye wasn’t extremely happy about seeing his sister.

“I’m worried about you, Kye!”

“You are worried about me? All the other times I’ve sent the same text you have never showed up here, saying that you’re worried about me. Only noticeable change about you has been the fake pity smile you manage on your face when I come back home and that’s it,” he said, gently holding onto his shoulder.

“I’ve never said or done anything because of the attitude you give me and mom and dad whenever the subject goes anywhere near about you and what you are up to. But when I read that you're gonna stay here for longer than two or three days, my worry crossed a line somewhere.“ Isabel had had enough of it. She was there to get answers and she wasn't going to leave without one.