Cheryl

 

On Tuesday morning, October 13th at exactly 6.00 am, Elena’s bedside alarm went off as it did every morning. But on that particular occasion, she did not practice her custom of letting it snooze for ten minutes, three times in a row. She jumped out of sleep and turned it off immediately to allow her to lay back in bed and reminisce about the night and dream she had. She lay in bed, alone in her thoughts as her mind ran through her just-concluded dream.

The beautiful stranger had come to her dream again and he had left a part of him in her; his seed and she had left a part of her with him as well. Her hand went to her tummy as if to check for growing seed. Elena was lost in her thoughts. She knew it was the same man, the stranger who had come to her dream a year ago. Elena could recognize him anywhere, their souls had connected and spoken to each other.

Elena lay in bed for a long time, wrapped in pleasure, a smile on her lips and satisfaction enveloped her as she had never felt before. Her gaze drifted to her bedside clock, she had been reminiscing for thirty minutes. She realized she still had a job to go to and so she got out of bed and hopped into the shower in preparation for work. She spent a long time in the shower as well. Sometimes forgetting herself and letting the water run through her for minutes non-stop as her thoughts drifted back to him, his touch, kiss, and how he took her. As she scrubbed her body, she kept having flashes of how he had made love to her and made her come. twice! She finally caught herself, rinsed up her body, and got out of the shower.

By the time she got dressed for work and ready to go, she was almost late and as she stepped out to leave, she was accosted at the entrance to her apartment by her friend and roommate, Cheryl.

Cheryl who had a huge personality that resembled that of the twins was Elena’s only friend. They met after Elena moved to Ontario, Cheryl had put out an AD for a roommate and Elena applied, the girls both connected immediately and Elena moved in with her. They had stayed friends since then. Elena sometimes felt like she saw her sisters in Cheryl, so that kept her close to them in her way.

Cheryl and Elena had rented their apartment together, they had agreed to get a new and better place than the one they used to stay in. Even though Cheryl spent most of her time over at her boyfriend’s place, she had still insisted to share with Elena, she didn’t want to move in with her boyfriend yet. The couple had spent thanksgiving together. So, Elena was pretty surprised to see Cheryl at the door that early in the day, the morning after thanksgiving.

“Cheryl!” Elena exclaimed “what are you doing here?” she continued

“I stay here remember?” Cheryl responded. Oh, Cheryl was never dry, if anything she was always excited, she was the opposite of Elena, full of life and always smiling. She knew how to get Elena out of her shell. A lot of people did not understand Elena, her family included but Cheryl was not one of them.

She was very kind to Elena and Elena liked her a lot.

“what is wrong,” Elena asked, her voice betrayed how concerned she was that something could be wrong.

“did anything happen over at Brad’s?” Elena continued

Brad, Cheryl's boyfriend. The third boyfriend she had gotten into a relationship with ever since Elena met her. And that excluded the one-night stands and friends with benefits she had also had.

But Cheryl liked Brad. She liked him a lot and Elena liked both of them together. They suited each other.

“Yes Elena, yes. We broke up. I think he is seeing someone else” Cheryl blurted out, her voice held the pain she felt

“Oh Cheryl, I am so sorry” Elena responded as she put back her purse and keys. She moved close to Cheryl and hugged her.

“How did you find out? I never would have expected that from Brad, he loved you so much so why would he hurt you this way?” Elena said as she let go of Cheryl.

“I don’t know why he would choose to do this to me. It's his Ex. They are seeing each other again”. Cheryl replied, almost in tears.

At that moment, it occurred to Elena to ask further

“How did you find out?” Elena asked

“well, by text. She sent him a text. She wrote how glad she was to have seen him and looked forward to seeing him again” Cheryl replied

“and? did you talk to him about it? Ask him? listened to an explanation?” Elena probed because she did not believe that could be all that happened to make her friend break up with Brad.

“No. I was too upset to listen to any explanations he has. I wasn’t going to allow him to lie to me. I broke it off and ran out” Cheryl said, almost sounding defensive.

“Oh, Cheryl,” Elena said in some kind of relief. She knew her friend had the wildest imaginations; she could spin a story one thousand times and end up with the same negative conclusion especially when it came to someone she cared about. And she cared about Brad.

“Cheryl” Elena dragged her name.

“Yes Elena” Cheryl responded looking up to her friend.

“I think you may have been too fast with your conclusion. I think you should have asked him and listened to him; it could have been anything.” Elena said calmly

“I didn’t want him to lie,” Cheryl said again, this time her voice was a little raised

“or you are just scared. You expect something bad to happen soon so you project it on yourself and your relationship. It seems too good to be true so you make it not to be.” Elena suggested. She completed by saying,

“honey, I think you should call him and listen to what he has to say”.

“Okay,” Cheryl said like a little school girl. “I would”.

Elena said goodbye to her friend and promised to see her after she got back from work. She told Cheryl to have some food, there were still some leftovers from thanksgiving which she could eat if she wanted and she got into her car, already late for work.

At 5.15 pm after Elena closed from work, she headed to their favorite pizza hut and got three boxes of pizza, got a box of donuts, two hot chocolate, and French vanillas from Tim Horton’s drive-thru. And headed home to lend a crying shoulder to her friend. Cheryl’s phone had been turned off all day so Elena could imagine the worst; she imagined the breakup was real and Cheryl was probably home crying herself out so she got some comfort food for both of them.

But to Elena’s utmost surprise, she was greeted by a giggly, happy, and very satisfied Cheryl.

“pizza!” Cheryl screamed “hope you left out the cheese in the barbeque?” she asked.

Elena shook her head and smiled. Cheryl was asking her questions as if she ordered them; like she expected them and that amused Elena.

“you sound like you knew I was getting pizza,” Elena said, as she dropped her purse, took off her jacket, and took a seat.

“of course, I knew” Cheryl replied quickly. “you got me pizza the last time I broke up with someone. But you missed it this time, we sorted it out, we did not go through with the breakup; It was just a misunderstanding. You missed Brad by minutes, he just left here. We turned off our phones to allow us to focus on each other the whole time he was here.” She made this statement in one breadth and her excitement showed. It could almost be felt.

"okay. That explains it. I tried to reach you from work.” Elena said as they both started to eat. Elena was relieved to hear they worked things out. She liked them together and even hoped they end up together forever.

As they dug into the meal, Elena unexpectedly blurted out “I saw him again Cheryl”.

“who?” her friend asked as she lifted her head and raised her eyebrows.

“him. The stranger from my dream.”

“oh my God,” Cheryl did a full spin to enable her to look Elena directly in the eye and repeated, “oh my God”. She didn’t need to ask who Elena meant by “the stranger from my dream”; she knew.

Cheryl was the only person who knew about Elena’s escape episodes and it had taken a lot of convincing to have her believe it. She did not believe Elena at first until Elena escaped into her on two different occasions. They even taped it on both times but discarded the videos immediately. She had encouraged Elena to see someone about it, a psychologist but Elena had refused; she was not ready to confront her demons; at least not yet.

Cheryl was also aware of the first time the stranger in the dream had appeared, she had watched Elena sleep talk with him the whole night and had tried to get her out of the sleep several times but Elena would not budge. Cheryl had told Elena how scared she was that night but did not leave her friend till she went back to a night of quiet sleep.

Elena went on to tell her roommate the sex dream and how it felt so real. She narrated every detail and feeling to her friend and how she did not want to wake up from it.

After listening to Elena tell her dream and two boxes of pizza down, Elena asked Cheryl what she thought, she wanted to know, she wanted to fill the void that only he could fill. She wanted to be with him and not just in the dream.

“I think you should try to find him Elena. He may the answer to your love life and happiness. You deserve to find happiness too”. Cheryl simply said. those were the words Elena had hoped would be said.

Elena nodded in agreement without saying anything further.

she was going to find him, her soulmate.

she just did not know-how.