Chapter Three: A Piece of Puzzle

She is back in reality at school. “That was only a dream. A dream is not real.” She calmed herself while chanting it to forget the dream that she had. She has to move on with her life, so she must not remember it.

“Hey dear, what’s up?” Jean joined her at her table at the cafeteria while she was taking her lunch break.

“It’s still the same. But I don’t think this is good news, I met the face of the man in my dream yesterday. I have never seen his face in reality before, but he looks familiar. He told me in my dream that he was the little boy I met in the past. He grew up in my dream unbelievably.” She recited her dream so that Jean could help her in dealing with it.

“I guess, you’re crazy!” But Jean just reacted impulsively.

“No, I’m not. Just come to think of it. I thought you were a genius. How can you be slow-witted?” She thought Jean could have read her mind the moment she told her, but she couldn’t get her rationally.

“I got you now. Are you thinking, you’re going to find the man in your dream here in reality because he looks familiar to you? Are you out of your mind?” Finally, she read her thoughts.

“You and your strange dream behavior. I just can’t believe it. However, it can happen based on my study last night. It was a puzzle.” And now her friend is analyzing it.

“Pick up all the pieces from your dream so that you will remember all the things that were gone in your memory.” She is now my psychologist.

But Jean was right. Throughout her whole life, she kept on thinking about the boy in her dream, but she never even thought to find him in reality, though she knew his face.

Now that she concluded that she also had dreamt of the face of the boy in a grown-up man's figure, now is the time to search for the boy's face to find her lost memory.

Isn’t it so absurd? What if her mind just created him in her dream and he never existed?

But how can she forget an important incident in her life where she truly met that boy in the past?

Were her dreams truly depicting her memory? Unless she got a trauma in her childhood days.

“You aren’t thinking what I am thinking, are you? Cara, your childhood years were normal as my mother was so attentive to you.” Her best friend reads her mind again. She knew her friend. There is something that she can’t understand.

She thinks Jean is hiding something from her. What is it? She looked at her closely in her eye, yet she avoided her gaze. She wishes to ask her friend, but she chooses not to do it.

“You should forget your dream, Cara. It will make you go crazy if you insist that what happened in your dreams with that boy has truly existed.”

But Jean and her mother told her that the boy in her dream must be someone she had met in her childhood days, and that’s why she was dreaming of him.

So, it must be true that he lived in reality. However, Jean is now avoiding her solution to her problem. What’s gotten into her? Just a while ago, she was helping her to think that the boy in her dream was a piece of a puzzle in her memory.

She went home, contemplating the thing that she and her best friend talked about in the cafeteria.

She sat on the sofa in their living room and rested a bit to refresh her mood from tedious school activities.

....................................

“Hi, Cara! You’re here again. Do you want to play with me for old-time sake? Do you remember this?” He greeted her strangely while doing the stuff of those children playing in a playground.

She is not any more childish. She told herself proudly. But seeing a grown man sitting in a seesaw looks adorable.

She thinks there’s no harm if she joins him. She went to him and sat on the other side of the seesaw.

He looked at her, smiling gorgeously. She felt her heat covering her entire face.

He pushed down on his bottom and began seesawing. She felt the fragrant fresh air kissing the flesh of her cheeks.

She feels so refreshed. Thanks to him, she forgot about her tiresome day.

“Are you happy? Before you leave, I will give you something.”

Huh? As if she can bring it to the outside world.

“What is it?” She just asked him while being attentive to him.

“It’s a secret. Later, you’ll know it.” Never mind. She thought so.

“Would you mind if I ask you some private questions even without knowing your name?” She asked him again contemplating in her back mind.

“Go on.” But he just replied merely like a keen child.

“Where do you live? Do you have a family? You know what, life is unfair even here in my dream. I can’t even know your name.” She eventually asked questions like a student complaining about her teacher’s terrible assignment. She waited for his answer observing his unpredictable atmosphere.

“Of course, everyone has a family but I live in this world. Life is just unpredictable, you know. I’ll tell you my name if you remember me.” She knew it, she couldn't foresee his kind.

"What did he mean by that? What he said to her is like a problem in math that she can’t even solve with her finger. He is unpredictable, not the life that he just said." She grumbled in her mind.

“You’re just making me think like a psycho. If you can’t tell me your name, I will give you a nickname.”

She looked into his eyes to read his mind, but she couldn’t understand his mysterious character.

She needs to do something, to get what she wants from him. She only needs to know his real deal. But he doesn’t even give her a single clue. 

“Call me whatever you want. It’s alright with me.” His words are always brief and intriguing, and always leave a question mark gesture on her face.

“Next time, I will have a name for you.” She tried leaving him with a question on his face. She wants him to put his feet in her shoes, but she assumes he’s still adamant about making him realize what he did to her.

She suddenly woke up from a dream, with the thing he unexpectedly gave to her.

It was something she could never forget in reality. She became speechless! Because it was a kiss!