Wyn sighs. “Oh yeah, that would be awesome.” She puts her hands under her cheek and continues, “And well, he came out of nowhere. Like one second I was alone and the next, he was there. I was sitting on the sidewalk, crying because I’d had a fight with my dad and suddenly there was this huge man and his shadow covering me. And I got really scared but then he talked.”
I grin. “And what did he say?”
She smiles as well. “He asked me if I was okay and I told him that I was. And I thought that he would leave after that, anyone would have, but he didn’t. He stayed and I still can’t believe he stayed. And he didn’t even try anything with me, you know? He just sat on the other side of the road, opposite to me, and told me that he had a sister my age and that if I wanted to, I could talk to him. And I did. I told him about my dad and how he was forcing me to go to law school instead of art school and all that, you know? And then he said something.”
I love this part. “What?”
She looks at me and I know her eyes must be shining right about now. “He said that I’m a dreamer. And that I should keep dreaming and I should do what my dreams tell me to do. Because it’s important. For some reason, I felt like he didn’t, youknow? He didn’t do what his dreams told him to do, so…” She sighs. “So yeah, that’s what he told me.”
“And so you drew graffiti on your dad’s car. Because he told you to follow your dreams?”
She chuckles. “Yeah, and all over the siding on the house. But also because he called me Bronwyn.”
I laugh. “And you let that happen, Wyn?! Come on.”
She laughs as well. “I know. How could I, right? I told him not to, actually. I told him that people call me Wyn but he didn’t listen. He walked me back to my house — I could barely look at him all through that walk — and as he was leaving, he said, ‘Good luck, Bronwyn.’ And I just stood there because I never thought I’d like it. I never thought I’d like someone calling me by my name. Bronwyn.”
“But you did like it.”
“Yeah.” She nods, her voice all dreamy now. “Because he said it. In that voice that somehow reminds me of summer days and cotton sheets, cut grass. Deep and lazy like Sunday mornings.”
“You should’ve asked him his name, Wyn,” I almost whine because I want to know his name myself.
She releases a mournful sigh. “I know. I’m an idiot. I told you I could barely look at him. He was just so…”
“Sexy?”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “And big and masculine.”
I hum. “Maybe one day you’ll run into him somewhere. You can ask him then.”
Wyn gives me a look. “Yeah, because life is just that amazing.”
I want it to be.
For my dreamer, artistic friend at least.
I want her to see her dream man again. I want her to ask him his name, talk to him, tell him all the things she’s been feeling ever since she saw him that one night.
And I want him to fall in love with her. I want him to be a good guy. A guy who will care for her heart, for her feelings. A guy who won’t make her cry.
“He was a good guy, wasn’t he?” I ask Wyn after a while.
“I’d like to think so. He made me feel alive though. For those ten minutes he was with me.”
“I love that for you,” I say, feeling an overwhelming love for her as I blink away my own tears.
Wyn watches me for a few moments before she hesitantly asks, “What happened, Callie?”
“Nothing.”
“Something happened, didn’t it? With him.” She frowns. “Has he done something? Has he hurt you again?”
I swallow down a thick wave of emotions. “No. He didn’t hurt me. Well, not more than he already has.”
This time around, he didn’t do anything I didn’t ask him to. This time around, he didn’t do anything that I didn’tmakehim do.
You want to fall for someone else?
