Episode 1: If Wishes Were Like Dreams

We lay together on the damp grass, staring up at the seemingly infinite star-filled sky, his warm hand enveloped mine.

“You’re beautiful,” he said as he brushed his hand across my cheek which caused a pink blush to tint them. I rolled over so that I was facing him and snuggled against him. He wrapped one of his arms around me and pulled me closer before saying, “I love you. I want to keep you safe, always.”

His words came out as barely a whisper, and if I had not been so focused on him I wouldn’t have heard it. Although he’d been addressing me I wasn’t sure if he’d intended for me to hear it, so I didn’t reply. Instead, I buried my face into his neck and inhaled. I loved the way he smelled; it reminded me of a nighttime rain. Fresh. Cool.

I took another deep breath to inhale his scent and…

I felt someone gently stroke my cheek, an attempt to rouse me into consciousness. When I opened my eyes I thought I saw a silhouette standing above me. No, not really a silhouette; it was more like an ethereal shimmer, vaguely shaped like a person. I blinked and when I opened my eyes again I used my hand to shield them from the sunlight that seeped in through my window. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

Damn, it must have been the beginning of a lucid dream. How did I pull myself out of it? But, more importantly, why? I lamented the loss of skin-to-skin contact I’d just experienced in my half-awake state. Even though it wasn’t real, it felt like it was. It was the first physical contact I’d had in months, as I’d shied away from the world around me, forming an invisible, protective barrier to distance myself from others.

I closed my eyes again and rested one hand on the cheek that had been touched. Him... He’d been in my dreams for about a month now. I didn’t know his name, though it was my mind that created him. I suspected that it was my subconscious way of handling the grief I’d suppressed after my mom’s passing.

I sighed as I heaved myself out of bed and sauntered downstairs in search of my housemate, best friend, and former guardian Kai. Kai is twenty, two years older than me. Our mothers—my mom, Maya Matsunaga, and Kai’s mom, Eri Suzuki—had been best friends forever. No, seriously, they’d been best friends for as long as anyone could remember. As a result of their friendship, Kai and I had grown up living next door to one another and, naturally, we became best friends as well.

Unknown to me, shortly before my mom passed away she had Kai sign documentation that made him my legal guardian until I turned eighteen, which happened a few months ago. Even though I’m legally old enough to be on my own now, Kai told me that I was welcome to stay as long as I’d like, that it wasn’t just his house—it was our home. It was reassuring to know he felt that way.

Kai was sitting at our dining table eating breakfast while reading something on his Galaxy Tab when I found him. Though he couldn’t have woken up that much earlier than me he looked simply modelesque. His midnight black hair was tousled, but it looked as though a professional stylist had done it, and his glasses sat at the tip of his disgustingly perfect nose. Some people, like Kai, were just blessed with great genetics, whereas I struggled to appear human every morning.

The struggle was real and it had only gotten worse in recent months as dark circles had begun to form under my eyes, and my eyelids were perpetually swollen from crying myself to sleep every night. Sigh. It was only thanks to Mr. Dream that my eyelids managed to look normal, with their small crease, on mornings like this one.

“Morning,” I said as I sat across from him.

He looked up at me as he put down the Tab and smiled, a small dimple appearing on his right cheek. “I left some bacon and eggs for you on the stove, if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I wanted to talk to you first.”

Kai tilted his head slightly, as he always did when he was curious.

My stomach flip-flopped as I began to speak, hoping that he wouldn’t reject my offer. This was me reaching out, taking the first step toward rebuilding our friendship—the friendship that I had torn down brick by brick by shutting him out. At least that is the way it feels in my heart, I thought as my stomach dropped.

“I was just wondering if you would be willing to go shopping with me today. You know, to help me pick out something to wear to graduation.” Although his expression remained neutral, I could see the delight in his eyes that an effort was being made on my part to connect with him again. I was sure that if it were possible his dark brown eyes would have flashed the colors of the rainbow to express his excitement.

“I’d be happy to,” he paused, his voice taking on a cautious tone when he continued, “…It’s been a long time since we’ve done anything together.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “it has been... And I’m sorry. I’ve been checked out, haven’t I?”

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(Early January) Two months earlier…

“Please talk to me, Vilvian,” Kai said. I heard a soft thump, which I assumed was Kai resting his head on my bedroom door. The door wasn’t locked, but he respected my privacy too much to enter uninvited.

I looked up at the door for a moment and contemplated opening it for him, my best friend. If anyone could empathize with what I was going through, surely it would be Kai. But as the thought registered in my head, my body suddenly felt like it was made of lead and my tongue felt fat. I was incapable of transferring thoughts from my mind to my mouth.

I put my head back down on the pillow, face first. Breathing was difficult, but these days I felt that perhaps life would be easier if I simply didn’t have to live it anymore. I didn’t know how to function like a regular person with this hole in my heart.

Through the door I heard a soft sigh, and what I thought was a sniffle. Kai was probably crying, too. He was probably in as much pain as I was, and yet here I was, shutting him out because all I wanted was to not feel anymore.

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Although I saw him every day, things hadn’t been the same since my mom passed away. Over time I’d made small improvements—eventually, I started to return his smile as we passed each other in the hallway or we would engage in small talk about our respective days during dinner before I politely excused myself to my bedroom to wallow in my smallness. Once Death had touched your life, you realized how small and powerless you really were.

I cared about Kai and was grateful that he took me under his care when he could have turned my mom down, and passed the responsibility on to his parents. But lost in my grief, I’d forgotten how to be around other people. I didn’t want to be around other people. I didn’t see the point of maintaining relationships. In the end, everyone left you in one way or another.

At my best during my worst, I was able to wear a mask that allowed me to get through work, to muddle through forced interactions with people. But at my worst, I realized there was no light in me at all.

Kai smiled at me, and for the first time in a long time, the smile reached his eyes.

“We should go to Heartful first. Hopefully, you’ll find something there since you get an employee discount,” he said.

Heartful was the small but popular and on-trend boutique that I worked at part-time. I had been lucky enough to get the job thanks to Jezabel, the store manager, who was Kai’s classmate. She remembered me being her underclassman in high school, and I remembered her, too. I recalled that she transferred to another school before the end of her senior year.

One day during a slow period at work she shared with me that she had decided to work for a few years after high school instead of going straight to college, much to the disappointment of her first generation Filipino parents who had hoped she would have gone to school for nursing. In the end, it worked out better than she had expected because shortly after she’d started work here, she was surprised to find out that she’d been promoted to store manager. Even though she said she’d been surprised, I wasn’t, and I don’t think anyone else that knew her would be either.

Although she and I hadn’t been more than acquaintances in school, Jez had a reputation for being outgoing and caring. Jez was everyone’s friend; she had a way of automatically connecting with people. Those traits coalesced with the fact that she was an incredibly hard worker made it obvious to anyone with eyes that she was the perfect person for the position.

“I’d planned to—Jez sent me a text yesterday to let me know that she put some dresses on hold that she thought I'd like,” I said with a smile. Jez’s sense of style was on point, and she had a talent for picking out things people would look good in; she should have become a professional personal shopper or stylist, but I suspected that the boutique’s owner paid her more than enough to keep her around.

“I’ll go shower and get ready, but in the meantime why don’t you have your breakfast?” Kai seemed hesitant to leave, to end our conversation. He was probably afraid that I’d clam up again while he was gone, and I didn’t blame him for feeling that way.

“Okay. You can leave your dishes on the table; I’ll re-use them so I don’t have to wash as many dishes later.” I really disliked doing dishes and in my opinion one less set of things to wash made a significant difference. That was why we had the rule—the one rule that mattered in this house: I cook, you clean. I was the one who instated that rule—way before Kai took guardianship of me—because I was usually at his house anyway, and I almost always cooked. However, since Kai had prepared breakfast this morning the dishes would obviously fall under my jurisdiction. Sigh.

“Sure,” he laughed as he reached over and patted the top of my head as he walked past me, heading for the stairs.

“No problem.” I rolled my eyes. It irritated me a bit when Kai pet me but it had become a bit of an inside joke between us since he was five feet ten inches tall and I was a diminutive five feet even. Ten inches might not seem like such a big difference until you were trying to reach something on the top shelf—which was where I was convinced he hid all the good snacks.

As I set my plate down on the table, I picked up Kai’s Galaxy Tab to read through my favorite Asian blogs. I unlocked the screen and discovered that the browser had been left up and he had been searching, ‘how to confess your love to someone.’ Raising an eyebrow, I put the tablet back exactly where it had been. That had been a very unintentional gross invasion of his privacy and I was embarrassed. I felt my face heat up. I rested my head in my hand before I covered my eyes. Maybe it was time for me to buy my own tablet to avoid the risk of any more unexpected discoveries.

I made a mental note to find out if he needed help talking to the girl that he liked. I had to do something to make up for that embarrassing faux pas. But I mean, really, what were best friends for? I’d be his secret wingman and he’d never be the wiser.

Distracted by this new train of thought, I momentarily forgot about Mr. Dream, who inexplicably gave me the strength to carry on.

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