The Morning After

I finally stopped screaming when I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Hey Mia, Mia! What’s wrong?” I turned around and looked up to see a round, bespectacled face framed by long, disheveled dark brown hair. Even though I felt like I should recognize the person above me, I was still disoriented and the world around her was still hidden by an indigo darkness mixed in with brown speckles, so my memories were not very accessible at that moment.

“Where...am I?” I whispered.

“You’re in our dorm? In your bed? Hey, Mia, are you okay?”

Oh, right. All of that stuff before was just a nightmare. I knew that.

As I sat up, the pieces of the real world started clicking together until I finally found myself sitting on my bed, with a light lavender bed sheet covering half of my body. I finally remembered that the girl in front of me was Tam, my roommate. The ominous lights were just a string of fairy lights that we had strung along our bunk bed without realizing that they were broken and could only be set to “flickering so fast you might get a seizure” mode. We usually didn’t use them, but Tam always insisted that they gave her the energy needed to prepare for her daily morning run.

“Sorry, I guess I had a nightmare.”

“Ah, that sucks. Maybe it’s the stress of midterm season coming up.” Tam turned away from me to move towards the mirror hanging inside her closet to finish fixing her ponytail. The sporty tank top and shorts Tam wore gave the exact opposite impression of the flowy white dress that that mysterious white-haired girl was wearing in my dream. It was much more concrete. This was definitely the real world.

“You’re okay now though, right?” Tam continued. “You should go back to sleep; it’s only 4:30 in the morning.”

“I just had a nightmare, and you’re telling me to go back to sleep?”

“Well, what else are you going to do? When did you even go to bed last night? You’re going to fall asleep in class at this rate.”

“I guess you’re right…”

“Okay, see you later th—”

I jumped up out of my bed.

“Actually, you know what, Tam, I think I’m going to go on that run with you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I gotta seize the day! Self-improvement!”

“You hate running, Mia. And exercise in general. And being up early in the morning.”

“Well…I’m pumped up, okay! It’s the first day of October, so new month, new me! Waking up early before my alarm must be a sign it’s time to change!”

“That’s what you say every...” She looked at me for a moment, then sighed and continued with a smile, “Well, that’s the first time you’ve said that about running at any rate, so I’ll support you.”

She then looked me straight in the eye, her smile dropping, and her tone growing serious, saying, “But listen, I’m not going to slow down for you, okay? I have to run three miles, shower, and eat breakfast before my 8am, and unlike you, I actually insist on getting to class early.”

“Sure, sure, no worries…I won’t hold you back!”

***

That was what I had said, but I realized about a quarter of a mile in that I was severely out of shape. I had already thought that walking up and down all those hills to get to class was bad enough, but running around campus was even worse than I’d expected. I don’t think I’ve even run a single mile since high school P.E. class, unless it was on the treadmill...on the slowest setting. But, thinking about those violet eyes made me want to create an entirely different and cooler version of myself. So, I was surely going to get through this by sheer willpower!

“We can slow down at the stoplight, Mia.” Tam called. Even though she had said she wouldn’t slow down for me, she was basically matching my pace, only going slightly faster to lead the way.

“Tam...I don’t know if I’m gonna make it...”

“Mia...”

“I hate running...”

***

“Congratulations, Mia! You managed to finish the loop and make it back to our dorm!” Tam and I slowed down to a cool-down pace as we neared our building.

“Wow, three miles wasn’t that bad after all!”

“Umm...well anyway, I still have some energy left to burn, so I’m going to run a little more. See you later, Mia!” As I swiped my student ID to enter the building, Tam turned around, returning to a pace that was much faster than the one she had kept while we were running together.

As I boarded the elevator, I took out my phone to check the app I had just downloaded this morning that would show the route we had just finished.

I have now joined the group of mystical people known as runners. Maybe I could try making a picture out of my route like I saw those people do on social media...

Total distance: 0.49 miles.

Oh.

***

After taking a (very long) nap, eating lunch, and recovering from the morning’s disaster, I headed to the library with my laptop to think about what had happened last night. A quick Internet search told me that our brain can’t really make up faces, so all of the people in our dreams were people we had met or at least encountered in our real lives. Okay, the Internet also told me that there wasn’t really a way to prove this, but well...let’s just assume the previous theory is true. That meant that my dream girl not only existed in real life, but she was also someone I had met before.

With that white hair and violet eyes, she shouldn’t be that hard to track down. She looked like she was my age, so I probably met her recently, and since no one in my tiny hometown would dare to stand out like she did, she must go to my college. There were plenty of students here with dyed hair, especially since we got a lot of those “stereotypical art student” types since our art program had a pretty good reputation in the area despite us not being an art school. Though she was striking up close, I could imagine myself not noticing her if I was rushing to class and she was just in the background.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve gone on vacation with my family and friends to a couple of places, so I guess I could have seen her on some random trip, but for now I’m just going to follow my heart that insists she must be nearby. Plus, I already knew that my dream intuition would tell me the same thing tonight. The human subconscious holds so much wisdom that our conscious brain would never be able to understand, so surely, I was onto something. Right? Right?

First avenue of investigation…social media, maybe?

Universe, I offer you my sincere gratitude for giving me the chance to meet the girl of my dreams. I won’t even be mad that you decided to send me to a nightmare to meet her, and I promise I will change my ways and become a dependable person that will finally make everyone proud of me.