Something About Love (West Saga)

I'd been thinking that I'd be free from dreams that night I spent with Wes. I was wrong. Granted, the dream wasn't disturbing like the previous ones had been. It still bothered me though, since I had a weird feeling it was a premonition of my future.

I was back home, in Wisconsin, standing in my backyard in the summertime. I felt content, and Wes stood by me holding my hand. My dream self never wondered for a second as to why he was here, but rather just accepted the fact that he was.
Wes turned to me and let go of my hand. "Tia. We shouldn't be doing this."
I replied without understanding. "I know, Wes. But..."
"I came here because I wanted to visit you as a friend. I'd hoped it wouldn't be more than that. You broke up with me, because...."
"Wes, No. This doesn't make any sense."
"I know it doesn't Tia. But that doesn't mean I don't still love you."
"So then why can't we still be together? Can't I take back what I said?"
"Tia, you know as well as I do we can't take back the words that have already come out of our mouths."
"I know." and with that, I cried.
"Shhh, it'll be alright." Wes crooned.
I crumpled to the ground and Wes gathered me up in his arms and rocked me into silence. I took one last deep breath and looked up at him.
"This never should have happened, Wes. I never should have left you."
The sadness in his eyes was too much for me to bear, forcing me to wake up. I wasn't shaking, and I wasn't sweating. I was still wrapped up in Wes' arms, laying comfortably on his bed. My breathing remained normal and I simply laid there for a couple minutes mulling over what had just happened in my dream. Was this predicting me leaving Wes? I couldn't understand why my brain had latched on to my deepest fears about our relationship and continued to plague me with guilt during the night. Couldn't I just be happy for once? Apparently not.

I tried to get up without waking Wes. I thought I had succeeded until I heard him speak as I was headed for the bedroom door.
"Why are you up so early, babe?" He asked groggily.
"I just need to take care of business."
"Mmkay. Just don't take too long. You were keeping me warm."
I chuckled. "Alright."
I headed over to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I didn't look tired at all, in fact, I looked well rested. I wasn't tired at all either. I just stared at my face in the mirror, wondering how on earth I could ever leave Wes. Was that really me? I wondered. Could I ever actually do that? I shook my head and forced myself to calm down. After all, it was only a dream, not a reality. Whoever said I had to leave Wesley?
I shook myself out again and went back to bed, snuggling up to Wes' warm body once again. I fell asleep like that, and before I did, I promised myself a normal dream pattern.


After getting a few more hours of dreamless sleep, Wes and I both woke up around 10 to start packing for the four day weekend we would be spending back in my hometown. Nervousness built up in my gut as the time for my mom to arrive grew closer. I didn't know why I was so nervous, after all, Wes was a charmer. Why wouldn't my family love him? Irrationality threatened to take over my mind as I grew more and more nervous. Finally, the phone call I'd been waiting for all day arrived.
"Tia? I'm here. In that parking lot by your dorm." My mother's voice came over the phone.
"Okay Mom." I replied.
"Are you and Wesley all packed up?"
"Yeah, we're all set. We'll be down in five."
"OK. See you then!"
I said one last quick goodbye to my roommates and checked out of my residence hall for the weekend. Wes had already done the rounds a couple of hours previously, so we could wait for my mom together. As we headed down the stairs and out the door, the nervousness in my gut was almost at a boiling point. I spotted my mom's blue CRV parked by the sidewalk that ran parallel to the parking lot. I pointed it out for Wes.
"That's our ride." I said with a weak smile.
Wes noticed, and stopped me with a gentle hand. "Tia. What's wrong?"
"I'm just nervous. I don't even know why. I mean, I know my parents will love you." I shook   my head. "Let's just go put our stuff in the car. The sooner we get going, the sooner we get home." I briskly walked to the car, not bothering to wait for Wes.
As we approached the car, my mom spotted us and cut the engine. She got out and opened the trunk, pretending not to be extremely interested in Wesley. I noticed her glance at me expectantly a few times, and I finally gave in.
"Oh fine. Mom, this is my boyfriend Wesley." I choked out the word boyfriend. I'd never used the title in the month we'd been dating, and it felt weird calling him that.
Wes, being the perfect gentleman, held out his hand in a gesture of friendly greeting. My mom took his hand ecstatically and as she shook hands, I could see her eyes going over every inch of his person, taking in his hair style, lack of piercings, clothing choice, and general physique. I was positive Wes noticed too, and I felt my cheeks burn in embarrassment.
"Okay, Mom. You've shaken his hand long enough. Can we get going?" I asked, stepping closer to them.
My mom dropped Wes' hand and nodded. "We're going to get home pretty late, but I'm sure you kids won't mind."
"Not at all, Mrs. Dowding." Wes piped in.
As my mom circled to the driver's side of the car, I gently took Wes' hand before he could follow after her. "Thanks, Wes."
He looked down and me and smiled. "For what?"
I laughed, and let go of his hand. We both clambered into the backseat of the car and settled in for the 8 and a half hour drive back to Wisconsin.

Awake My Soul (The West Saga)

Wes and I never did talk once he came back on Sunday. I was a procrastinator, and I had left off all my homework the entire weekend until Sunday night. Not that it bothered me, since for no particular reason I was a little peeved with Wes.
The week was shorter than the rest, since thanksgiving break was that coming weekend. Both Wes and I had all our classes cancelled on Wednesday, so we both could leave after just two days that week. I couldn't wait to go home, since I hadn't been home since I came to school in August. But Wes was about to throw a wrench in my plans.
We had one last dance practice on Monday night before break. We had the annual Winter Show coming up, and Wes and I were performing the duet we'd been working on since September. It was pretty much perfect in my opinion, but Mona wanted one more practice before the long weekend, just to be safe. I'd actually wanted to avoid seeing Wes for a while, hoping space would give me a break from all this craziness that was happening to me. That failed.
We didn't talk much when we were at the theater, since all both of us wanted was just to get out of there. But when Mona finally let us go, I dashed to the Women's dressing room before Wes could pin me down. My efforts worked until I walked out of the dressing room and found Wes waiting for me.
"Tia. Hey." He said, awkwardly.
"Hey." I replied.
We stood in silence for a bit, just watching each other. Wes spoke again.
"Listen, I know you've been avoiding me ever since I came back. I don't get it... Why? You know I just want to help! I'm worried about...."
I cut him off by holding up a hand. "Wes, I have no idea why you're so worried. I'm dealing with this myself. Don't worry about me." I smiled, hoping to placate him.
Apparently it worked, because his shoulders relaxed and he moved closer to me, wrapping his arms around me. I returned the gesture, burying my face in his unzipped jacket. He ran his hand up and down my back and pressed his cheek into my hair. He spoke after a few minutes.
"I have a question for you Tia..."
"Mmmf?" I mumbled into his chest, not willing to lift my head.
"So I know how excited you've been to go home, but I was wondering... well, if you wanted to have thanksgiving with my family instead?"
At this request I lifted my head to look at him and pulled away just a bit, still keeping my arms around him. "Have you not been listening to me, Wes? I haven't been home in FOUR MONTHS. I'd love to meet your family, but I need to see mine first. I'm sorry."
His face dropped a bit, but then regained his previous enthusiasm. "What if I came with you instead?"
I was shocked. "Uh... well... I don't know." The truth was, I hadn't even told my parents about Wes yet. So how would it sound if I called home now and said, Hey mom, Hey dad, so I have a boyfriend that I'm going to bring home for thanksgiving. Yeah we've been dating a while, I just didn't want to tell you! But the idea of bringing him home sounded right to me. I made a choice.
"Sure Wes. I'd like that. I'll call my parents and tell them now."
"Great!" He beamed down at me and let me go so I could pull out my phone.
I proceeded to pull out my cell phone and dial home. I had forgotten that my brother was home too until I heard his voice answer the phone.
"Hello?"
"Jessie? What the heck are you doing there?"
"I'm already off, Tia. You knew that!" He laughed. "So what's up?"
"Oh right." I laughed too. "Um get Mom and Dad on the phone too."
"Kay." There was a pause, then some yelling, and after a couple seconds, both my parents picked up a phone and joined the conversation.
"Okay, well. I don't really know how to put this. Um... Well I sort of have a boyfriend. His name's Wesley, and I was wondering if he could come home with me for Thanksgiving?" I closed my eyes and clenched my other hand around Wes'.
There was silence on the other end. Then three things happened at once. My brother started laughing, my mom started asking millions of questions, and my dad just said 'Well sure!'
I laughed with my brother again. "Wait wait wait guys! One at a time!" I told them.
My dad spoke first. "Sure, Tia. He can come home with you. We'd love to meet him."
"So how long have you been dating?" My mom asked.
"Well... it'll be a month... Oh my god!"
"What?" my entire family said, in sync.
"It'll be one month tomorrow!" I hadn't realized we'd been dating for a month already. It had seemed to fly by so fast.
"Well congrats, Sweetie. We're all excited to meet him!" My dad told me.
"Thanks, guys. We're actually about to go work on some calc stuff, so I've gotta go. I'll see you soon!" I bid each one goodbye separately, promising my brother I'd call him later that night.
I finally hung up and turned back to Wes. He looked at me expectantly, although I knew he already knew it was a yes. Our eyes met, and a smile spread across our faces simultaneously. He squeezed my hand, and tugged a bit, pulling me towards the door. I followed along, feeling happier than ever that it had gone over so well with my parents.

I spent the night at Wes', not feeling motivated enough to go to my own room. I felt like I needed to be around him even more than I'd ever felt before. The feelings I'd started the day out with had been replaced by nothing more than simple devotion and love. We were in a better place at that moment than we'd ever been before.
We got back to his room, and he changed into sweatpants, leaving his shirt off. He never slept with one, and I was just fine with that. I stole a pair of his shorts and a white t-shirt of his, and when I came back into his room, he whistled at me.
"What?" I asked confusedly.
"You look so beautiful in my stuff." Wes said, and grabbed me around the waist. He pulled me down on the bed on top of him, and I squeaked in surprise.
I playfully hit him with the bundle of my clothes still in my hand. "Wes!! At least let me put my stuff down!"
He laughed and let me up to put my things down. I took my hair out of it's messy ponytail and shook it out. I turned back to Wes, still laying face up in the bed, his arms behind his head. His hair was messed up from dance, and his perfectly defined muscles dazzled me. Our eyes met again, and a silent exchange passed between us. We didn't have to say anything. We just knew at that moment neither of us had been happier.
How did I get so lucky? I thought to myself as I laid down on the bed beside him. I snuggled up to his bare chest, and he wrapped both arms around me. We fell asleep like that, wrapped up in each other's arms.

To The Sea (The West Saga)

"No, Wes. I'm serious. I had another dream and it's really starting to freak me out!"
Wes was astounded that a dream could impact me so much. But he didn't know what I had seen. Dreams, in my case, had a serious effect of my day-to-day life if they were vivid enough. And sometimes, I couldn't differentiate between real life and fantasy. It was like the Queen song said: "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide no escape from reality...." Everything these days was freaking me out. I couldn't walk home from class without jumping at every little sound, thinking the hooded figures were out to get me, out to drag me back to wherever they wanted me to come back to.
I had called Wes finally after being freaked out for the past week to tell him about my dream. I hadn't gotten the courage to face him all week, using the lame excuses of homework and hanging out with people I'd been ignoring as reasons for why I couldn't see him. I told him the real reason why I'd been avoiding him, and now I didn't have the option of seeing him, since he'd gone home for the weekend.
"Tia this is serious! Go to a counselor, or a dream therapist or something! If your dreams are scaring you that much, there's something going on up there." As he said the last phrase I could imagine him tapping his temple with one finger.
I sighed. "Yeah, I know. But at the moment I'm kind of broke. And I don't want to bring my parents into this, they'll freak out worse than you."
"I don't care, Tia. This is your health we're talking about here. It could be affecting your sleep, or your-"
Wes was cut off by a loud screeching noise in the background. I pulled the phone away from my ear and flinched and the high pitched sound.
"What was that?" I asked, tentatively putting my ear back to the phone.
Wes didn't answer.
"Wes?" I asked again.
Still nothing. I could still hear sounds in the background, so I knew the call hadn't dropped, but I was confused as to why Wes wasn't listening to me. I waited a few more seconds for him to answer before speaking again.
"Wesley! What was that?"
"Huh? WHAT! Oh sorry hun!" I knew he wasn't talking to me.
"Wes..."
"Sorry Tia. My niece won't stop bothering me to play. She just screamed at the dog. Sorry you had to hear that."
"No, Wes. It's fine."
"I should go...."
I sighed. "Fine. Bye Wes."
"Tia.... I'm really sorry about this. We'll talk when I get back on Sunday."
"Fine. Bye."
I hung up, and couldn't help myself. The room in front of me blurred as tears filled my eyes. I knew Wes wasn't ignoring me on purpose, but I still couldn't help but feel like he wasn't making enough of an effort to comfort me. After all, I was his girlfriend. Stop it Tia. His life isn't all about you! I scolded myself. I knew I was being irrational and stupid. I knew I was jealous of his family, why though, I didn't know. Maybe it was because at this point in time, they were getting more of Wes than I was, or maybe it was just simply the fact they were the one thing in this world that I knew was more important to him than me. But still, there was nothing I could do until Sunday when he came back.

How Far We've Come (The West Saga)

"Never?" I asked. "You realize what that entails, don't you?"
Wes laughed quietly. "It means I'll be staying with you for a long time."
"Never..." I pondered the word.
Wes let me sit in his arms in silence, knowing that the look on my face meant that I was thinking. He sometimes got the same expression, one eyebrow slightly raised and a corner of the mouth turned down. It was our "thinking face" as we jokingly dubbed it. I wondered if this sudden intense show of affection was Wes' way of telling me he loved me. I doubted it, but I still liked the thought. Wes already knew how I felt, and I was still a little miffed that he hadn't really returned my declaration in words. He'd done more than that in actions though.
Wes moved away again and climbed out of bed. He pounded on Derek's back, forcing him to wake up. Derek was slow to respond.
"What man?" he said sleepily.
"Get up. I'm gonna play guitar and it'll be mushy. It's for Tia, you know." Wes replied, a tiny smirk appearing on his face when he said my name.
"Ugh." Derek moaned, but he got up and lazily made his way out of the bedroom.
I turned my face back to Wes after Derek closed the door. "You know you didn't have to do that." I said.
"Too bad I did." Wes said as he grabbed his guitar that had been sitting in its case in the corner.
Wes came back over and sat on the bed, his guitar ready to play in his hands. He strummed a few chords, then sang me a song I'd never heard before. His voice was a little gravelly from sleep, but it worked with the song. I couldn't really understand some parts, but it was a touching song. It moved me so much that I hummed a harmony to the chorus after he'd sung it a few times.
"What did you think?" Wes asked after he'd finished.
"It was great! Who's it by?"
"I... kind of wrote it for you." He said sheepishly.
I was dumbfounded. That was the one thing Wes and I hadn't had in common until now. I wrote songs and he didn't, but apparently now he did. And he was GOOD at it.
"Wes... You wrote that?"
He nodded.
"Oh my god. It was... amazing!"
"Don't sugar-coat it Tia. Give me some criticism!"
"I can't Wes. You have a talent for songwriting. I'm serious!!" I protested when he gave me the I-totally-know-you're-lying-to-me look.
"You really think so? It was that good?"
I nodded.
"I just kind of wrote about how I felt about you... I didn't really think it would be good."
"It was Wes. That's how you're supposed to write a song. It's how you express yourself. And you know just how to make it sound good too." I smiled, trying to show him I was being honest.
He smiled back and played a few more songs on guitar, empowered by my encouragement. I listened, content with how this morning had gone from bad to awesome. Maybe my subconscious had been trying to tell me something, but my subconscious had just been proven wrong. In your face! Well... In my face. I giggled a bit at the thought. What I hadn't thought of at that point was another way my subconscious could still be right : if I left Wesley.


Come... Come back... Come back.... Come....
The chanting coming from all around me was scaring me. I didn't know where I was, surrounded in all this darkness. I was afraid of the dark, or more like what was hiding inside of the dark. And somehow I knew I was alone. The chanting continued so long I couldn't keep track if it was minutes, hours, days or longer.
The darkness never got lighter either. It stayed pitch black, so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, or whomever was chanting. After an uncertain amount of time, I heard sharp footsteps echoing from behind me. I whipped myself around, forgetting I wouldn't be able to see who it was anyways. Come back to us.... Come back Tia.... Come back....  the voices whispered, keeping in time with the click of the footsteps. They approached me quickly, almost with urgence.
Finally, when they seemed so close I could reach out and touch whoever's footsteps they were, they stopped. I squinted in the darkness, hoping maybe it would get lighter so I could see who it was. Then from the direction of the footsteps came a voice.
"Tia." It said. The voice was neither male nor female, or maybe it was both. It was smooth, and calming. But it sounded familiar all the same, like someone I knew.
"Who are you? Where am I?" I asked.
"Tia. Come back." It whispered.
"Come back? Come back where?"
"To us, Tia. Come back to us. We love you Tia."
At that instant I knew whose voice, or rather voices, it was. It was the combined voices of my parents, speaking together as one. When I realized this, the darkness evaporated, and I found myself in my old house at christmas time. More specifically, it was the first christmas my family had spent in the house. My brother, my parents and my dogs were there, all gathered around the christmas tree, waiting expectantly for me to hand out the presents. I felt the fluffy red santa hat atop of my head and when I looked down, I was already holding a gift that had my name on it. I set it down on my empty seat and watched it for a few seconds, almost like I was waiting for something to happen.
"Tia. Come back. Don't you miss us?" A voice that definitely didn't belong to my parents or my brother said.
"Who was that?" I whispered.
"Look down." It said.
I obeyed and saw my dog sitting at my feet. She looked up at me, her big brown eyes looking much too intelligent. Then she spoke. With words, not barking.
"We miss you Tia. Come back so we can play with you." My tiny jack russell terrier told me.
I was flabbergasted. Dogs couldn't talk, could they?
"You're dreaming, Tia. That's why I can talk." she said, reading my thoughts.
"But...."
"Come back, Tia."
Then, darkness again. I was back in the black I had begun in. The chanting began again, coming at me from all sides. I was so overpowered I collapsed to the ground, hands over my head.

I awoke in a cold sweat. I breathed slowly and deeply, all the while telling myself to calm down. But I couldn't. That dream was even more disturbing than the last I'd had. And I could tell these dreams I was having weren't going to get better.