Recurring Dream

I don’t know why I kept having the dream.  I trust Nick completely, I honestly do.  And it wasn’t like he had done anything to make me doubt him; the dream just came from nowhere.  The first time I had it, I felt funny for the whole morning.  Even though I knew it was a dream the memory of it really affected me.  On the bus to work, I kept thinking “what’s that bad thing again, that’s nagging at me?” then remembering it was the dream.



Fortunately, as the day wore on the memory faded and I was eventually able to shake off the feeling of dread.  But then, a week later, I had the dream again.  It was slightly different this time – the girl was wearing a dressier outfit, and I was watching from a different angle – but the overall feeling was the same.  After that, I started to have the dream two or three times a week.  The scenario was always the same; Nick was approached by the girl, who clearly had one intention in mind.  Nick would resist for a while, but then it would become obvious that he was going to succumb.  At this point, I would be dragged away and no matter how much I twisted and turned I wouldn’t be able to see the final outcome of the girl’s advances.  Sometimes it was another person who dragged me away.  Once, I was on a train, watching from the window, then the train pulled out of the platform.  Another time, something obscured my view, and I couldn’t get around whatever the huge object was.



It didn’t take a genius to analyse the dream; I was clearly concerned that a girl – a girl I had no chance of competing with – was going to swoop into Nick’s life and take him from me.  And there was going to be nothing I could do to stop it happening.  But why?  I had never been a jealous person, never resented Nick going out with his mates, never worried about the people he might meet.  And I trusted him – I really, really did.  So where was the dream coming from?



Nick noticed that I was behaving oddly, though I tried my best to hide it.  He managed to get the story out of me – I felt like an idiot trying to explain why a dream was bothering me so much.  I kept telling him that I trusted him and that he had never given me any reason not to do so.  To be fair, he was really good about it – very tolerant of the fact that I wanted to analyse the dream over and over, trying to make some sense of it.



Then it happened.  Nick and I were out with a group of his friends, in a pub we had been to a few times before.  I was feeling pretty good; I hadn’t had the dream for more than a week, Nick was being gorgeous, and the night was going really well.  That was why it hit me so hard – I was caught completely off-guard.  As I scanned the room, indulging in one of my favourite pastimes of people watching, I saw her.  The girl who had been haunting my dreams for weeks.  As I caught her eye, I realised she was staring at me.  When she was sure she had my attention she smiled; a malicious, knowing, “I get whatever I want whenever I want it” kind of smile.  I felt sick.  I knew I had to get away from the table, from Nick and his mates, so I just stood up and started to walk away.  “Kate?”, Nick called after me, trying to grab my arm as I walked away.  I brushed him off, shaking my head, not trusting myself to speak.



Thankfully, I made it into a toilet cubicle before I was sick.  My legs shaking, I slid down the wall of the cubicle and sat in a heap on the floor.  I put my head on my knees and tried to think clearly.  Away from the girl’s stare, I felt calmer, though still completely confused.  Until now, I had never met her before, apart from in the dream.  How can someone who I had never seen before appear in my dreams, then pop up in real life?  It made no sense.



I suddenly realised that I had left her out there with Nick.  As irrational as it sounded, what if she was going to do exactly what she had done in the dream?  I staggered to my feet and left the cubicle, pausing to wash my hands and glance in the mirror.  I looked pale, and slightly wild, but considering what was going on in my head I didn’t look as deranged as I had feared.  Taking another deep breath I walked out of the bathroom and headed in the direction of our table.  Nick was no longer sitting down.  I stopped, looking this way and that, but could see no sign of him.  I started to feel faint and, in the absence of any other sane plan, I headed to the bar for a glass of water.  Somehow, I managed to function – even joking with the barman that I would “be back to buy a proper drink in a minute”.  I found a pillar to lean on and stood there, gulping the water, my eyes constantly moving around the pub.



I spotted them.  Nick and the girl, engaged in some kind of conversation, partially hidden behind another pillar.  I stared at them, feeling helpless – exactly as I did in the dream.  She caught my eye again, and smiled the smile.  Nick noticed and turned to see who she was smiling at.  When he clocked me his expression was one of relief, quickly followed by a look of concern.  I presume I still looked as pale – if not paler – as I had in the mirror.  I swayed slightly, realising that if I left the security of the pillar I would fall.  Nick took a step towards me, but the girl held him back.  Her hands were on his upper arms, and she was staring into his face with a determined, yet flirtatious, look on her face.  I knew Nick would never want to cause a scene – nor would he want to behave in any other way than his usual charming self – but as I watched he firmly removed her hands from his arms.  I shuddered as he touched her, closing my eyes for a few seconds.  When I opened them, he was on his way towards me.  I could have cried with relief.



“She’s the girl” I said, as soon as he was in front of me. “The dream girl”.  He didn’t look as incredulous as I had expected.  Turns out the girl had been very persuasive in her methods – though, fortunately, not persuasive enough.  She had also freaked him out with the things she had been saying, so Nick was already wary of her.  At that point though, all he wanted to do was check I was OK.  I felt thousands of times better than I had done a few minutes ago.  He did a very un-Nick-like thing and hugged me, in front of a pub-full of people.  As I looked over his shoulder I realised the girl had disappeared.  Gone to try it on with someone else’s boyfriend I imagine.