Chapter Fifteen; Drew Barrymore and Dream Sequences

Nick, my “official” BF, decides to cut his vacation short by two days. Proclaiming via text that he can’t stand to be away from me for one more second.

And so he does just that.

Fourteen marathon hours on a Harley back home. In one day.

Just to see me.

And as for our highly anticipated reunion? Let’s just say I am pretty certain it may have rivaled Nick’s grandfather’s return to his bride after serving for three years during World War II.

And so it begins. The cloudy hazy clarity of the relationship I wasn’t planning on having. With the man I was not so enthusiastic about going on a blind date with just four short weeks before.

From unexpected.

To entwined.

And let me tell ya, the next two weeks puts the sap crap romance on the Hallmark channel to a sobbing shame. Here, let me illustrate. Pick the cheesiest love song you can think of. Actually, I recommend Colbie Caillet’s Falling for You. Its lyrics materialized on the air waves the same month that our story began. In fact, pull the track up on iTunes right now. I’ll wait. La, la, la, la, la. Got it? Okay, good. Now, play the following scenes in your mind to said sappy soundtrack:

“And . . . Action!”

Nick effortlessly whisking me over his broad shoulders and carting me down the steps of his modest home because if I am going to date a fire man, I need to be fire man carried!

Hurtling on his Harley through parks and forgotten corners of this town like two adventurers without a map or destiny, my blonde hair leaving a comet-like trail behind us. ("Cut!” Director’s note: Drew Barrymore is playing me in this flick. Well? If this is like a movie then I’m in charge of casting and what girl doesn’t want to be Drew Barrymore? Well, except for that one time her free-spirited nature contributed to her marrying Tom Green the weirdo. Minus that momentary madness/drug problem/loss of sanity, all girls want to be Drew. As for Nick, he’s probably a hybrid of Mathew McConaughey and Jude Law with a dash of Bruce Willis.)

“Places everyone . . . Action!”

Reclining in lawn chairs around a fire pit one summer evening with his neighbors, Nick holds my hand and strokes my wrist with his thumb, gazing at me with a look that says, “I can’t believe you’re mine.” (As for the neighbors in attendance, the wives note my attentive man and shoot glares so sharp at their distracted husbands huddled in testosterone-infused conversations about sports and beer that I think I can hear the night air being ripped and stabbed.)

Nick kisses my wrist.

I melt like an Al Gore glacier.

“Cut! That’s a wrap, folks. Nice job, nice job.”

Fade out Colbie Callait . . .

The days blur together in a kaleidoscope of similar scenes. And all the while I keep waiting for everything to go dark. Thinking one day I will wake up groggy and croaking out a request for water. Someone will put a plastic cup to my lips and I will hear my mother weep, “She’s waking up! Get the doctor!” And all of “this with Nick” will not have been real but a drug induced coma.

People will tell me I was in a terrible car accident last month. I’ve been asleep all this time. But thank God I’m alive.

Yes. Thank God. I’m alive.

And alone.

Only this time it will be worse than ever. Because I’ll probably be permanently scarred and missing limps from said car accident and destined to search for future dates on DisfiguredSingles.com. Eternally hoping someday my one-armed no-legged prince will find me and wheel the appendage-challenged nub of my former self off into the sunset on his scooter chair.

But that doesn’t happen.

I am not sleeping. I am as awake as awake can be.

And my life is as real as real can get.

One afternoon Nick asks, “Didn’t you always wonder what everyone meant when they told us, ‘Someday you’ll meet the love of your life and you’ll just know.’’ Didn’t that bug you? What the hell is that supposed to mean, you’ll just “know” anyway?”

“So?” I prod.

“So now I know what they were talking about,” his confession cementing his presence in my life.

For two weeks I live like this. This sigh inducing surreal reality. It’s different from anything I’ve ever experienced. In fact, “different” is the only word I can come up with to adequately describe what is happening. And it has to be different since me, queen of nerdy wordy who uses a keyboard as a paintbrush, can barely find the words to articulate it.

But alas.

Life ain’t a fairy tale, folks.

Let’s revisit Colbie Cailet once again . . .

Only this time, the song is being played on a record. Not an iPod, cd, tape, or even an 8-track. A good old 12-inch black vinyl vintage record.

Close your eyes. Hear the music. But this time, just as the song crescendos the needle skips and scratches the ebony surface, grinding the melody to a screeching noisy silence.

Good bye romantic cinema sequences.

Good bye dream-like whispers of devotion.

Good bye my charming prince.

Hello reality.