where i wanna be

"I'm not saying I'm gone but I have to find what life is like without you."

He was 25 years old. Four months away from his 26th birthday. And today Corey woke up to an unsettling thought. He was still with his high school sweetheart.

High school had been great. He met Vanessa in a chemistry class. They were lab partners and it didn't take long for that fateful pairing to become a romance. And it was the quintessential high school relationship. They fought hard and loved hard, with so much passion on the surface it was hard to take sometimes.

College had been hard. Vanessa had gone to an elite college in Connecticut. Corey went to a large state school in Florida. To be honest, their had been infidelities on their parts. The stress of Vanessa's school and the party environment of Corey's college had led them both astray. They had been off and on through all four years. But they always came back to each other and by their senior year, they were back together and in a good place.

Corey took a job at an accounting firm in New York. Vanessa began a pre-med program in New York. They lived together in a spacious Brooklyn loft. Vanessa was starting to get that "time for a ring" look which hadn't bothered Corey because their life together was going well. Until this morning when Corey woke up with the unsettling thought that he couldn't believe he was still with Vanessa.

untouchable

"I'm reaching out and I just can't tell you why."

It felt like being lost. He was in a chair, in a hallway. That much he knew. He could see sun shining through an open window at the end of the hall. The thought suddenly came to him that he liked sunny days. He looked eagerly at the window for just one second, but the cloud of confusion he was under was overwhelming. So he continued to sit.

Otis. The name came to him and he was almost sure it was his name. Otis. It was a good name. Reliable, masculine, hardworking man's name. So Otis sat in his chair searching for a memory. How did he get here? And where is here? He closed his eyes tried to remember, but there was just fragments of childhood. Climbing trees, eating supper at a large table busy with lots of kids, sitting in a classroom, playing football with a beat-up, practically flat football. He opened his eyes. These were not the hands of a child. These hands were old, worn from time and hard work.

Then there she was. A beautiful woman. Thick, silky gray hair. Dressed well, with an energy that defied her age. And she looked directly at him and called his name. Otis. Yes, that was his name. The woman knew him.

She came and sat in a chair beside him. She talked about things he didn't know. People whose names were unfamiliar. She showed him pictures of young kids. Someone else's grandkids. He held one picture for a long time. That kid looked so much like himself in the fragmented childhood he was trying desperately to hold onto.

But there was her. Everything about her seemed familiar. The urge to caress her hair and hold her hand was strong, but she would think he was crazy. She seemed so familiar. He could imagine her younger. Making dinner in a kitchen surrounded by kids. Kissing him quickly on his way out the door to work. He felt connected to her. Like he had known her all his life. This must be love at first sight.

Then she was leaving, though it seemed she had just gotten here. She kissed him on the cheek, squeezed his hand gently, and was gone.

He was in a chair, in a hallway. That was all he knew. The sun was shining through an open window at the end of the hall. The memory of a young boy standing happily in the sunshine on a summer's day fleeted by. And the image came to him of a young woman kissing her husband on his way to work in the morning. He smiled.

all you wanted

"I didn't know that it was so cold and you needed someone to show you the way."

There once was a little girl. And I do mean little. Although she was nearly sixteen years old, she was barely five feet tall and didn't even weigh a hundred pounds. She was a quiet girl, thoughtful, intelligent and full of wit. She lived in an old, creaky house out in the country with her mother, her father, and her baby brother.

This house was old. And creaky. It was built before modern luxuries like electricity and indoor plumbing were commonplace this far out in the country. So the after-the-fact wiring was shoddy and the plumbing was loud.

One cold, windy winter the day, the little girl was at home with her baby brother and the lights went out. Inexplicably taking the radiator with it. The little girl knew that the house would be freezing in a few hours (thank goodness for weather proofing). She needed to get a fire going in the large fireplaces that adorned nearly every room in the old, creaky house. The little girl put her baby brother in his quilted outerwear, put him down in his crib, and grabbed her father's big axe and wood splitter.

About two hundred feet from the back door of the old, creaky house were stacks of large wood. That would needed to be chopped before it could be burnt. So the little girl set to it. She chopped and chopped, until her little body was exhausted. She decided to sit down for just a moment. The little girl sat on the large tree stump she had been using as a chopping base. She rested her head back onto the high wooden fence the wood was stacked up against. And as one might expect dozed off right there in a matter of seconds.

The little girl sat there asleep. Her dreams slowly turned from trudging in stacks of wood across a snowy field to sitting on the sand beside a beach with the sun warming her back. But her beach dream was interrupted. There was suddenly a boy there, maybe five years old. A boy whose face looked so familiar though she couldn't quite place where she knew him. And he grabbed her hand and began pulling her away from the sun. His hand was so cold.

The little girl grudgingly began to stir on her tree stump as the boy in her dreams pulled her farther away from that warm beach sun. She woke with the sudden realization of how cold she was. Her fingers and toes were numb. And when she tried to get up, her whole body ached of cold. The little girl clumsily grabbed as many pieces of wood as her nearly useless hands could maneuver. The walk to the house was torturous but she finally made it.

As the time went on, her baby brother grew. And as the time went on, a sense of deja vu would sweep over the little girl when she looked at his little aging face. Tragedy struck when he was five, and her brother died in a car accident. As the little girl, now twenty years old but still just as small as before, looked into the little coffin her brother lay in at his funeral she could not believe her eyes. She suddenly realized that there lay the boy from all those years ago that dragged her back to life in her dream.

"So I took your hand and we figured out that when the tide comes I'd take you away."

rock star

"I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame. I'd even cut my hair and change my name."

With a name like Ocean, she must have been destined for fame.

This was the familiar thought in Ocean's mind as she hazily opened her eyes. She should have been afraid, as the blur of her vision eased and she realized she didn't know where she was. But Ocean was used to it. Waking up in strange places had been her life for the past seven years, even before the drugs.

It took her a minute longer to fully process that she was in a hospital room. Ocean tried to sit up but found that she was shackled to the bed. And not with the soft, padded restraints she'd been placed under a half dozen times. She was handcuffed to the bed by cold, steel, police-issue handcuffs.

The police. A proper dose of panic finally set in on Ocean. She couldn't be arrested by the police. If word got out, she would lose the shampoo endorsement she just got before the ink was dry on the contract. Not to mention the big comeback album she and her manager had been promoting would be destroyed.

Then the feeling began to creep into Ocean. It was slight, but she recognized it immediately. She needed a fix. Thoughts of her imploding fame and untimely arrest got pushed to the back of her mind. She needed a fix.

By the time the nurse came in ten minutes later, Ocean was frantic. She felt the early stages of withdrawal creeping in and was desperate to avoid them. A police officer followed the nurse in. And behind the officer was her manager Tim and her mother. Her mother! Ocean knew it was over.

The officer informed her she was being charged with several misdemeanors. Her manager informed her that the news of her arrest had hit the air nearly two hours ago. Her mother informed her that she had just had her involuntarily admitted to the hospital's rehabilitation program and was petitioning for power of attorney.

So it was over. The fame. The drugs. Her life as she knew it. How could she have let things get here? How could she not have been able to handle it? After all, she was Ocean. She had been destined for fame.

unthinkable

"It's becoming something that's impossible to ignore."

She had been avoiding mirrors lately. The only mirror that Rhea allowed herself to was the medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom. Her view of herself was limited to the shoulders and above. So every morning she would check her hair and make-up only before heading to the bus stop. No primping in front of the full body mirror in the hallway. Rhea wondered if her mom was becoming suspicious, but she couldn't bear to look in that mirror.

The signs were obvious to her. The ten pound weight gain, the fuller boobs, the glowing skin, the slightly protruding belly that could not be sucked in. And of course Rhea knew it had been three months since Noah's condom broke, three months since her last period.

Noah. He might be slightly more panicked than her, which she found oddly comforting. Rhea was no fool. She watched the shows on TV about teen pregnancies. She knew the chances of Noah sticking around and really being there for this baby were minute. But right now there was hope that he would, so Rhea held onto that.

Soon everyone would know. Rhea was running out of loose clothes she could wear and get away with without question. And even those "loose" clothes were becoming snug. In a month there would be no denying. Rhea was a skinny girl so any weight gain stood out.

So today she took the first step and told her two best friends. Rhea knew she would need them by her side when she finally worked up the nerve to tell her parents.

get to know ya

"Brothers were trying to get in your trousers. I was just trying to get into you."

The text message was from Nona. He knew that before he even looked. After all, it was a Friday night. It was starting to get late and he was sure that whatever club she was at must be close to closing.

Oz intended to not answer the phone. Nona could think he was too busy, already occupied with another girl for the night. So he let the phone sit, which lasted all of two minutes. In those two minutes, images of Nona looking at him with those wise, eager brown eyes, her in the short dress and sky high heels she was undoubtedly wearing tonight, and her finding some other guy on her list to go home with.

Oz felt little comfort knowing he was at the top of Nona's list. In fact, it slightly disgusted him and greatly frustrated him. He hadn't intended to be on any list. He didn't want her to have a list. Oz wanted it to be just him. Just him and Nona.

He had adored her for months. They had the same circle of friends and he saw her all the times. Clubs, house parties, dinners, movie nights, receptions, happy hours. They would talk briefly, Nona would smile at him. She was so intelligent and thoughtful. He absolutely adored her. Oz found himself thinking of her and smiling long after he last saw her. So when she finally showed some interest in him, he jumped at the chance.

However, it became obvious quickly that the affection Oz felt for Nona was only reciprocated as a sexual attraction she felt for him. She would text him late at night to "visit". As the arrangement kept going, she began to barely even acknowledge him at social events. Oz would resolve himself that this whole sex relationship had to end. That he would confront her and demand that either they actually date or be nothing at all.

But then he would get that familiar text message on a late night. And the images would pop in his head. And the only thing Oz couldn't bear more than Nona using him for sex were the ideas of her with someone else and of him without her in his life at all.

Oz picked up the phone and sent a message back saying he'd leave the door open for her.

tell me it's real

"If you and I were meant to be, you would know. It would show by the end of the song."

It was apparent to Raven that the party was about to end. The servers had stopped restocking the food platters, the coat check line was getting long, and the DJ was only playing slow tunes. For Raven, this was one of the best Halloween parties she'd attended, at least since turning 25. Most people were in costume. The decorations were spirited but not over the top. There were no weird "bobbing for apples" type of activities. She was having a great time.

The DJ started playing one of her favorite songs. A slow, bluesy tune at least a decade old. Raven subconsciously started swaying to the song, which must have been the invitation for the unknown man to take her hand. The guy held her hand firmly and led her onto the dance floor. A small rush of excitement filled Raven when the man started dancing with her, but she brushed the feeling aside. After all she had a few glasses of wine in her and this was a great song.

But as the dance continued, Raven couldn't help but to let that feeling of excitement rush back inside. By midway through the song, her feet were tingling, her heart was racing. Raven finally stopped fighting the feeling, moved in closer to the man, and rested her head on his shoulder. The man immediately wrapped his arms tighter around her. Raven was surprised yet pleased to find that his heart was racing to.

And so they danced. The song didn't seem long enough. It seemed to end unexpectedly to Raven, even though she knew the song so well. She didn't want to let go of this man but without music there was no reason to cling to him. She stepped back and looked up into a pair of warm eyes. She imagined the passion she found there was probably a mirror of her own.

Raven didn't know his name, or what he did, or where he was from, or what kind of life he had led. But she knew something beautiful was about to happen.