Imagines: Not Only in Your Dreams

You keep scrolling, torturing yourself until your stop. When you step off the bus, you look up at the sky, hoping that the sun will grant you even the tiniest reason to be hopeful. Except there’s a massive billboard blocking the sun, and, lo and behold, there is Daniel’s face, blown up to the size of a damn house. His eyes are locked onto a blond woman. Her blue eyes are just as stunning as his, and you really believe that he and the featured actress are in love.

You feel like an idiot for more than one reason, and you now remember why he seemed familiar to you in the first place. This billboard has been up for nearly a month, and you pass it daily. He looks different here, glossier and slightly Photoshopped. You prefer the real Daniel with the hint of purple in his lips, the slightly darker rings under his eyes. These things aren’t flaws to be edited out; they are a few of the most appealing parts of him. You hate that they took away the shadows under his eyes. They’re barely noticeable, not giving the impression that he’s tired or overworked but showing that there’s something more to him. Something that keeps him up at night pacing around his mansion. You don’t know him any better than his adoring fans, but you know he’s more than some shiny face on a billboard. He finds happiness in everything, and he cares about more than the materialistic shit people likely assume he loves. And you hate him all the more for it.

You wish you could pretend that he’s some snobby, conceited, rich asshole with a pretty face, but you know better than that. You force your eyes to tear away from the massive reminder of the best day of your life and walk into what will be far from it.

At the restaurant, the smell of garlic and the grease fryer takes away the hint of ocean salt that you couldn’t get out of your nose. Seeing the way the other employees glare at you and hearing rich men in suits demand continual scotch refills help you wash the memories of yesterday from your mind. You get hit on twice, and it takes everything inside you not to pour plates of steaming-hot pasta onto the laps of leering, worthless, perverted men. By the end of your shift, you’re back to hating everything, and you’re okay with that.

Two weeks pass without a single thought of Daniel. Okay, that’s a lie, but you haven’t googled him in over a week, and you’ve stopped looking up at that stupid fucking billboard every time you step off the bus. You even came across his face in a magazine at your local grocery store and didn’t want to crawl into a hole or burn the thing. Progress. Still, you’re a bit ashamed that you almost created a Twitter profile after finding his. You were close to crossing the line to becoming a fan of his, but you still haven’t seen his work, so you have no excuse.

Your resolve is getting stronger, and the burning memory of his mouth on yours is sizzling out; only a tiny flame remains. You give yourself a few days and it will be gone, you know it. You can’t afford to live in a dreamland where Daniel Sharman waltzes into your job and sweeps you off your feet. There’s no horse-drawn carriage, no happy ending. He’s already forgotten you.

Days come and go; you pick up as many shifts as you can and otherwise avoid human contact any way you can. The sun seems dimmer after week three, and you finally stop thinking about him enough to brave attending another art class. You find one closer to home, not caring if it’s more expensive and more crowded. You take the bus to the Studio City community center and keep your bag closed during the bumpy ride, protecting your new pack of markers. When you step off the bus, you divert your eyes from billboards, as you’ve learned to do, and cross the street. Your directions tell you that you have a five-minute walk, which makes you glad you live in a city where it hardly ever rains.

Inside the large building, the classroom is quite full. You manage to find an empty spot in the far back corner and begin to dig your supplies out of your bag. This isn’t a beginners’ class; the one where you met Daniel was enough. This is a moderately advanced-level class that focuses on using markers and colored pens as a medium. It’s perfect despite the crowd and the lack of air-conditioning in the musty room. Trying to open the window behind you, you find it’s stuck. Of course it is. The woman next to you makes small talk, and you try your best to engage with her even though you aren’t listening to a word she’s saying. You think she’s talking about her pet, or maybe her child? You’re not sure, but you find it hard to pretend like you care what she’s saying. When she looks at you, staring for a moment, expecting a response, you feel a twinge of guilt.

Why couldn’t you just listen to her? It’s not that hard to be polite, and she just spent the last three minutes sharing a part of her life with you. You hate that it’s so hard to engage with people; you wish you were more like Daniel.

Daniel. His name burns like lava in your stomach, and you take a few deep breaths to calm down. You don’t have to allow his face to burn you from the inside out, but you start to think you should allow a part of him back into your mind. Even though you’ll never see him again, the short encounter with him made you want to be just a little kinder, make a little bit of effort to be more involved in your own life.

You smile warmly at the woman. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t get the end of that. Tell me that part again,” you tell her.

She smiles back at you, obviously pleased by your polite interest, and you realize that being nice actually makes you feel good. She had been talking about her daughter, her only daughter, who just beat breast cancer. She tells you that her granddaughter is seven and asked the entire family to wear a cape, like a superhero, every day that the little girl’s mom was battling the cancer that threatened her life. Whether it was the capes her family wore or simply modern medicine that gave the woman her life back, you’re so glad you took the time to actually listen to the story. You make yourself a promise that you will make a conscious effort to engage with people who make an effort to engage with you. You owe it to yourself and to them.

The woman’s glasses are foggy and your eyes are burning, holding back tears, by the time she finishes. You almost tell her about your grandmother, who you lost to cancer, but then decide one step at a time is best with this. A few minutes later, the last two spots in the classroom fill up, and the instructor begins. A landscape is what you’re told to draw. A landscape of your choosing—even better. You love landscapes, and you really need the distraction of being able to zone out of life and onto paper. You begin with a dark shade of green, close to olive, and make small lines on the right corner of your page. You completely focus on turning the blank page into something beautiful.

The door opens and something inspires you to look up. Your hand drags across the page, ruining the blades of grass you’ve spent the last twenty minutes perfecting. You groan and look around to find your marker eraser. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on the paper you’re using, and of course, this paper causes the mistake to bleed and blur the lines even more than they already were. But when you hear murmurings of “excuse me” and “sorry,” your heart begins to race. That voice.

It can’t be.

Why would Daniel come here?

You’ve finally exorcised your irrational thoughts about a possible encounter with him, and now here he is, moving his easel through the small spaces, knocking into nearly every single person. His eyes meet yours, and you harden. You can’t let him think you’re remotely affected by his presence here. He continues to move closer, and you realize that he’s deliberately headed your way. He sits his wooden easel on the floor and props it up right next to you.

You lock eyes, and he says, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find someone when you only know their first name, that they’re a waitress, and that they dislike nearly everything except the odd art class?”

You roll your eyes, but the familiar ache blooms in your chest. It’s completely irrational the way you feel about this man, this stranger, after one kiss nearly a month ago.

You play it cool. “No, I don’t have any experience with that, actually,” you say, not meeting his eyes. He chuckles under his breath, and you wonder wh

y he’s acting so happy, as though you didn’t run away from him on a beach a month ago and haven’t seen him since.

“Well, I can help you out if this ever happens to you. First step, you go to every single art class in the Los Angeles area.” His eyes are burning into you, begging yours to meet them. You refuse.

“Every single one?” You doubt it, even though somehow you know he’s not lying.

“Yep. Every single one, every single day, sometimes twice a day.”

You’ve missed his voice, and you still can’t fathom how that could be possible when you’ve only spent a couple of hours with this man.

“Wow. I’m sure some would find that impressive.” You sound much more detached than you actually are.

He laughs, scooting his stool closer. The woman you’ve sort of made friends with is watching the two of you. She practically has little hearts for eyes as she stares.

“Yes, some would. But not you. You find it annoying,” Daniel says with that fucking easy smile and those bright, wide eyes.

You sigh, melting into every word he utters. “You act like you know me.” You try to laugh, but your stomach is turning, your breath is labored, and you sound anything but cool and collected.

“I do.” He stands from the stool and closes the small space between you. You stand too, backing away from his approach. He reaches for your hand and you pull away.

“Don’t touch me, please,” you beg of him. You crave his touch more than your own breath, but you can’t handle another fall back into reality after this hour has passed.

He immediately drops his hand, and his eyes close for a second. The shadows beneath them are darker now, nearly too dark, and you can’t comprehend how someone can be so captivating inside and out. You want to take your words back, you want to throw your arms around him and beg him to be yours, but you know better. You can’t do that. It will end worse for you than that day last month. The moment one of these students recognizes his voice or face, he’s no longer yours.