First Heartbreak

Chapter Thirteen - Beautiful Nightmare

Sam's POV

My godmother, Eleanor, comes home every Christmas and New Year to celebrate it with us. She'd always bring along her girl friend, Cynthia. I'm friends with Cynthia's daughter, Jamie. She's about a year or two older than me. Jamie would let me borrow her toys and lets me read her books.

A few days before Christmas, there would be parties at our house and at Eleanor's home, about four miles away from the house. She'd have separate parties for her high school and college friends. Another separate party for her relatives.

They would compare stuff that they had and exchanged gifts. When I first experienced it, the party was exciting. But as I grew older with the exact same people and almost exact same parties, it became boring. I would stroll around Eleanor's new neighborhood.

I liked it there, it was quite, there wasn't the much lighting on the street which was great cause I could see the stars clearly.

Right after every party ended, my dad would drive home Eleanor's drunk and a few sober guests. It annoyed me because then dad won't get enough sleep.

Christmas would pass by without me knowing. My family and I could celebrate by eating dinner together on Christmas eve. They'd sleep after a few hours. I'd stay awake and sit at the bench by the house's garden up front. When I'd get tired, I'd lay down the bench so I could get a better view of the stars. I would see the little and big dipper most of the time.

When it's just a couple of days before New Year, Eleanor would leave town and head to another city where her sister, her sister's husband and kids were residing. She'd always spend the New Year there.

My family would just stay at home. But the great thing about New Year is that it's always, and I mean ALWAYS fun and noisy. I didn't hated it, in fact, I liked it when it's New Year's eve. The neighbors would get out of the street about 10 minutes before midnight and they'd bring with them fireworks that they bought from the market.

Another exciting about New Year's eve with my family is that we were allowed to drink wine and get a little drunk. Aside from that, there would be a lot of food in the table. Braised chicken, seasoned ham, cheesy spaghetti, beef lasagna, sweets, and of course my favorite, mango float!

It's just all-purpose cream and sweetened milk topped with Graham crackers, freshly sliced, extremely ripe mangoes, and crushed Grahams. Repeat the process twice or three times, depending on how many layers you would prefer, then pop it in the fridge. Let it freeze for about a good five hours, and you got yourself a sin-worthy dessert!

-o-

It's now two minutes before midnight. The streets near our house is now crowded with neighbors and spectators from neighboring avenues and streets.

We have a neighbor who works at the local airport who always showcased fireworks displays every New Year for about ten to fifteen minutes. Now that's quite a lot of fireworks and a lot of cash that you're technically throwing away!

But my mom told us that our neighbor didn't spend a lot from it. Since he's working at the airport, he'd have clients who would import fireworks to our town and he'd be handed free fireworks for helping his clients out of the import. That made sense.

Our neighbor has three or four sons, I'm not sure. They'd be the ones who would light up and start the fireworks.

Before it starts, I would position myself by the window, which has a great view of the fireworks display.

They'd often start with the "Judas Belt" firecracker. They would lay it down at the middle of the street from the intersection up until their house which was about six houses away, imagine that!

Five... Four... Three... Two... One...

And away they went with lighting up the fireworks. The other neighbors would cheer since it's an indication the showcase has started. Then they'd display the next set of fireworks. It's just a bunch of fountain firecrackers. Three big ones, which quite honestly would take too long before it runs out.

Then they'd setup the next set of fireworks which were called the whistler because it would whistle while it made its way to the sky before making a loud bang! They have about, oh let's just say about two hundred of those, I think. Now it really gets noisy.

I'd eat ice cream while watching that part, I don't know. It just kind of fits the scene.

Their finale would be the huge fireworks where the street would shake so hard it's as if they were firing a bomb! To me it looked like dandelions in various colors when it bursts into the sky. Others formed a pink and sometimes red heart in the clear night sky.

Once the show's done, my family and I would eat again and make noises ourselves. Mom keeps the store open thinking it would bring good luck in the new year. She'd only close it when it's about five in the morning. It would remain close not until twelve noon.

On New Year's day I would stay up late. The good thing about it was that mom would allow us to stay up as late as we want. As much as I'd like to stay up as long as I want, but my eyes would be drowsy by the time the clock strikes four o'clock in the morning.

I was sleeping soundly when a dream emerged. I was standing on a very familiar street, but it was dark so I couldn't make up anything. I was looking around when I noticed a figure coming towards me. My instincts told me to run but I couldn't. It's as if my feet was glued to the ground. My feet, was wearing my favorite open-toe high-heels. And my dress? I was wearing my favorite carnation red dress that I would often wear whenever I'd perform at a school program.

I saw my reflection on a full-sized floating mirror in front of me. The sun was beginning to rise, the view looked breath-taking. But I couldn't get past at how I looked like in the mirror. My hair wasn't curly anymore. It was straight and long and soft, just what I've always wanted for so long. And I looked as if I were eighteen or something.

I heard footsteps behind my back. Earlier I was so scared of the figure, but for some reason I wasn't anymore. Whoever was behind me, touched my shoulder lightly, so I turned to see who it was.

It was Zen. Oh. I wanted to say something to her but words failed me. I just smiled at her and hugged her tight without saying a word, she didn't hugged me back. When I stepped back from the hug, I said I miss you, but I couldn't modulate my voice for some reason. I held my throat, feeling dismayed.

My eyes started to sting and water was filling in it, then tears rolled down my cheek. I wanted to say a lot of things to her but couldn't make up the words to say. She wiped my tears away with her thumb. I held her hand as she did that, I smiled and closed my watery eyes.

I wanted to stay that way forever, her and me. I opened my eyes that were still watery from the tears, I was still holding her hand.

I held her face with both of my hands as she placed her hands on my waist. I was looking into her deep dark brown eyes. I smiled at her once more. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and said goodbye.

As I turned away from her, she grabbed me and hugged me from behind as if to say stay. She was shivering and I felt that she was scared. I hesitated for awhile and broke free from her embrace.

I looked at her again, touched her face from her temple to her cheek and said you're happy now. I don't want to cause trouble. I hugged her and gave her a feathered kiss on the lips for the last time.

Then I woke up. I sat up from my bed. I felt my eyes were wet, I wiped it with my hand and found that I really was crying. Strange. I felt it again. That pain in my heart. The ripping!

I tried to force myself to sleep. But it was no use. I was now wide awake.