The Night I Woke Up Beside You

[SEASON 1] Extra Chapter: The Unspoken, The Unseen

UNRECORDED FROM THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE 

(Anonymous events during Regina's original Future, 2016, before the time-travel)

"I had a dream that you were mine,

I’ve had that dream a thousand times;

A thousand times, a thousand times,

I’ve had that dream a thousand times..."

He liked that song. 

That song was really a classic. They played that when he had left, played it until everyone had memorized the lyrics. Yet people still did not really realize what the entire song was trying to tell about him, no one really tried to understand. But to those who had been very close to him, those who knew him even when he had not been that very open, they all knew that at least, that was the song that he liked the most. Even when he thought it had always been his very secret since he never really told anyone that much about him.

But to the ones who had loved him and had been with him for so long, they already figured that it was for him right away. There was no doubt, it was his song. It was the only one that he would always play on loop thrice or even more every day in his bedroom since it was released.

It was his ultimate escape from reality. It was his comfort.

Just hearing the way it had been sung with that throaty, hoarse, rock singing voice of Hamilton Leithauser was enough to give him eargasm. He had played it the first time after coming across that eye-catching album with the picture of a woman's face with the odd backdrop of a window in greyscale color, in the CD shop he would always visit during weekends. He never got into college and most of the time, he had been too busy trying to get by waiting tables, dealing with dirty business, and bartending at nights, or just riding on his motorcycle, wondering what he would do to his life. That time, the song had sounded like his whole life.

And since then, he had been playing that song on repeat, volume reaching the max limit, blasting it off with that total reckless abandon through its rhythmic nirvana, his earphones tucked in his ears and nodding his head to it, increasing the speed of his motorcycle as he rode down the highway while lip-syncing to the song with pure emotion. No one knew that he had this kind of side in him. 

It was a secret. Unspoken. Unseen. And at such hidden times, it would always give him solitude, the comforting sound of the music, the wind blowing over his face, the rush of the adrenaline that the speed was giving him, and the almost-in-sync drumbeat to his own heart rate. The lyrics had mirrored his very soul, the honest words that completely described how he had felt all this time, speaking through his own story, revealing just as much as he had always been hiding. 

Because no one knew...

No one knew what he really felt all this time... and until he left the world, a mere being who meant so much for enough people to remember him for a lifetime, the song had been playing in the faint speakers of his earphones that he had been wearing on that afternoon of cold November. 

Yet no one has ever really guessed him right.

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THE NEW PAST, 2010

(Regina's renewed past after her time-travel)

He was just always secretive. Always keeping things. Always not saying anything that much. He did not like words. He did not like speaking too much. And no one has ever figured what runs inside his head when he gets silent.

Well apart from the right off-the-bat comment of his brother and the ambiguous words that Eleanor had told him once just recently, pretty much until now, no one has ever really guessed what kind of feelings were hidden deep inside him... Feelings he had been keeping and hiding for quite a long time now too. Feelings that could reveal almost everything: the ugly, the beauty, and the loneliness.

Though, it was not like he had been that easy to read at all. For most of his life, he always just kept things to himself. He made sure he was distant, always made sure he never say too much, never feel too much, and would always close himself up because he realized that fewer attachments were better and much easier to manage. He never tried to say nor show anything that showed too much of his true thoughts. No one had ever seen through him because he had been designed just like that. Too vague, too mysterious... Too dark. But he... as human as he was, also had feelings. 

He just did not like showing them. Tears, smiles, sadness, laughter, feelings, and happiness, were kind of too unfamiliar for him. It was always too awkward, too foreign, too not his style. But the truth is, he just did not really know how to handle them well because it made him feel unstable and extremely paranoid. That's why he never showed them. And he had always tried so hard to keep it all concealed. But he's human. Feelings are nature. And he felt them too...

Love, that is. Falling in love, was another. Heartache. Getting his heartbroken. And yes, he has been in love too. Been feeling that kind of attraction for the same and only girl all this time. For so many years now.

Regina Harding.

From the beginning, he had fallen in love at first conversation. And it still felt as if it was just like yesterday. August. Summer. That was the season when they met for the very first time, and he was only twelve. She was the girl who lived across them. That was when his mom had bought a simple new house in a new town. She brought him and his younger brother to live with her in a new place, miles, and miles away from where they had come from, trying to move on after divorcing that bastard who had never deserved to be called a husband nor even a father.

He was trying to get by. He hated it when things changed because he had friends that he had to say goodbye to. A school he would never go back to, a neighborhood he won't ever see again. He had a life before all of the things in their lives had gone south. It was a life that had been okay, enough, and fine for him. But going away was something he can't stop. And he was not completely against it, he had also wanted his mother to leave that man. That's why he silently went with it. He packed his things and never looked back again.

And then he met her.

She was not that noticeable at first but she was smiling at him, even though she never knew him. She had been smiling since then. Since the first day they met, she just smiled as if it was the most natural thing even when he had been scowling. He did not like that, but that smile somehow changed something in him. 

He did not want to acknowledge it at first. He always tried to ignore her. But she had refused to step back and leave. Until one time, an event changed the way he looked at her. That was the first conversation they had. The very first one that meant a lot to him. He never really expected that she could affect him that way, he was a kid looking so done with the world, feeling bummed after realizing that he was going to adjust himself again, be in a world that he knew nothing of, be in a place that he never felt his as he tried to belong, and then there she was...

"Can we be friends?"

Those were the words that had come out of her mouth when he had finally tried to accept her. That was their first real conversation... The first time he opened up to someone. And since then, he just kind of knew. He was no longer feeling bad that he had to live in a new town. He no longer felt burdened to change himself to adjust to a new life. He never felt sad, alone, and lost, because he found her. 

And he had been smitten.

But just like any kind of love story, it had never gone easy at all. Because as soon as he had figured what he felt, it had been too late. And he knew, he can never really let her know anything else... And he chose to just watch things happen behind the shadows. On the sidelines, a mere audience. He never tried to say anything, because he was never good at speaking about his own feelings.

Until things changed, and she had suddenly looked his way. This time, it got worse for him. And he can no longer deny it. He was really in love. But chances were kind of ironic, and it sucked because it seemed like things will never really worked out for him. Because by the time he had thought he could finally do something about it...

His chance already ended before it could even begin. Pretty quick. Just like that, he went back to nothing again.

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He felt like s**t.

That was the first thing that came to his mind the moment he opened his locker inside the football team's barracks, dragging himself after a tiring afternoon practice, looking like hell as he stared at the mirror on the back of the locker door, making him realize that he was depressed.

He was too distracted.

He had to repeat multiple attempts to perfect his throw and on top of that, their coach was giving him hell for making too many errors today. Charles was too out of his game today and probably the rest of the team were worried about their upcoming League game next week. He knew he should have priorities to think about, his father trying to squeeze him out of the dungeon so he could get that scholarship in a good university.

But he was still stuck somehow. In his head, he was not at all bothered if they lose the game next week or what. He was still stuck... with Regina.

How many times did he have to remind himself to be patient? She would eventually realize that she still loves him. She would come back, she was just a little too confused about everything. They had been moving quite too fast. Perhaps, he had been in a rush when he had asked her out. 

Why did he rush it though?

He knew that she liked him since they were kids. It was pretty obvious. Everyone could tell that too. But ever since the moment he realized she was not going to do anything about it, there was that possessive side of him that had pushed him to initiate it all. He had been impatient, and he really did not like that side of him. And maybe she had been so overwhelmed by everything, it went so out of control. She had been pressured by the attention, by the relationship, by him confessing that he actually really liked her back.

Charles looked at his reflection, saw that anxiety and deep contrition on his face. His eyes were dark shadowed, and he looked like he had gone worse in just two days. He was losing his motivation, getting sick of practice, and ill-tempered. Yesterday, he almost got into a fight with a teammate. He was not in the right mood at all. It had been three days since that night that Regina broke up with him and he was already like this.

Already at the brink of his sanity. What could he do? Can he really take her back?

This was making him so miserable. He was so in love with her. She was the only good thing that he had in his life. He hated his life. Hated being the center of everything. Hated how his mother let his father ruin her. Hated how she would always come begging even after he hurt her and leave her and run with some other random woman every night.

He did not like the confinements of his life that no one from the outside had ever really seen. Hated how his father always controlled everything in his life... hated how all people around him expect so much from him. Hated how his life felt like it wasn't his. Everyone was trying to make decisions for him. His mother, his father, his coach, his teachers... His team. His superficial ambitions. Everyone, except her. 

She was the only one...

The only thing that gave him the bliss of not wanting to do all the things people told him to do. The only one who made him feel like he could be his own person in his own way. The only one that mattered. But now, she was slowly drifting away. She was walking away. And along with her, his innocence and his freedom were also slipping away.

And it was making him insane.

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