A Love lost in a dream like a life once lived.

Mae lays in bed, eyes wide and blood shot from lack of sleep. Her alarm blares next to her and she lets out a loud groan. “Shut up!” Mae reaches over and smacks her hand down on her phone several times before silencing it. Pushing her self up into a sitting position and draping her feet over the edge of the bed she rubs her eyes and looks around. “Today’s going to be a day…” talking to her self was a common thing. She found it helped make her small apartment seem a little less eerily quiet. She finally gets up and moves swiftly to the bathroom, reaching the mirror she looks at her self and shakes her head. Her long chestnut hair fell in messy lose curls around her face and down over her shoulders. “This won’t do.” She reached for a pony tail and decided to just tie half of it up. The other half she racked her fingers through to attempt to manage and tame the curls. It worked well enough and she smiled and continued to get ready for the day. She shut the door and locked it behind her as she left her apartment. A bulky dark blue bag slung over her shoulder and a few books in hand, glasses sitting crooked on her face as she rushed down the hall to the elevator. Once outside she waved down a friend waiting in their car for her, she clumsily ran across the busy street and hoped in the passenger side. “About damn time, my god you’d never make it anywhere on time if you didn’t have me in your life.” Mae smiled a beautiful smile at her friend. “Yes my knight in shining armour…. Luke id be lost without you!” She threw up her arms and draped the back of her one hand across her forehead in dramatics. “Pffff” he rolled his eyes as he started up the car and they headed on their way to the university campus. They both laughed and chatted back and forth during the drive. Luke turned to her and screwed up his face at her. “By the way, what in gods name did you do last night? Seriously you look like s**t…” he said matter of fact to her while flicking his fingers at her from top to bottom. “Thanks… thank you for that… nothing I’m fine I just didn’t sleep well again.” She turned away and stared out the window while Luke continued to talk on about how she needed to sleep better. He snapped his fingers a few times and called her to get her attention as she stared off zoning out to space. “Mae… Mae!!! Girl seriously was it one of those dreams again? You should talk to someone or go see a psychic, maybe they can help tell you how to stop the dreams and get more sleep. You’re gunna fail your classes if you keep falling asleep during them.” Mae turned to look at Luke when she noticed a man walk infront of the moving car. “Luke!” She shrieked as he slammed on his brakes. They were going too fast and not enough time to stop. Luke swerved the car to avoid the stranger and instead hit a tree head on. Everything was black and Mae could hear a horn blaring, people yelling, sirens wailing. It wasn’t until she felt cool soft fingers moving around her face that she slowly began to see light moving from behind her closed lids. The fingers traced along her cheek, leading into two hand cupping her face and gentle tapping her. The voice didn’t come through right away but it suddenly snapped her awake, it reminded her of the voice in her dream. Mae moved her aching head slowly from side to side as she peeled her eyes open. “Ouch, ouch, ouch…. What happened.” She said in a quiet soft voice, still not really seeing the full scene in front of her. The man replied to her, a little closer then she felt comfortable. He leaned in a bit near her ear. “ you shouldn’t move, you’ve been in an accident, I’m a doctor that was passing by, I just wanted to help.” Mae groaned in pain and hoarsely replied. “An accident” her eyes flew fully open and she attempted to sit upright far too quickly and she wince and hissed in pain. “Where’s Luke!?!?” She panicked and tried to look around better but the man put his hands gently on her to brace her from moving. “You shouldn’t do that, I think you have a dislocated shoulder and a broken leg, aside from the gash on your head. Your friend seems ok, he is sitting at the side of the car being tended to. A broke wrist and some bruised ribs from the sounds of it, with some minor bumps and bruises on the head. You are both lucky considering how fast you’d been going when you hit the tree.” Mae relaxed a bit back into the seat, she was starting to become fully aware of her surroundings, the broken glass that littered her lap and all over her clothing. The blood running down the side of her face that was just starting to dry at the edges. The steamy smoke that was hissing from the engine infront of them and her head pounding like a large drum at a symphony concert. She pinched her eyes shut tightly and lifted her one hand to touch her head. Hissing in response to the touch. Finally paramedics showed up in the scene and soon Mai was in a neck brace and being painfully lifted out of the car and into a stretcher. She got a glimpse of Luke who was also being placed inside of another ambulance. She called to him. “I’m ok, I’ll see you there!” He nodded to her in response and she winced again at the pain her own voice caused her head. Before they could fully wisk her away she looked around frantically for the doctor who was helping her, when she made eye contact she nodded in thanks. “What is your name?” She asked and he smiled in reply. “Seth, I’m sure I’ll see you again.” He nodded to her as they shut the doors to the ambulance. She couldn’t help but feel like that was an odd thing to say. Her head hurt too much to think further so she laid back into the stretcher and just closed her eyes for the ride there. Mai lay in a room at the hospital. She could hear little beeps echoing down the hall and feet tapping away as they passed with rushed voices conversing among colleagues. She sighed aloud and wished she could get up to close the door. However as the doctor who helped at the scene said, she did have a busted up leg, a dislocated shoulder, stitch’s on her forehead that mostly lead into her hair line. Easy to cover up, she thought to her self. What he didn’t know was that she would have to stay a night at least because she had a severe concussion and they were concerned of swelling or whatever. She needed to apparently be monitored for 24 hours. She rolled her eyes at this thought and had to sit there powerless to get up at the moment to close the door and give her mind some peace. In her time alone in the room she wondered about the man who had assisted at the scene. “Seth… he said his name was, he sounded so familiar. I’ve never met him before though. I wonder who is he?” She laid back remembering what his voice sounded like and trying to remember the features of his face. Things happened to fast she wasn’t able to remember though. She hoped she’d have a chance to thank him properly. Mae woke to cool soft fingers gently on her arm. They had slid a cuff up onto her upper arm and was gently touching the IV needle in her wrist. She slowly woke to a mumbling voice. Immediately she recognized it. She looked up into Icey steel blue eyes. He hadn’t noticed her awake just yet, as he was looking down at her arm and pumping up the blood pressure cuff while watching the gauge. When he was done he touched her gently and it sent little goosebumps up her arm. He only then realized she’d been awake and staring at him for several minutes. He froze when he met her honey and chocolate light brown eyes. He cleared his throat then and said, “Hello again, I’m the over night doctor, it seems I’ll be looking after you while you’re here tonight…” Mae gave her head a tiny shake and nodded. “ I guess that makes sense as to what you’d said earlier. I didn’t realize you worked at this hospital. I wanted to thank you better for helping us and I was wondering if you could tell me how my friend was.” She slowly and awkwardly used her one arm to try and prop her self up better. He quickly reached to help her. When his hand touched her again, he sent goosebumps raising across her arms again. “Thanks…” she nodded and he smiled. He had a sweet soft smile, gentle looking lips framed by a sharp jaw line. Tessa shook her head again and pushed the observation away. “Your friend is doing well actually, we did keep him over night, considering he had hit his head pretty hard too.” Mai nodded. “ Mmm that’s good then.” Seth studied Mai carefully, looking at her face until he met with her eyes again. It made Tessa fidget in the bed and she cleared her throat again. “Uhmm could I get some water from one of the nurses and uh thank you again.” Seth snapped back and straightened up. “ hmm yes of course I’ll let them know right away. I’ll be back in later this morning to check things again and get your discharge paper in order. Get some sleep for now.” He quickly turned on his heels and headed out the door in only a few strides. He was tall, had dark brown almost black hair. He closed the door behind him as he left and Tessa was left in silence at last. She let out a long sigh and slumped back into the pillows and the bed and let sleep take her again.