A Dream of the Time I Forgot – Chapter 2.3

A Dream of the Time I Forgot – Chapter 2.3
Continuing from this post.

After the coffee shop, I felt a little better. While I only sort of recognized the man, I had this hunch that I definitely knew him from somewhere more than the hospital. Based on his reaction he certainly knew me. I wasn’t sure it was in a good way. That was too bad, he was pretty hot.

I looked around my bedroom, familiar and unfamiliar objects were equally carefully placed and thoughtlessly strewn about the room. My mom had tidied up some while I was in the hospital, but she didn’t move much around the room because she told me she didn’t want to make it harder for me to remember. Since I got back I hadn’t moved much myself. I am a step below hoarder as I can throw things out, but still a pack rat. I opened my closet, packed to the gills with clothes and shoes and a few boxes. I dragged things out carefully before breaking down and completely ransacking my closet and followed by the rest of my bedroom.

The bedroom felt like my room even though I didn’t recognize most of it. It was as if I was a time traveler and I was getting a glimpse of my future life without the option of going back. It definitely appeared like something I might have decorated and had some familiar objects. At least in ten years, basic habits haven’t changed much for me.

I still left random piles of clothes around my room and I could easily figure out which pile was clean clothes and which was dirty. Not that I currently had a pile of clean and dirty clothes with my mom around. I had a wall of books and collectible knick-knacks, though a lot were referencing things I knew nothing about and had to add them to my list of things to research. Most likely my journal, Teddy, would know.

I found my beloved journals looking mostly in chronological order in a leather ottoman sitting under the one window in my bedroom. They were hidden under an heirloom quilt my grandmother had given me in college. My most recent journals were on top of the stacks. My beloved friends Teddy, Jennifer, William, and Aunt Sally all looked up at me from the ottoman in their color-coordinated composition book glory. They were the most familiar things in my room. I gathered the five notebooks into my arms and hugged them. I paused. Five? I looked down at my notebooks. I always had four journals, not five.

I started journaling when I was getting into puberty. It felt strange discussing different topics with the same journal when I first started noticing boys. Somethings I preferred to tell only a female best friend, while other topics would be better for a male best friend, or a trusted cool aunt.

Jennifer, the pink notebook, was who I’d confide in about girl stuff, like crushes, my appearance, and insecurities, things that only another woman going through growing pains might understand. Teddy, the brown notebook, was the equivalent of a male best friend. He was a safe space for me to talk about my non-girly interests that someone like Jennifer just wouldn’t get, like sports or comic books and such.

It was a bit stereotypical, but at the time it made sense to my prepubescent mind and I just stuck with it over the years.

Then there was William, the blue notebook, where I would pour out my heart replaying interactions with guys I wanted. What I said and what I should have said or wished I had said.

And last I had Aunt Sally, the green notebooks. Sometimes I needed adult advice but didn’t want to actually talk to an adult about it. So I’d write it out and figure out what my “cool Aunt Sally” would have told me I should do. As I got older I wrote less to Aunt Sally then I did as a teen, but kept her around for nostalgia.

The green notebooks were far more scattered in my ottoman than the pink, brown, and blue. For every four or five pink notebooks, there was maybe one green. But I looked down at the five notebooks in my arms, there was a purple journal with hints of glued on glitter. I glanced down into the ottoman and saw a total of two other purple journals in there that I clearly had introduced much later in the past 10 years.

My oldest journals from childhood started on the left and worked their way through high school and college, and then into my 20s and 30s. I carefully placed all the notebooks except for the purple down onto the other journals in the ottoman. I opened the first page of the purple journal to see the name Thomas neatly written on the first page and date from four months ago.

August 21, 2016

Hey Tommy,

I met with Cole again today. He showed me a history of the Wild Hunt that he dug out of his family’s library in India. Took him long enough to find it.

It’s crazy that it was coming. It was hard to wrap my head around it.  The Court could always cover up it in the past, but with social media and cameras everywhere, how will they be able to explain it?

You know I’ve been gathering the ingredients for the apartment wards so we should be safe here as long as I can convince the girls to stay in. Shouldn’t be too hard. Though according to the history the Wild hunt can be somewhat unpredictable on what night they come, they may all tumble out into our world the moment they can or they will wait for more numbers. We just know the veil is thinner on solstices, but once the ban is up the floodgates could open at any time. Cole said the Court is pretty sure it’ll be sometime in the fall season, but as it gets closer they will narrow it down.

Anyway best to prepare as best as possible. I got my talismans done already for personal protection. Plus they are super cute. I may already be wearing one…never can be too careful… or glamorous. They can’t hurt on patrols anyway. TTYL – Sarah.

Wild Hunt? Talismans? Patrols? What the Hell? I flipped forward and there were journal entries just about once a week up until the week before my accident. All apparently similar fantastical journals. I put it down and picked up Jennifer and flipped her open at random.

April 16, 2016

Dear Jennifer,

I have a bit of a steamy story to tell you. I was sitting at my desk doing some work on my computer when a hand fell on my shoulder. I turned to see that Cole seemed to come out of nowhere grinning down at me. He stuck his hand down my shirt, skin on skin, and leaned down to rub his stubbly face against my neck. He squeezed my breast and proceeded to distract me from work. I didn’t even know he was at my home at the time.

After the initial shock, I swung my chair around to look at him face to face. He was only wearing my wookie bathrobe fully open in the front. I reached forward and stood rubbing myself against him. He leaned forward and yanked off my shirt. He flipped the straps of my bra down my arms and yanked the bra lose while burying his face into my cleavage.

It was amazing, he was amazing. His lips slowly moved downward to make me moan more, I slide down to the floor as my legs couldn’t hold me upright anymore. My legs free of holding me up pulled him into me tight again. I grabbed a fist full of his hair to pull him even closer. It was an awesome afternoon delight. I leaned back panting hard as he looked down to me smiling…

I slammed the journal shut, blushing. That was not what I expected to see first off opening Jennifer. It was clearly my handwriting, but seriously? When did I start writing so… pornographically?

I wasn’t completely sure that was something that had actually happened. I didn’t usually go into that much detail when things actually happened, or I hadn’t, maybe things changed?. I did find a wookie robe when I ransacked my room, so at least that part is true. I usually would just tell Jennifer I got laid, without actual details beyond “boy was he big!” or the opposite.

Who the hell was this Cole?

I don’t remember a Cole ever visiting me in the hospital.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the contacts just in case, but didn’t see a Cole listed. There were very few names I recognized that weren’t my family or current roommates.

I pulled up my social media accounts but didn’t find a Cole that might be that…guy. So there was a very good chance this was just a smutty fantasy of a random guy I met named Cole that also happens to be part of my theoretical fantasy novel/journal?

I thought reading my journals would give me an idea of what I did the past ten years. I did occasionally have a habit of writing fantasies out, but usually to William, but without knowing the context I may end up saying something that I only fantasized about, or think something was a fantasy and it actually happened.

Amnesia sucks. I know I am going to completely embarrass myself more than once with these journals. Maybe I should just toss them out completely.

In a way, I was given a fresh start, why not make it a completely fresh start? Okay, maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Completely starting from scratch was a little too scary of a thought.

But what if all the journals were like this? What if I don’t know what’s an exaggeration, what’s real, and what’s random thoughts I put down to vent my sexual frustrations? I’m not sure if I should just throw them all out and start anew. Though they could warn me if I have done something stupid in the past or already got shot down by a guy. I really feel like either way I’m going to be paranoid and lose out.

I put the journals back into the ottoman and closed the lid. For now, I’ll leave them be, maybe tomorrow I will tackle reading them from the beginning. I just knew I wasn’t ready now.