Dream Of Me

  The room was dimly lit with a table in front of a large leather couch, books upon shelves and a clock perched against the wall. Each tick of time was a subtle reminder that Sam’s presence in the room was finite, and that he would say as much as he could to the therapist within his hour. The good doctor sat patiently with his notebook on his lap and pen in hand, ready for whatever was to come out of Sam’s mouth.

  “I saw her again last night,” Sam said in a tone that could only be described as exhausted. The bags under his eyes emphasized this appearance, his hair dry and unkempt.

  “You saw Lucy?” Dr. Brown says, not without interest. This particular client has found a fascinating coping mechanism for loneliness.

  “We were hanging out with Benjamin Franklin inside some kind of movie theatre… it was a nice place, old timey but cool.”

  Sam tries his best but the tears come immediately, quickly becoming sobs. Muscle memory allows him to reach for the tissues on the table in front of him, dabbing his eyes with a practiced gentleness. To this, Dr. Brown simply waits for the calm to return, where he will ask his favorite question.

  “How did that make you feel?”

  Sam laughs shakily, still attempting to control his emotions and keep a straight vocal tone. “She makes me feel real… alive!” Practically shouting the last part, desperate to make someone else truly understand what he was going through.

  No judgment, disregard or for that matter sympathy is shown by Dr. Brown. His job is to listen and to help if he can, but this particular case is something of an enigma. He has been meeting with Sam three times a week for little over a month now, and ever since he first came into his little office, things had just gotten sadder. Not to mention, stranger in every way.

  It began, according to Sam, after what might have been the most embarrassing situation Dr. Brown had ever heard in his entire life. Sam was in his freshman year of college, and as most young people do fell in love with the first pretty girl they saw. In Sam’s case, love was more like falling head over heels. Her name was Amanda, and it was with Amanda that the fascinating case of Sam the Great and Lonely was truly born.

  . . .

  Besides being tall and lanky, Sam never really possessed any outstanding characteristics. He wasn’t funny or even slightly charming, in fact he was shy and awkward in most ways that society would deem quite lame indeed. With very few friends, college seemed the perfect place to start fresh and begin a new life, one which would bring him at least a semblance of happiness, or at least the possibility of being so. It was within his first week of school when he saw her, blue eyed, blonde, and absolutely stunning.

  They were outside the student commons, a watering hole for students and faculty alike, where coffee and sandwiches could be enjoyed between classes. Sam was sitting with his buddy Nick, who despite his chronic asthma smoked Camel after Camel with his coffee and friend. It was then that Sam saw her, walking out of the commons with an entourage of girls behind her; Amanda Parker. She was the most beautiful girl Sam had ever seen, and within that instant he fell into complete and total infatuation with her.

  “Yea fuckin right dude! She’s like a freaking ten. She won’t give you the time of day let alone her number,” Nick laughed, lighting another cigarette. He had only just started smoking last week, under the false impression that it made him look not only more mature, but cooler as well.

  “I don’t care,” replied Sam. He was in a trance, his voice just above a whisper, the sound of a person witnessing a biblical event or an actual miracle. He stood up, taking a few steps toward the direction in which his new found love walked, just so he could get a mere glance of her for a little longer. Butterflies in his stomach would be an understatement; these were bats with razor blades for wings flapping around in his gut. His head swam and his legs literally trembled.

  A smile ran across Sam’s lips, an unfamiliar presence in an otherwise vacant expression. All he knew was that as long as he lived, he was going to love this girl, a girl who’s voice he hadn’t even heard and name was yet to be discovered. In the time it took for this epiphany to occur, she was already out of sight, but certainly not out of mind.

  Over the next week, he had not only learned her name, but where she was from and what she was majoring in. He found out she loves horses, that she enjoyed long walks on the beach, her zodiac sign, and everything else that can be learned through word of mouth or the advantages of social media.

  Now Sam was not exactly stalking her, but one could easily presume that he was crossing into a rather sketchy world of obsession. The only thought that came into his mind when he woke up and the last thing before falling asleep, was that of Amanda Parker.

  As the semester continued, his fascination for the girl not only evolved but mutated. Painfully knowing that she was not even slightly aware of his existence, the fear of rejection finally became outweighed by the total and utter need to not only meet her, but to make the best first impression possible.

  Among the many aspects Sam had deduced about Amanda’s hobbies and interests, the most promising was that she was a part time lifeguard at the college pool. A place not only totally public, but where anyone could go and possibly impress the girl of their dreams. To do this, careful preparation and all out devotion had to first be accomplished.

  He started going to the gym constantly, doing full body workouts in the attempt to make himself look as good as humanly possible in the short time he had, considering he did not want to wait any longer than he had to. Impatience, it seems, is only one of the many downfalls of love in the case of Sam the Tall and Lanky. But no matter how hard he trained, his biology did not seem capable of allowing him to build any noticeable muscle, making him aesthetically underwhelming.

  Therefore, he began to eat as much food as the cafeteria could offer, drinking whey protein three times a day for maximum effort. A dirty bulk is better than no bulk according to the infinite wisdom of the internet, so whether it was ice cream at night or sloppy Joe’s in the morning, Sam continued his desperate mission to look his best for the big day.

  When that day finally arrived, Sam’s courage and confidence were at an all-time high. Within the two weeks of training and stuffing his face, he had gained exactly five pounds, examining himself in the mirror with nothing but pride and excitement. After a shave of his premature stubble and a neat haircut from the day before, he decided his looks were the best they were possibly ever going to be.

  In order for him to look as pumped as possible, he hit the gym and put up as much weight as he could, going hard and fast against the assorted weights. To avoid looking bloated, he decided to skip breakfast and just have coffee so he could be as mentally sharp as possible. Fully caffeinated and ready to go, he went back to his dorm room to grab his bathing suit, a man on a mission of love. This was going to be the first day of the rest of his life, and he knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The pool was part of the same compound as the gymnasium, where Sam walked briskly towards the men’s locker room. A quick change from his clothes to his bathing suit was all that was needed for his nerves to totally backfire on him. Nervousness gave way to actual fear, holding him in place and making his stomach do a backflip. His heart racing, he kept moving despite the paralysis that had grasped him by the proverbial balls. When he reached the door which led to the swimming pool, his adrenaline was much closer to debilitating anxiety, and yet he kept moving. He opened the door, stepped inside, and there she was.

  She was a picture of absolute splendor, sitting atop the lifeguard stand in a red single piece bathing suit, the quintessential Baywatch babe the world has since made stereotypical yet firmly possible. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, sunglasses and a whistle around her neck to bring it all together in a neat package of perfection, Amanda Parker looked like a goddess. Sam stood mesmerized, momentarily forgetting that he too could be seen. In this case, gawking at the lifeguard.

  With his best impersonation of someone who just casually walked in to get some good cardio, Sam made his way to the far edge of the pool trying to look as alpha as possible. The water itself was not overly packed, but enough students were in and around it to make Sam aware of how well he blended in. This is exactly what he didn’t want. His wish was to be seen and admired by the love of his life, so he started with a light, albeit exaggerated stretch before jumping in.

  The dive was fine, his resurface equally so, but he immediately regretted not having goggles. His eyes were instantly affected by the chlorine and his vision was blurred to borderline blindness. The water was colder than expected, already feeling a shiver in his spine.

  He looked around to regain his sight, treading water. Sam saw only a few people in the pool doing laps, and he snuck a glance at Amanda to make sure he was within her view. Starting simple, the breaststroke seemed the appropriate way to begin his way across, bringing him closer with each movement to the goddess herself. As he approached the other side, Sam looked up and by God she was looking at him! Just for a moment, but she actually saw him, boosting his confidence to a dangerous new level.

  Kicking off the wall, he began a powerful backstroke with a calm and calculated look. His eyes were still not completely up to speed, but he powered through discomfort and made his way back to his starting point, completing his first lap. Not being the strongest swimmer in the world, Sam was quite happy with his performance. So happy in fact that he barely noticed how fast his heart was actually beating, or how wiped out he already was from his previous workout. This did not deter him in any way, and he began yet again towards the other side of the pool.

  Lap after lap, Sam swam and looked up, swam and looked up, his eyes getting all the more blurred. It got to a point where he would try and look at Amanda and would just see indistinguishable features and bright lights. The silver lining however, was that everyone else had finished their laps and Sam was now the only person in the water, and he was going as hard and as fast as he could. This is it! He thought with triumph. It was then, whilst in the dead center of the pool the cramp in his stomach hit.

  It was as quick and sudden as it was intense, the spasm in his left side shocking him to his very core. Wincing, he attempted to regain his momentum, but to no avail. Taking a deep breath of what was supposed to be air, Sam gulped in a substantial amount of water, an unpleasant surprise for even the most experienced of swimmers. Panic struck him, and he began to flail. Within a shockingly short amount of time, Sam was drowning.

  Up and down his head came, in and out of the water gasping for oxygen but taking in water instead, the sinking process began. He thought he heard someone say, “Hey! That guy-somebody should- what the…”

  That was the last thing he perceived. Darkness took hold of him as he sank deeper and deeper into the abyss…

  The next thing he knew, Sam was on dry land with something punching him in the chest, quite violently in fact. His eyes shot open, and he puked out an immense amount of water that made his head spin. Gasping, he looked around and saw a crowd of onlookers all around him, their faces still blurry to his readjusting eyes, a muffle of noises caked his confused ears.

  Once his eyes finally began to work again, he saw her. There she was, kneeling besides him with her hands on his chest, her face that of a heroic angel of lore. He smiled, but she did not return it. The sounds coming from around him cleared, why was everyone laughing? And what, dear God, was that smell?

  . . .

  “You shit yourself?” Dr. Brown had asked, after the first time hearing the tale from the hapless young man. Sam’s head was slumped, a hand covering his eyes in shame and embarrassment. Despite himself, the good doctor had to cover his own mouth to hide a small smile. A mere crap of the pants is not what happened… oh no.

  It turns out, according to not only Sam but to every single person on campus, a large portion of the pool itself had been defiled, not just Sam’s swimming trunks. When he had passed out, his sphincter had opened up entirely and let out a voluminous plume of explosive diarrhea, creating an underwater cloud of fecal matter. Which of course, the only lifeguard on duty had no choice but to dive into the waste and bring out the drowning boy. By the time Amanda had brought Sam back to the surface, they were both covered in filth from head to toe.

  Dr. Brown was reminded of the scene from The Sandlot, where the little boy pretended to drown in order for the beautiful lifeguard to give him mouth to mouth, a perfectly harmless and oddly cute performance. This could not be further from the truth for dear old Sammy boy. It turns out that bulking on nothing but sloppy joe’s and whey protein, not to mention consuming a large cup of coffee being the natural laxative that it is, was not the wisest of combinations for the young romantic.

  Things only got worse from there being in the modern age that we live in. Phones came out of the pockets and purses of any and all students witnessing the event, immortalizing the spectacle with a swift and painful permanence. The nicknames came after.

  “Shitty Sammy” was one of the less clever ones, or “Sam the Swimmer” not so bad when out of context. The combination certainly modified the two, making him “Sam the Shitty Swimmer” which of course does have a certain ring to it. The one that Dr. Brown thought was the most humiliating was “Sam the Squid” or more simply put, “The Squid”. This charming epitaph was created after a senior saw the video of Sam and simply said, “dude, that guy totally INKED in the pool!” The social death of Sam the Squid began, bringing him into a deep depression of isolation and degradation.

  It was at some point in Sam’s humiliation when he began to keep to himself as much as possible, doing his best to survive the not so silent snickering in each and every class he attended. Even the teachers seemed to stifle their laughter if they called on him for a quick question about whatever the topic at hand was. Regardless, he kept to his studies and did the best he could. Anytime he saw Amanda on campus, he would change the direction of his path immediately, which was somehow the worst part. Knowing that now, surely, he would never be with her.

  Once Sam had told Dr. Brown all of this in their first session, the good doctor assured him that nothing is permanent, and that everything feels like the end of the world at such a young age. Even though that was not a lie, it did seem rather apocalyptic to the much older therapist.

  “You have gone through a trauma Sam, a rather harsh one to be honest, but now is the time to heal. To learn how to deal with your problems in the healthiest way possible. This is a great first step, talking about it!” Dr. Brown told him, with all the optimism of someone who didn’t force the love of their life to swim through an ocean of shit.

  “That’s not really why I’m here doc… I don’t care about any of that anymore. It has been hard, but something happened to me along the way. More like…someone.” Sam with his head still low and hand covering his eyes was not exactly the most convincing picture of a recovered trauma victim. Yet Dr. Brown’s interest had indeed peaked.

  “Oh yeah? And who is this certain someone?”

  Sam lifted his head, and looked him straight in the eye with a glance that could stop a clock dead. He opened up completely, telling Dr. Brown everything that had happened to him since the pivotal pool incident. How he avoided people at all costs, did his best to maintain his grades, and how he began to sleep more and more in order to escape the pains of reality. To sleep… perchance to dream.