After the phone conversation with her sister Lalique, Melanie pondered a bit; then went downstairs to get a snack. When she checked her email the pictures were there and she printed them out. Lori came in from her late class and sat down to do her class assignment. When she finished Melanie said,
“You hungry?”
“No, are you?”
Melanie shook her head.
“Get something cold to drink if you want it then; I need to talk to you.”
Lori looked curious,
“Is it something serious?”
“Could be or it might be something funny, depending on how you look at it. Either way it will be surprising.”
“I think I need a Coke.”
When Lori returned from the kitchen Melanie handed her the photos,
“Know who this is?”
Lori peered at the photos,
“No. Who is it?”
“Look a little closer. You know who it is if you can just remember.”
Lori looked again and then paused over the photo of Brian trimming the hedge; it was the closest shot of him.
“It almost looks like—it is! Oh, my gosh, it’s Brian, isn’t it,” she laughed.
"You used to call him 'your Brian'," Melanie reminded Lori, watching her closely for a reaction to this.
Lori shook her head and smiled ruefully,
"Yeah, pretty dumb, huh? Seems so long ago..."
She didn't seem to be sad though, so Melanie told Lori everything that she had learned from Lalique. Lori’s reaction was amused and quite curious, but obviously not obsessed. She was interested to hear about the band and happy that he was checking in with his folks since at one time he had dropped out of sight.
When told about Lalique’s budding interest in Brian she laughed, “Hey, if he ended up being your in-law, wouldn’t that be a kick? Go for it, Lalique!”
This last nugget of information had been Melanie’s final test for Lori. Her non-interest proved to Melanie that she was really over Brian. She should have been outraged and very jealous.
“Are you upset I withheld this stuff from you for a year?” Melanie asked.
Lori wrinkled her nose,
“No, not really. Technically I guess you should have told me then, but it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it,” she switched gears, “Now don’t forget; this Thursday the new season of Vampire Diaries starts, we have to make sure we have plenty of popcorn and Fresca ready,” Lori reminded her, handing the photos back to Melanie, “I have to work on my term paper tonight, see you in the morning.”
Melanie nodded; Lori didn’t even ask to keep the pictures.
Upstairs Lori was pleased to see she had got a text from Harvey while she was in class. She really would have liked to hear his voice but he had an early class, he was probably asleep. She sent him a text that said she he was a cutie and she missed him. It was late to start on the term paper, but she had no class until 5 pm tomorrow, it didn’t matter if she was up late.
She’d given no more thought to Brian after she came upstairs. He was like a distant dream to her now, almost like she made him up. The Brian in the pictures Lalique took did not even seem to be the same person. Harvey was all she wanted and except for classes and assignments, he pretty much filled her thoughts all the time. Just thinking about him made her smile. College life tended to make her feel distanced from Pleasantview, anyway, the campus was like a separate world.
So she was very surprised when she had a dream about Brian after she fell asleep. It was disjointed as dreams are. They were back in his sister’s apartment just like when she was 16, yet his hair was long as in the photos, and Lori was her current self. When she remembered it in the morning she blushed because while part of the dream reflected her old romanticized vision of Brian, the other part was sexually explicit and quite vivid.
"I don’t think about him at all now; don’t feel anything for him, why would I have dreamed this?” Lori wondered, “It was like some sort of porn dream for goodness sake.”
She felt almost guilty as though she really had cheated on Harvey.
After she had her shower and got dressed, she shook the dream off and was able to put it all in perspective. Naturally, she’d been surprised to hear about him, and remembered a little of how she used to feel in high school. So after working long hours on her paper when she went to bed she had a dream and he was in it; there was nothing really odd about that she told herself.
Once she saw Harvey that night after her class Lori felt completely herself again. She never mentioned the dream to anyone and put it out of her mind. There was a lot to keep her busy; they were soon going to have their finals to move on to their senior year.
Lori and Harvey had been talking about getting married for two years. They didn’t want to wait; they planned on getting married within about six months of getting their degrees. She would return home and so would Harvey, they hoped to get good jobs and then plan the wedding. Once married, they would rent an apartment or mobile home until they could save enough for a down payment on the house. Because money would be tight at first and they wanted some time to themselves, they would wait two years before trying to get pregnant. Lori had always been adamant that she wanted to remain celibate until the wedding. Harvey was mostly resigned to that now. More than ever they did not want to wait long to marry. They talked about their plans often, especially now that they were nearing their last year of college.
When it was only a few hours before their finals, Lori and Melanie were in their living room trying to keep from having nervous breakdowns. Melanie played relaxing numbers on the piano while Lori tried to read the entertainment page of the newspaper.
There was nothing to worry about, though, they passed easily and made the dean’s list again.…now there was only one more year to go. And what a year it would be…
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