Still caught up in the details of last night's dream, Billie had hardly touched her food. The memes weren’t doing their job. Nothing anyone had shared this morning had been funny. Did everyone in this place lack a sense of humor? School mandated phones had to be one of the dumbest things she had ever heard.
Hearing her brother's voice, Billie looked up to see his overly familiar face. While she was bitchy and rude to just about anyone who breathed, Nick had always been the exception. A small half-smile forming on her face, Billie sighed and sat her phone down on the table.
”I… know that we’ve both been having those weird dreams, but… last night…. Mine got even weirder. And I don’t know how to feel about it.”
The Salvador twins had always been lucid dreamers for as long as they could remember. Like most of the kids their age and especially most with a bond as close as the one they had, their dreams were often connected to each other. Maybe it played into the whole twin thing. If that’s all it was, Nicholas wouldn’t feel as disturbed about it as he was feeling right now. Seeing how bothered Billie was by it, he had to wonder just how detailed was it this time? Was there a name? Or was it just the same as it always was.
“Same dream, huh?” He sighed, turning to face Billie, his back to everyone else. “So what was weird about it?” He asked.
Leaning forward and crossing her arms to prop herself up on the table, Billie lowered her voice to make sure that no one close but Nicholas could hear her.
”So… the same girl was there, but I wasn’t in that house anymore? You know usually I have a dream where she and I are making breakfast or whatever, right? Anyway. I was with her again, but you were there too, and instead of a kitchen we were at this weird workout dance thingy and --” Realizing how fast she was talking and that she had said all of that in nearly one breath, Billie took a brief moment to calm herself so that she could hopefully talk in a pace where Nick could understand better. ”But it wasn’t just me, you and her in that setting either,” she said, knitting her eyebrows as she concentrated. ”There was this man and woman there. The guy… He had our jawline, for sure. His skin tone was like mine and when he smiled, it felt… familiar. Just like the original girl. Then the other lady…. She was pale, like you. The way she held herself sort of reminded me of how you do that kind of cocky stance with your arms crossed. It was just weird. In the dream, you acted as though you knew them, and they obviously all knew each other, and I felt like I had been there before. I just… I dunno.”
Most who knew Billie probably couldn’t follow her usual tangents, but Nicholas wasn’t most people. He not only followed and understood what she said, but as she was trying to find the point of it all, he curiously hummed, the telltale sign that he was trying to piece it together. “That’s not exactly the same,” he noted, mirroring Billie’s position as he leaned forward. “Do you think it might’ve been from one of those shows you watch? I mean, it sounds like a scene from something you’d watch.” As much as he wanted to remain serious, there was that part of Nicholas’ personality that couldn’t stop but make an unprompted, comical remark.
Her face shaping into more of a pout as she realized that her brother could be right, Billie huffed. ”No one on Grey’s has gone to Zumba,” she said, shaking her head quickly. ”That’s all I’ve been watching for weeks… I just…. I don’t get it. Why do we both keep dreaming about the same people?”
“I wish I could tell you, sis.” He breathed out another sigh, this time it was one that showcased his own disappointment about the dreams they’ve been having. He was frustrated that he couldn’t remember her either, or the others that popped into his head. Every so often, one of them would say his name, but that’s the furthest it ever went. It was the mystery he didn’t know the answers nor the questions to. It’s been like this for a few weeks and he has more or less given up on it.
Turning halfway around, though his head was still partially facing his sister, he looked around and saw some familiar faces. “Let’s not think about it right now, yeah?” He smiled at Billie, placing a comforting hand on hers. As he squeezed it, he said, “If we sit around dwelling on this mystery of our elusive dreamfolks, it’ll drive both of us up a wall. Instead, we could focus on...other things.”
Halfway into that, Nicholas’ eyes had wandered away from his sister’s face and those steel blue eyes found themselves locked with TJ’s, who sat across the cafeteria with Savannah, the pink hair-clad spitfire and Erica, the beauty who knew a few rivals but was up there. Nicholas had locked eyes with the redhead a few times since making himself home at the table with his sister. He caught her staring at him earlier. He didn’t say anything or turn around but now that he was, he couldn’t resist. There had always been something about her that drew him to her. She was always the reverse of what Frankie was: when he was even remotely close to her, he felt her warmth.
Reluctantly nodding, Billie uncrossed her arms to slide her tray off food to proper eating distance. ”Yeah… you got a point….”
Picking up the spoon and beginning to eat her oatmeal, the young woman took a bite before trying to talk again. Instead, when she looked up and saw her brother staring off into what seemed like outer space, Billie turned around to look at what had caught his attention - or rather who.
”Tyler Jane again? Seriously?” she scoffed. Scowling as she looked back at her brother, she huffed. ”Why?”
”Why you ask?” Nicholas gently laughed, gesturing his outside arm over to the table with those three objectively attractive girls and the one that, to him, stood out of the bunch. “Just look at her: that hair, her smile, and don’t even get me started on those freckles.” He glanced back at his sister. “She’s not like most girls. She can be as sweet as a red velvet cupcake but get on her bad side and you’ll find yourself at the opposite end of a kick so fierce you’d think she was secretly a kickboxer.” As he spoke, his eyes yet again fell on TJ, gazing at her with as much interest in her that he had in himself. “She isn’t anything like that other one.”
Instead of responding right away, Billie grunted, clearly unamused and displeased with her brother's answer. While the twins had always compared each others current and potential partners, they didn’t always agree. Now was one of those times. Tyler Jane had been an annoyingly perky thorn in Billie’s side ever since the start of the school year, and nothing had changed that fact so far. ”She’s obnoxious and only ever acts tough when she wants to make a scene. Come talk to me when she actually kicks someone’s ass.” Waving her hand dismissively, Billie began to eat one of the pieces of toast from her tray.
“Perhaps.”
Nicholas knew his twin didn’t exactly like Tyler Jane. It wasn’t a surprise when you really thought about it. The two couldn’t be further from being alike even if they tried. Billie, while sweet when she wanted to be, had the terrible habit of acting nasty to certain people. And while he knew Billie tried to do the right thing, sometimes she didn’t always portray that clearly. So it wasn’t a surprise that she never took a liking to TJ. Nicholas could even agree about everything Billie said while describing the cheery redhead.
“You might be right, sis. She’s everything you said and more, but there’s something you’re forgetting.” He took a final glance at TJ before turning back around, smiling at Billie. “That’s what interests me the most. The fact she is so different from all of the others. I mean, take Soleil for example.” His eyes glanced over where he saw Sol and Leo. “Is she pretty? Of course but she is a case of ‘what you see is what you’ll mostly get’.” His eyes fixated on Sol for a moment longer before returning them to his sister once again. “Don’t misunderstand me. Sol is an amazing person and she is a dear friend of mine, but as far as being interesting enough in that way, she doesn’t make the cut for me. But Tyler Jane?” He smiled, leaning his head on his raised palm. “There’s just something about her that I can’t put to words, but out of everyone here, she’s easily at the top of my list.”
Wrinkling her nose in disgust as she took another bite of her toast, Billie glared at her brother. ”Different my ass,” she grumbled. Standing up from the table, and picking up her tray, Billie allowed herself to give her brother one last small smile. ”I love you, but this TJ fest is getting on my nerves and is about to make me late for class. I gotta run. Talk to you later?”
Nicholas could only laugh at how easily bothered his sister always gets when he started talking about TJ. He didn’t talk about the redhead to piss her off. The last thing he wanted to do was anger the beast that dwelled inside her. She might appear cute and seem like she won’t hurt a fly, but the last person who incurred her wrath ended up losing three of their front teeth. “Yeah see ya later. Try not to punch out anyone’s teeth on your way.” Nicholas joked, of course, but what was truly scary about his sister is she would do just that to spite him.
As Billie had walked away, leaving most of her breakfast behind, Nicholas shook his head. He joked and teased her a lot for being so rowdy and quick to annoy, but seeing how some of her favorite breakfast foods were still left untouched filled him with a certain feeling of dread. He should have expected it in all honesty. The way she talked about that dream and how he noticed a rare tension in her limbs and her voice was less confident than it normally was, that alerted Nicholas to just how dire the matter was for her. He just hoped that she didn’t do anything foolish in her state, especially since he knows how the tiniest thing would set her off.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He had to reassure himself of that because nobody else was going to worry about Billie as much as her twin brother did.
Standing up, he took the time to snag a piece of her buttered toast. It was cold but it was still food. After the night he had, he worked up quite the appetite and Nicholas would need some energy as he found himself once again lovingly focusing on Tyler Jane. This time around he wouldn’t just stand from afar, gaze at her with peak interest. Instead, as he took a bite of the piece of toast in his hand and tossed it aside, not knowing where it landed, he eventually made his way across the cafeteria and boldly stood near the table where the girls were at.
He didn’t pay much attention to the others, though he gave them all friendly waves. “Morning girls,” he said, shooting them a friendly smile. “Lovely morning isn’t it?” He said, fixating his gaze solely on Tyler Jane. “Hey Red. You’re looking as radiant as always.”