"—little on the off side if you know what I mean." I woke up in a faded grey room with blandish grey curtains blocking the grey light. It was a room filled with nick-nacks of unimportance to me and white lab coats moving this way and that. When I began to sit up, I noticed I was in a clinic. The doctor himself was facing away, messing with whatever was occupying him on the counter.

"Do you think it has something to do with her friend?"

"It's a possibility."

"Hey," I spoke, trying to gain their attention. The doctor and the woman standing by the door turned around, showing their deep fake blue eyes and their off-colored brown hair.

"Where am I?" I muttered. "Where's Sam, and Cecile?" I began to get out of the false white bed. The two exchanged worried glances—the woman came up to me.

"We found you on the road not seven miles away from your broken car," she huffed. "I mean, we were surprised you made it that far." I looked around, refusing to make eye contact with her. There was a window. Maybe—maybe I can jump out of it if we're not too high up.

"You're telling me it was all a dream?" The doctor pulled out his clipboard and started scribbling notes down.

"If you were traumatized by this event, Jasmine, I can prescribe you a one-month therapy session every Tuesday and Thursday—"

"—my name is Rose, and I don't need therapy!" The doctor looked up with a tired look. He wasn't having any of what Rose was spouting out.

"Ms. Dogwood, please."

"Well, tell me what happened to my friend isn't true! My mother? Tell me that was a dream too!" I started to panic. This had to be another dream. Was I really knocked up on shrooms out in the wilderness? Was it just a fever dream? Was that reality? Is this reality?

"I'm sorry to say, Ms. Dogwood, but your parents are dead. . .and Tracy." I instantly got up at the sound of my friend's name. It was coming back to me—the reality I once lived. The doctor started as I rushed to the door and paused.

"Ms. Dogwood," he condescendingly scolded.

"Jasmine, where're you going?" The woman asked. I turned.

"Just. . .give me a minute." In the bathroom, everything was bland white all over again. I stared at myself in the mirror until the face in the glass separated from my body. It was a woman standing there with straight long black hair as dark as midnight and dark circles beneath her deep pitch-black eyes. Who was this woman? Certainly not me. I waited for the mirror to transport me back into the memories, but it never did.

The doctor made sure I left with a promise that I would attend therapy sessions at least twice a week, and I did. Did they help? No, but my psychologist did help me get a job at a floral shop downtown. Life was okay. Until my damn therapist said I had to confront my problems which he diagnosed was Sam's life. I did worry for Sam, but I kept telling my therapist it was just a fever dream. Or was it? I talked it out with my new friend Darcy at the floral shop. She believed it was real.

"But how do you know that, Darcy?" Darcy was a pixie girl with short, black hair dyed a light, pink blonde, and wild green eyes. She jumped for joy at anything which jangled her dangling pair of dove earrings. The pink floral shop was the most overwhelming, over sensual, pinkish sweet candy in the entire universe, and Darcy fit right in. Her puffy lips were always a different shade of purple.

"I know you, Rose. We all fall in love once, but you like to think life ended this way because of some man and his jealous woman." She jumped up on the counter and started swinging her legs. I stared off in the distance letting my gears turn. Then, it came to me.

"Darcy!" I burst. "Do you have a map?" Darcy paused.

"Well, sure I do. I have one in my car—"

"Give me your keys," I held out my hand.

"Did you remember your sweetheart?" She cooed, and I rolled my eyes.

"He's married, Darcy, but I have to help him."

"Well, don't let me stand in the way of your destiny," Darcy smirked and dropped the keys into my hand.

I was glad to have left the shop once and for all. I decided it didn't matter if I succumbed to those memories because helping Sam was the only purpose I had in life. I pulled the map out from the glove compartment and opened it over the dashboard and on my lap. My eyes ran up and down the green specks until I found the little green patch by the bay. There. I drove for hours and hours until I came to the line of trees that looked familiar. Driving down the path, I started to see splotches in my vision as the changing light filtered through the trees, shimmered across the pavement. Then, the trees all became one blur, and the world turned upside down.

—-

Rose drove up to the house, but she barely recognized it because of how nice it looked compared to when she left. Sam's blue Cadillac was still at the bottom of the fountain, and she parked right behind it. The wind picked up as she traversed up the gravel path, sending sickly warm air onto her sweaty neck. As she jumped up the stairs, they creaked as usual, and the dark wooden door was splintered like before. Rose couldn't help but smile when Sam opened the door.

"I like what you did to the place, Sam," she chirped. Sam's quirky smile lit up at her presence.

"We only fixed the windows if that's what you're referring to." Sam let Rose come into the hall where the dark, green seventies nightmare carpeting and wallpaper had attacked the house. However, by then the color had faded a bit.

"Who's that, Sam?" Rose immediately recognized Cecile's worried, wavering voice. Sam suddenly wrapped his arms around Rose's neck and laid his head on her shoulder.

"It's our love, Rose, pooh-bear." Cecile emerged from the kitchen wearing a yellow warm dress that reflected the setting sun's rays coming in through the window nicely at the top of the stairway. The house was still dusty with particles floating in the deep yellow-orange sunlight.

"Sam, let go of her please."

"No," Sam muffled childishly into Rose's shoulder.

"I said, let go of her." Cecil's tone stayed constant to that of a mother scolding a child until she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Let go, God damnit!" She jabbed her fingers into Sam's cheek making him let go and yelp like a wounded dog. He then sulked to the bottom of the stairs, dragging Rose along with him.

"They'll be here any minute now, Sam!" Cecile broke down mid-sentence and left to the kitchen with her hand dabbing her glistening wet eyes.

"I love ice cream," Sam whispered in Rose's ear, caressing her youthful hands. Then, he sat up straight and faced toward the kitchen.

"Darling-smoo, can I have some ice cream?" He sang.

"Dammit, Sam, no." Sam turned back to Rose giggling like a lunatic. His eyes were wild but innocent. His laugh was jarring but sweet.
He bent down to Rose's ear again and whispered:

"I'm the emperor of ice cream." He said it as if it were a secret that no one must know. "Promise me not to tell." He pressed his forehead to rest his head against Rose's and began to bite his lips until they bled. Rose refused to look him in the eye.

The sun's yellow rays clouded them like a veil of light, transcending past their arms and legs. Sam's body began to glow a light gold under the sun, and his eyes caught the golden disks in his pupils. They came for Sam, dragging him away. Rose pleaded and screamed at them, but they couldn't hear her. They left through the portal they came through and disappeared with him the moment they came. Rose started to cry. She failed. She failed trying to help him. Anger boiled inside of her as she stared down Cecile who calmly drank her coffee in her red mug, reading the newspaper as if nothing had happened. Rose slammed her fists onto the table.

"Why the hell'd you do that?" Cecile didn't speak but pushed a letter toward her across the table. It was a red innocent letter with pristine white paper that spoke of a hospital. Rose began to cry again.

"Why?" She mumbled beneath her tears. Cecile didn't answer. Rose grunted with anger.

"Why?!" She screamed, banging the table with her fists. Cecile didn't speak, yet she pushed across a piece of paper written in red ink the address.