Alicekai'd 1.28: Day at the Park

 

 

     I have another nightmare. I'm back home in the real world, and I have to do my advertising presentation. Since I've forgotten everything, it's a disaster. I get demoted. But that's not the worst part. The worst part is I can't get back to Geoffrey, and I miss him terribly. My only comfort, if you could call it that, is pathetically playing the Sims 4 so that I can see him. It's awful watching him kiss Nancy and seeing how much he loves her. She's his true love. I wake up crying.

     "Alice?" I hear, and I wonder if it's real. It sounds like Geoffrey, but it could just be wishful thinking.

 

     "Alice, baby, what's wrong?" It does sound like him. I close my eyes real tight and try to hold on to this better dream. Then I feel him lightly shaking me.

     I pull back the covers to see MY Geoffrey with a worried expression on his face. In a blink, I'm up and hugging him.

     Little laughing, hiccuping cries escape me as I squeeze him to me.

     "Bad dream?" he guesses.

     "Terrible dream." Then I realize I'm not in my pj's. I was extraordinarily tired last night, and I'd passed out on my bed, that whole 'exhaustion failure' thing. "I've been working too hard." Thank goodness it's Saturday.

     He reaches up and pets my hair. "What was it about?" From his tone, he might be thinking it was about Mark. He's REALLY not happy he and I work together on the film, but I've also been sure to let him know how much I hate it.

     I pull back and tell him about my nightmare. It's kind of embarrassing to tell him how I missed him so much that I'd play the game just to see him--but then the torture of seeing him and Nancy together made me cry.

     He's a little too quiet for comfort, and I take a peek at him to gauge his mood by reading his expression. He has a kind of puppy dog eyes thing going, but I don't know if it's for me or her.

     He sees me looking at him. "Alice..." He reaches for me.

 

     "It was only a dream."

     "I know that now, but I didn't know that when I was dreaming it."

     "Well, it's over now," he reminds me, rubbing my arm. "And there's a newborn in the next room who's ready to age up."

     I sniff. "Yeah." Toddlers. Well, that should be different. 

     But I get a surprise.

     "What?" She's a really small toddler.

     We both 'magically' spin into different outfits as I look down at my daughter. "This... explains a lot." I'd wondered about all the new baby stuff I found I could buy. She's not an infant, but she's not a toddler either. "A new expansion pack, maybe?"

     "What do you mean?" Geoffrey asks.

     I turn to him, shaking my head. "Maybe you don't want to know." And this explains the new neighborhood as well.

     He smiles, "At any rate, Bruno is bouncing off the walls, ready to go to the park." He reaches for Carlie before putting her in a carrier on his back. "Off we go, little one!"

    As I watch the two of them leave the room, I hold my head and once more ponder reality. And I ponder whether or not I WANT to ponder reality anymore. That dream certainly showed me I like this reality better.

     When we get to the park, Geoff holds Carlie in his arms and makes a beeline for a little water park thing.

     "Look, Carlie. Splash, splash, splash!" He starts splashing in the water like a kid.

     Bruno immediately went and found a little friend to play with, and I just stand here and admire everything. They did a good job with this one.

     Carlie doesn't think much of the water feature, making little aa-aa-aa-aa! noises and waving her hand in front of herself as if to get the water away from her.

     "I don't think she thinks much of the water, Geoffrey," I say with a smile.

     I'm loving this. Watching Geoffrey with my daughter does wonders for my mood. He's a natural dad. Isn't he supposed to be family-oriented? That... makes sense. I think about all the stuff about him that I tease is 'old fashioned.'

     "Aw... she just needs to get used to it. See, Carlie? It's fun!" He puts his hand in the spray of the water, making it go everywhere. Carlie screams her dislike.

     "Let's, um, let's go sit in the shade." I motion to a nearby monkey bar set.

     Bruno's friend has to go do something, so Bruno follows us to the bars.

    He bounds over to it and immediately starts swinging. "Look at me, Dad! Look at me!" He's taken to calling Geoff 'dad' instead of 'daddy' as an effort to show he's more grown up.

    "Wow, you're really good at that," Geoffrey says and smiles. Carlie looks more happy to be over here in the shade.

     I love him. It suddenly strikes me that I've never actually told him. Crap! I hope he hasn't been freaking out about that! I bite my lip as I wonder if he has.

     He looks at me and smiles, walking over to the bench and dodging his adopted son's legs as they swing back and forth.

     "Everything okay?" he asks once seated.

     "Look! I can skip a bar!" Bruno calls out.

     I respond. "That's awesome. I was too scared to do that when I was a kid."

     "Well, I'm a BIG kid." He grins and keeps showing off.

     "Alice?" Geoff tries to get my attention.

     "Everything is perfect," I tell him, answering his question.

     However, I don't know if he's totally buying it.

      "We've never really talked about Nancy. I'm sorry for that." He watches my face like the proverbial hawk, and I suddenly remember him once telling me that he could usually tell if someone's lying (S.I.M.S. training?). I wasn't really lying per se, but that dream IS still haunting the plum out of me.

     "Geoff..." I want to tell him it's not necessary, but he interrupts me.

     "No, listen. We've spoken plenty about this little tyke's father." He lightly bounces Carlie. "But you or I never bring up my deceased wife."

     My face falls. Please don't ruin today. It's been so good once that dream ended. 

     "It's fine. You don't have to." I worry it'll bring him pain. She died so suddenly after all.

     Carlie yawns and snuggles into Geoffrey's chest, getting sleepy. "It's true that I loved her," he continues anyway, "but I never... felt the connection with her that I do with you."

     "Geoff..."

     He sighs and looks down, once again ignoring my protest.

     "This was a large part of my problem... before we started dating." He wears a sad kind of smile and lightly pats my daughter's back. "I would think, 'I lose Nancy only to fall even more deeply in love with someone who doesn't want me.'"

     "That's not true," I quickly get in before I see him wipe under his eye. I want to tell him how I feel... but not in response to talking about her.

     Carlie yawns, so he moves to lay her down on the ground. A blanket magically appears out of the ether, yet another obvious sign that no one sees.

     He takes my hand.

     "That dream you had, or rather nightmare, speaks volumes to me, Alice."

      I look down. Carlie gets the hiccups, but they don't appear to bother her. I don't want to tell him after talking about my nightmare, either. 

     "You didn't want to go back to your real world, and seeing Nancy and me together brought you to tears." I can tell he's desperate for me to look at him, but I really don't like thinking about that awful nightmare. "I love YOU, Alice. Ten times more than I loved her."

     "But..." That's the first time he's said it since the end of our first date. 

     "But what?" He waits for a reply, but when he doesn't get one, he says, "Talk to me, Alice. I can't read your mind."

     Bruno's friend comes over and challenges him to a race while Geoffrey waits for me to explain myself.

     I let out a huff. "You're going to think it's stupid, but I always sort of thought of her as high society while I'm... The Britechester Hussy." I take a breath. "And her influence on you was better."

     He chuckles. "I love your influence on me."

     I roll my eyes. "Ugh!" Then I try to pull my hand free, bringing it to my side, but he doesn't let go, holding it tighter and laughing a bit louder.

     "You're not The Britechester Hussy. Please don't let me hear you call yourself that. And as far as influence goes, yeah, she kind of pushed me in that high society direction, taking full advantage of my family's name and status. But I was never really comfortable with that. All I really wanted was to go to work, come home, and be with my family." He watches me as that sinks in. "I'm saying you're better for me, Alice. No offense to her, may she rest in peace, but if there are soulmates, I firmly believe you are mine."

    A warm glow begins to fill me.

 

     "Really?" I can't stop the smile from slowly spreading across my face.

     "Shit, Alice, has it really taken this long for it to finally sink in?" He doesn't look angry, more of a happy kind of exasperated.

     "I mean I believed you, believe you, but... really?" I guess I did have lingering doubts. Like what if I'm just the runner-up prize after he lost Nancy?

     He smiles with a little shake of his head. "Really."

     He leans in to kiss me. Not a long one, but it's still a bit of a surprise considering we're out in public. And it's in front of Bruno... who doesn't indicate he noticed, probably still racing his friend on the monkey bars.

     Geoffrey Landgraab really loves me! I'm a billion times more giddy than I was that day Don Lothario asked me out.

     Geoff lets out the tiniest huff. "I mean this in the nicest way possible, but sometimes, you really make me want to shake you."

     I giggle. "I guess I have a hard time changing my mind once I've made a snap decision about something."

     His eyes squint as if trying to figure something out. "And what, precisely, snap decision are you overcoming, may I ask?"

     "Well, I mean this was ages ago, and I thought I'd gotten over it. But I guess it was still lingering in a tiny way." His expression still asks me to explain, so I do. "I'd convinced myself you hated me."

     "How in plum's name did you ever come to that conclusion?" He pauses. "Wait. Was it that day I saw you and 'him' at that pub together? When I acted like a total loon."

     "I don't think so. No, I think it was when you found out I was pregnant with another man's child."

     Bruno interrupts. "I'm going to go fishing!"

     Geoff responds, "Okay. Just be careful, and stay where we can see you."

     "Duh." He trots off.

     We get quiet. I think I ruined the mood by bringing up that Carlie is Mark's daughter, that no matter what, that will always be true. I can feel Geoff watching me, and I can't look at him. If only she were really his. 

     He speaks like he's finally putting pieces together. "You really did believe that, didn't you?"

     I nod, having gone so high to pitching so low right now almost brings me to tears.

     "So you just decided to ignore the whole 'I could never hate you' bit."

     I shrug. "People say things they don't mean all the time. It made more sense for you to hate me." I pause. "I hated myself."

     "You shouldn't, and I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you never do again."

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