Another World

When Desiré Parker wakes up from her alarm, her eyes are dry, but she can get one of them open. She’s still in the same bed that she went to bed in. The short twenty-three-year-old figured. She’s never remembered a dream. In fact, she believes that she just doesn’t dream.
Des gets up out of her bed and half feels her way out of her bedroom and to the bathroom. As soon as her calloused fingertips tips touch the familiar white bottle, she smiles. Luckily, she remembered to tell them that she wears contacts. This reminded them about her eyes and handed her the bottle of drops and the black framed glasses they made in advanced for her. She was surprised they thought ahead for her of all people. It’s not like she’s special. She’s just a normal girl that just graduated college and was looking for a job as an English teacher. She’s nothing special. She’s just Des.
The drops are like caffeine for her eyes. As soon as the liquid hits her hazel orbs, she already feels awake. The brunette’s now wet eyes travel to the mirror in front of her. She frowns at what she sees. There are scars and scabs on her face and no top eyelashes. She sighs. Des wishes that she could stop. She really does, but scratching and pulling have plagued her since she was a pre-teen.
To hide her habit, she covers her face with a bunch of concealer and face powder. She’s so thankful that the apartments came with makeup. Since Des knows that she’ll be wearing white skinny jeans and a white T-shirt, she decides to wear light brown eyeshadow with a little bit of black in the crease like she was taught. To make her lack of eyelashes unnoticable, she puts on black eyeliner. Des nods her head in approval.
She brushes her teeth before applying light lip gloss. Des also puts on deodorant and then her clothes. The last thing she does before grabbing her stuff and leaving is brush her hair and slip on her white shoes.
~
Cassandra Pickens wakes up from her alarm with no expression on her face. The brunette doesn’t have an option when it comes to all of this being a dream. She doesn’t know how bad this dimension will be. She did have a bad experience with a certain lanky boy yesterday, but her own dimension was nowhere near perfect.
The brunette gets up off her head and makes her way over to her closet. There isn’t much to choose from, so she just goes by the length of the shirt. There is a short-sleeved one where the bottom goes past her butt. The thought makes her blush and think of earlier. No one has ever said something like that to her. She really doesn’t know what to think about that...
Cassandra goes back to her closet and grabs a pair of white jeans. She looks at her outfit. It looks good enough to go to work in. Cassandra takes the clothes into the bathroom and turns the shower on. When it’s warm enough she steps inside and starts to wash. Her eyes stay straight in fear of seeing the scars,
~
When the group of friends reach the sidewalk outside, Des and Cassandra wave to their friends as they turn right by themselves. Des thanks the Great Goddess since those guys had given everyone a map of the area when they got their job information. The shorter of the two girls is terrible at directions. Plus, it’s not like she’d ask Cassandra about it. They normally don’t talk. Des understands though because she used to be quiet too and not trust people. She knows that there is something else, but it’s not her business. If the other girl wanted her to know, she would have told her.
The elder constantly looks back and forth from the street signs and the map. She’s pretty sure that they are heading the right way. Her assumptions are proven correct when she spots The Hangout. She walks towards it with Cassandra right on her heels, and as soon as Des enters, she regrets walking so fast towards it.
It’s the same as in her dream which means that she smells coffee. The short girl really hates coffee. She hates it with a burning passion. Well, unless it was a frappé from McDonalds, but it’s not like they have those here. Her eyes scan the inside to take in all the details that she may have not noticed before. The building is quite small. To the left of the door starts a line of tables that go all the way to the far right corner. It seems like those coffee houses that she’s seen in movies. In front of the door is the counter but not just the counter...
Des’s eyes go wide, and she can feel herself start to go nervous. The guy behind the counter is the same guy that she thought was cute. The roots of his hair is brown, but all of the hair going up is blond, and don’t get her started on his eyes. She’s never seen such blue eyes even though they are glazed over. They’re absolutely beautiful. They look like those perfect ones that she’d see sometimes when she glanced at her sister’s Facebook. They’re like those eyes that you think could only be contacts. That’s how perfect they are. From what she can see, he’s wearing a red polo shirt with an apron overtop. Since when was it possible for a guy to even pull off a polo shirt?
The cute blond spots the two of them and watches as Des slowly goes up to the counter with Cassandra behind her. He smiles at them and is about to ask what they would like, but he doesn’t even get any words out because Des is answer for him.
“We’re the new employees here.” When she finished saying “here”, her voice squeaked. Her hands cover her mouth. Never in her life has that happened to her.
“Um, hi,” he says with his eyes looking at his hands. “I was expecting you.” He looks back up at them, and Des swears that he’s blushing just like she is, but that can’t be. Guys like never like her. In fact, she’s only had two boyfriends in all of her twenty-three years of living. “Why don’t you come back here?”
The two girls comply and go behind the counter. Cassandra notices a familiar face also behind there, but she doesn’t say anything about it. The blond grabs the two aprons that he had under the counter and hands one to each other them. They both make quick work putting them on. Des especially, but her nervousness makes it hard for her, and it ends up getting all messed up. She hears the cute guy chuckle at her, and she has never heard anything cuter in her life.
“Do you need help there?” he asks.
“No thanks,” she answers back, her cheeks becoming redder by the second. “Just give me a second.” With another attempted, she gets it on. “There we go.” Her hazel eyes go back to the blond’s. Is he nervous about something? What could he be nervous about?
“Well, at least it’s on now. I’m Niall by the way.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Desiré, but you can call me Des, and this is Cassandra. She doesn’t really like talking or contact.”
“She can work with Liam then and make coffee or wipe up the tables then. That way she won’t have to talk to anyone.”
“Wait, did you say ‘Liam’?”
“Yeah, he’s right there.” Niall pokes to the very familiar face. Liam notices that his name was spoken, turns to them, and gives them a wave before going back to what he was doing. “Do you know each other?”
“He’s actually our neighbor.”
“Really? So, you must have met Harry too.” Although no one notices it, Cassandra cringes from the name.
“Yeah, we did. He’s really... friendly.”
“Yeah, all of us are pretty friendly but Zayn. He’s not very trusting, but compared to the rest of the world, we’re the nicest guy you’re going to meet.” He whispers the next part. “Most people around her are snobs. That’s why our little gang is so close.”
“I get it completely. Not everyone was nice from my dimension either.”
“Speaking of your dimension, do my clothes look ok? I want to say about five years ago, the government started researching your dimension and the fashion caught on to the younger generation.”
“Looks fine to me. Looks better than what I’m wearing.”
“Before these clothes, everyone wore white in this area. Different colors for different areas.”
“Speaking of areas, you have like an Irish accent when everyone else here has a British accent.”
“What’s that? Oh, well, I was born in a different area, and I moved here. I assume that ‘British’ and ‘Irish’ are your versions of our accents?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, our dimension were the closest to each other, so it makes sense if things are the same. I read that the big similarity is that both of us call our planets ‘Earth’.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I’m not very fond of lying.”
“Holy shit. That’s pretty fucking badass.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Silence fills the air. The shop isn’t busy since it just opened not long ago and it’s early, and it’s not like Liam and Cassandra, who is now helping him, are talking. Des can feel her heart beat faster. She has no idea what else to talk about. He’s so cute, and she likes to talk to him. They just met, but he’s already giving her butterflies. However, she’s just too damn shy, and unknowing to her, so is he.
They end up just giving each other smiles before Niall just tells her what to do, and she follows. It may smell terrible in there, but the work is easy. The whole time, though, the short brunette is trying to think of what to say to him. She doesn’t have much experience with real boys even though she says the most perverted jokes. She gets it all from reading. Only one of her exes was like a real boyfriend, and that didn’t even last a month. (She didn’t like him anyway.) She really wishes that she had some confidence, but sadly, she has zero.
After a long but easy day of work, it’s time to close up. Des knows that she’ll see the cute blond tomorrow, but she still wishes that she had said something more. Liam has already left, and Cassandra walks out of the building. Des is about to follow suit, but a voice stops her.
“Um, Des.”
The twenty-three-year-old turns around to find Niall and his cute puppy-like face. “Yeah?”
“I was wondering if maybe you’d...”
“Um, yeah?”
“... And the rest of your little gang would want to hang out with mine sometime.”
“Oh, um, sure. I’m down with it. I can ask and see if anyone else can.”
“Nice. I don’t know if Zayn will want to, but I know that Harry and Louis will really want to. Um, did they give you a cellphone?”
Des pulls the black touchscreen phone out of her pocket. “Yeah, they gave us all one.”
“Maybe we can exchange numbers... you know, so I can text you when we can meet up.”
“Um, sure.”
Des hangs the device over to the blond, and he puts in his number along with putting her number in his phone. The whole time, she feels her cheeks become warmer the longer she’s by him. Again, she swears that he’s blushing too, but that can’t be right. A cute guy like him would never go for a girl like her. She has too many scars.
When their phones have each other’s number, Niall gets her a smile and a wave and sends her off. She returns the gestures before catching up with Cassandra. The entire walk home, she just can’t stop thinking of him. She doesn’t know if it’s his eyes, his laugh, or his smile that she likes the most about him. However, she, again, starts to just think of all of her flaws. Yeah, why would anyone like that like her?

Notes