Dreaming Of You // If I'm Still Dreaming

Maybe I should have avoided this a little longer, as what happened in Paris is still too fresh to me, but once I got the link from Alicia I knew I needed to read it. Knowing what Fan Fiction is all about I never thought somebody could imagine me like this, as a homeless person. No wonder this girl caught Jeanne’s attention. I can’t believe she’s gone from this world, and that what remains for random people to learn about her is this story she wrote about me. I feel so honoured to deserve such words and this unconditional love she gave me even when I didn’t know who she was. Because time is love. I’ve got to acknowledge it myself recently.

I would give anything to have known about this girl when she was still alive, just to be able to thank her. Right now, beside moved, I feel so humble. I am who I am because of her and because of many other girls like her. But this one is special. I want to understand that when she wrote her story, she wasn’t only thinking about my looks. Yes, she probably fancied me, but at least she thought of me to speak of meaningful things, things beyond appearances. And the idea comforts me somehow, and brings some peace to my soul.

I never wanted my career to be based just on looks, but I’m aware that how I look is the only thing the fans know for sure about me. So when even being into my looks they manage to bring something exceptional or simply unexpected, as this girl did––having me grabbing a book, making me doing stuff other than the same old romantic cliché––well, it helps me to believe people aren’t just interested in my love life, and that they will still be there if I stop being hot or somebody more desirable arrives to the scene. I need to believe this. I need to believe there’s something more, that my bond with the fans is deeper. It’s the only thing that keeps me thinking I’ll have a career in this business after One Direction, and that there’s a meaning for all the things I give up on a daily basis to do what I do, even if it’s not brain surgery but entertaining people. I need to believe this as never before.

I straighten up in my seat. Of course I would get a bit emotional. How couldn’t I? Being around this website brings way too many memories. I quickly close the tab, and shut down my laptop to set it away. I glance around, breathing deeply, trying to prevent my hands from trembling. Spring is blooming in Northern England… Maybe I should have gone to LA, but for some reason I needed to be here, as it is still the only home I have. A few more days are left before I return to the tour in Cardiff. Part of me needs the distraction, but another part of me dreads it, because even if I manage to be collected, I’m not healed. My family is pretty worried, as I resemble a cat, constantly licking my wounds. They have that look in their eyes, especially my mum. Nonetheless, maybe because they sense what I’m certain of––that I’m stuck in the moment when Jeanne pronounced those fateful words––they haven’t asked almost any question. They have given me space to mourn, and I’m grateful.

I needed to know the truth, but I’m still not capable of managing the fact that she doesn’t love me. It is the most painful reality I’ve ever faced, but strangely, it’s also the biggest relief. Because even if I miss her as badly as before, at this moment, when the agony and the doubts are finally over, when I don’t expect anything from her, now I know for sure that I love her. This is pure, plain, unselfish love… I know it hadn’t been this way all the time, but the outcome had made me realise how deeply she touched me. For a while I thought I had turned into Swann and acted as if Jeanne was my problem instead of my love… Jeanne being this alluring creature, denying herself to me, not wanting to be who I wanted her to be, not willing to be mine. Now, even if it sounds crazy, knowing that she is happy in Moscow doing what she loves makes me feel better, because her happiness is more important to me than my own. I want Jeanne to be happy even if it’s not with me, even if my heart breaks for the thousandth time just at the thought of it. I couldn’t be feeling this if it was obsession, and it comforts me. I have a chance to be able to let her go now. I don’t want to because I love these memories too much… But I can’t linger here for the rest of my life, even if it’s all I want. I know I’ll get to a point when memories simply won’t be enough. I don’t even have a picture of us together…

“It’s been a while since we made a family trip,” mum claims as she sits next to me, taking me out of my meditations. I lazily turn to face her, my hands over my chest. She just wants to cheer me up. “We could go to Clevedon Pier…” She suggests. Clevedon Pier? Where does she get her ideas?

“I went there a year ago and it wasn’t the time of my life.” I know I should be more attached to ‘You And I’ video, as we just won a Brit Award because of it and the fans love it, but I can’t manage to be fond of it. “I don’t want to go to Clevedon Pier,” I say, turning away.

“Maybe, but I was talking as a family–––she asserts. I thought it could be a good thing, as it was your first family trip.” She taps my hand repeatedly, but I squint at her.

“I don’t think I knew that.” Mum smiles lovingly and glimpses down.

“It's the kind of things mums remember…” She mumbles, coming to pinch my chin. I can’t help but smile her back, as she rubs her palm on my cheek. “So, what do you think? Just Gemma, you and me.” She seems excited, but I don't know. “You are like your father, Harry–––she shakes her head ‘no’ and folds her arms across her chest–––He didn’t want to go either but it was June and I was bored, constantly at home taking care of a toddler and a newborn–––she explains. I insisted so much I finally convinced him. You were just a tiny little baby…” She gestures with her hands. At her wilful tone I can’t help but chuckle. “I keep a lovely memory from that trip,” she carries on, turning away as she looks towards the sky. Somehow her voice has changed, sounding far more deep. “It was a beautiful sunny day and Gemma befriended a lovely girl a bit older than her. Your dad got jealous because her father was quite a charmer…–––she giggles foolishly, taking a hand to cover her mouth. He was a photographer.” Something stirs inside me. “And they were foreigners.” I can’t help but bounce in my seat. “French, I think…” I go absolutely weak. My head is spinning around; my hands are sweaty. “He wanted to take a picture of his daughter and Gemma, but your sister got grumpy because, when she saw you, the little girl just wanted to hold you. So we let him take a photo of the two of you…”

“What?” I could die right now, but mum doesn’t seem to realise as she keeps looking up, all dreamy.

“Yes, she was completely besotted with you, and she had quite a character for being so young–––she explains, amused. She insisted to carry you until she got away with it–––she shrugs, coming to look at me. Such a cute girl with a long fringe and her funny accent, repeating polite forms after her dad.” Jeanne… “I had never admitted this and I’ll deny it if it comes up–––she ironises–––but I was sort of flattered by his attention… He was absolutely dashing… I was so young when you were born. I almost didn’t have a life before I meet your father. I had never known a man like this… He resembled a jazz player from those old records–––she laughs. His hair was a bit long and messy, and he kept pulling it from side to side.” Mum turns away, making her body fall heavily against the back of the bench. My eyes are burning as I stare at her in disbelief. “When your father left to take Gemma to the car he asked for our address to send me the photo.” This can’t be real…

“Did he send it?” I snap, standing up, anxiousness growing from the pit of my stomach.

“Of course he did–––mum claims as if it was an obvious matter. I even kept the envelope with the letter.” A letter?

“Show me!” I practically shout, losing my patience as she doesn’t move and just stays there giggling to herself over a crush on Jeanne’s dad… This cannot be possible.

“I don’t know where it is, Harry–––she complains, lifting her arms in a gesture of exasperation. More than twenty years had passed since then… Maybe when I moved the photo albums to get pictures for your video I put the boxes in the attic.”

Without an explanation I rush inside the house, climbing each flight of the staircase until I reach the attic. When I was younger I used to come here all the time. I start to look around for boxes, moving things chaotically. The dust makes me sneeze, but I find the albums, so I sit on the floor. I pass the pages back and forth, looking for an envelope and a black and white photo of a girl holding a baby… Nervousness is about to make me collapse, but I have to keep searching. I need to find it… I’m a mouse inside a maze all over again, always chasing her, always trying to get to her. How could this be happening to me? I throw an album apart, as it’s not there. I open the next one, and after two pages there’s a white envelope full of stamps. My hands are shaking. I push my hair aside. It has to be it…

Retour à l’expediteur: Didier Mars, 143, Avenue Émile Zola, 15ème arrondissement, Paris. France.

I take the photo from the album… It’s the same I saw hanging at the art studio in ‘La biguine.’ It was me, the baby that made me look for a name, the one I thought could be a sibling… But the baby was me… How could this even be possible? I don’t recognise myself… I watch it closely. It is black and white. Who took black and white pictures in 1994? I couldn’t even tell if it’s a boy or girl. And all babies have pouty lips… There was no way I could have thought it had anything to do with me. I go look at the back. It just says something about Clevedon Pier. But there was something different written down their copy. Something about a ‘coup de foudre’… I'm barely able to hold back the tears. I open the envelope and begin to read the letter, trembling from head to toe.

Dear Madame: As I said I would, I send you the picture of our sons. I don’t know how it happened. I think it was love at first sight. You see, Jeanne has the best of my wife, her intuition. She got deeply attached to your baby and she hadn’t done other than talk about him since we returned from England. Somehow it moved me to have her asking me ‘est-ce-que je peux le garder, papa ?’ while she held him around her little arms. ‘Can I keep him?’ There are many ways to love as individuals on this earth, but I hope one day she’ll learn that love is not about possession, but about freedom, for the highest gesture of love is the gesture of a mother letting go of the one she loves the most. Because as parents we know that sooner or later we’ll have to let them go to experience the world by themselves. Because we don’t know how long we’ll be around, as life is this unexpected force, this unexpected magic.

I pull the letter to my chest, closing my eyes tightly, my expression changing into sorrow. Hot tears start to stream down my face. How could this be possible? How could this be possible and mean nothing? How can I have a letter from her father? He’s talking about me and about her and about love… And there is a living bearer of those memories, my mum. How could this even be real? It has to be a dream… This has to be me crying inside a dream.

–.–.–

I wake up startled and with my heart racing. I don’t know when I fell asleep, but it is dark, so it had to be a while ago. I don’t remember returning to my mum after what happened… It all crashes in my mind again. Jeanne… The photo, the letter… Suddenly I feel anxious and take my hand to feel my chest as I straighten up in the bed. I sigh, relieved. For a moment I feared it had been just a dream, but it’s here, the photo, with me, against my heart. I move my hand to turn the light on. My eyes hurt, so I can’t help but cringe and rub them with the back of my hand.

What is fate? Because if fate is what I believe, then she should love me… I have run unexpectedly into Jeanne four times in my life. I have found out about it in the most surreal ways possible. But she said she doesn’t love me, so it means absolutely nothing… I have to accept it, and I have to accept the fact that, as I felt when I was on top of the Eiffel Tower, I will never be able to escape her completely. She has got into every corner of my body, every cell. She’s engraved in my skin and in the depths of my soul. The quiver of her body is still roaming around my senses. Jeanne set a fire in me, where I will burn forever.

I stand up hazily and walk towards the desk, bumping into things. The feeling that I was dreaming of her makes me shiver. How could I not, if dreams are all I have left? I grab a pen and bending over, I write down confusedly in the back of the photo: ‘Jeanne and I’… I sob. Images of the dream return to my memory. There is light and she’s laughing with that crystalline laugh of hers. It comes back to me as if I were listening to her. I lead my hand to my heart, throwing my head forward. Everyone knew. Everyone told me. I didn’t listen… Women like Jeanne don’t fall in love with guys like me. They let us spy into their worlds––that world of Jeanne I fell in love with as if it was another part of her, that delicate, cherry blossom world that smelt of coffee and summer and sunflowers, the world I will long for the rest of my life––just enough to learn how real life feels, just to inspire us. Her chanting will be my beacon, though I know I have to let her go from anything, except my dreams. In my dreams she loves me.

I love you…

Don’t fade.

It’s you.

It’s you.

It’s you…

–.–.–

Notes

Just the last piece of the puzzle is missing.

Dedicated to all the Fan Fiction's writers trying to tell meaningful stories. Here are some of them: PVRIS, KAOT, RockMe, Softballchick79, Afriendofjenny, Love_Life, ARandomUnicorn, KKgal15, Ciaoniccie... You make the difference.