She was in the room reading a book. Heads down, blank stare, ever so subtle with her apathetic expressions. I walk in. It was my third time stepping into the room pretending not to notice her because it sure looked like she didn't notice me. A few minutes in, I receive a phone call from Bobby. Bobby was a loose talker. Whenever he started talking, it was almost as if he was in his own world. No amount of subtle cue or outright interruption could stop him until he was done talking.

I pick up the phone. All of a sudden, I hear his voice blasting through the sound system in the room. Apparently, I had connected my phone to the speakers before receiving the phone call. An unpleasant surprise, he was on speaker. Anyhow, I proceeded with the conversation hoping he doesn't say anything too incriminating. Before I could get a word in, he goes, "Hey, how are you? I was just calling to see how you were doing. Have you finally spoken to Aggie?"

Great. Just great. Perfect timing Bobby. Once he said this, I knew it was too late to take him off speaker. It would seem a bit shady now that she had heard her name. So I decided to play along. I replied, "What do you mean have I spoken to Aggie?" hoping he would realize from the inflection on the tone of my voice that now was not a good time to discuss Aggie. He replied, "Have you finally gathered the courage to confess to her? I hope you guys have sorted out your issues." I look in her direction. She did not move a muscle. The blank expression on her face did not change.

I had occasionally talked about her and shared some of my frustrations with Bobby but I never told him I had anything to confess to her. However, that didn't matter at this point. Arguing with Bobby was not going to reverse the impression that had just been created. So I replied, "There's nothing to say to her. She's doing her own thing. I'm doing my own thing. We get along just fine. There's really no issue to sort out." Without taking her eyes off the book she was reading, she replies nonchalantly, "We don't get along." The expression on her face had slightly changed. It showed a bit of surpise at the fact that I thought we were getting along fine. It also looked like she had felt this way for quite a while and wasn't really bothered about it. She was simply letting me know now out of courtesy.

I felt the clouds change. The rumors were true. She really did feel that way. It wasn't just in my head. I asked why she felt this way and that led to an argument. After going back and forth, she said, "It’s obvious you just want to be around me. Just look at how you have been pacing in and out of the room hoping I'll notice. Going back and forth with no real purpose." She hit a critical point with those words. A touchdown, you might say. So I flared up and replied, "You are so conceited. You actually think everything I do revolves around you." To which she replied "whatever" and started walking away.

In a dramatic fashion, I grabbed a cup of water and splashed it in her face.

The universe paused for a few seconds in shock of what I had done.

1.

2..

3...

(resume)

I was in shock, and so was she. However, instead of the situation escalating, the opposite happened. We both started laughing. I didn't know what was funny exactly but I couldn't stop myself from laughing. And neither could she. Perhaps, it was amusing to see that I could do something so irrational. Nevertheless, it was one of the few times I had seen her genuinely laugh so I savored the moment. I apologized as she went to the bathroom to clean up. I went back to the room.

A few moments later, I glanced up from my phone and suddenly saw her step out of the bathroom, naked. I almost could not believe my eyes. I instinctively looked down, back at my phone. Then I looked up again just to confirm that I really saw what I saw. And then immediately looked back down. She just walked into the room like everything was normal and got dressed.

Then she said, "I am going to do whatever it takes to delete that image you have of me."

I was confused…

Image?

Of her?

Does she think I took a photo of her while she was dressing up?

I felt very irritated by that insinuation. So I mustered all the righteous indignation I could and gave her my phone to take a look. Low and behold, a naked photo did not pop up in my gallery. Instead, what popped up was a silhouette photo of her. It was a strange symbolic-looking photo. Even though I looked away almost immediately when I saw her come out of the bathroom naked, I still looked at her long enough to realize that she was naked. The silhouette photo symbolically mirrored that. Nevertheless, I was still confused as to how that photo got on my phone in the first place since I did not take any photos. She played around with that photo quite a bit, zooming in, zooming out. Then she kept scrolling. She found other photos of her, none of which I remember taking. In fact, she found nothing but photos of her. However, she didn’t say anything. She didn't delete anything either. She just kept scrolling. So I also didn't say anything. As she scrolled, I felt a tingling sensation almost as if she wasn't just scrolling through photos, but scrolling through my memories. When she was done, she looked straight at me and gave the phone back.

Then I woke up.

I was dreaming...

What did she mean by images?

What images had I taken of her?