“Imagine…” -John Lennon 

Maeve spent her days daydreaming, any chance that she got she was always in a different world. It was like her physical body existed in the real world, but her soul was consumed by her imagination. She had felt that way for most of her life.  

“Maeve!”  

Maeve jolted in her seat as the teacher called on her.  

“Yes?”  

“I was asking what the answer for 13 was but you were off daydreaming again,” her teacher sputtered at her. “Go to the office Maeve.”  

That was a consistent part of Maeve’s life since she was young. She could never seem to focus on the outside world when so many things were going on in her mind. She lived inside her head, and it wasn’t a bad thing for her. Her parents’ divorce had been hard for her when she was eight. She was an only child, so she only had herself. She didn’t know how to handle the divorce, so she just started to live inside her mind.  

 It was a beautiful place, her mind. It was filled with everything she loved and more. Her mind was a place where she was always safe, away from everything and everyone in the real world. Maeve could be anyone that she wanted to be. All the colors were brighter there. She had friends there. She could go wherever she wanted. Her imagination was her escape.  

No one ever really understood it until Jace came along.  

Maeve was too busy in her head to notice Jace watching her. Jace would watch her in class doze off into her mind and he always wondered where she went. He never understood how someone could be in their mind like that. He didn’t understand until his mom died.  

Jace started to doze off in his head just like Maeve. He would go everywhere and be anyone he wanted to be.  

“Jace!”  

Jace snapped back to reality as his math teacher Mr. Robles called his name. 

“Sorry…” Jace said as he put his head down.  

“You’re starting to get off in your head like Maeve does,” Mr. Robles said to Jace as they both looked over to Maeve who was clearly in her mind again.  

He saw her in his head once, Maeve. He didn’t think much of it. He was in Rio De Janeiro playing soccer on the beach. He thought he saw her swimming in the ocean. Jace just let it go.  

Maeve imagined herself in many places but specifically her favorite place was on the beach. She imagined herself in the Greek isles on the rocky beaches to the white sand beaches in Hawaii. It was always warm on the beaches with a nice soft breeze that kept her not too hot. She would sit and read for hours on the beach flipping through thousands of pages in her mind.  

She never saw anyone that she knew in the real world in her mind. She left all the bad things out in the place she didn’t want to be.  

It had been a few months since Jace saw Maeve in his mind where it happened again. He was sitting in class and had transferred to his imagination again. He was in Dubrovnik walking on the wall that surrounds the city when he saw her. He didn’t really know that it was her until he saw the smile on her face. It had been a smile that he’d never seen before. Maeve didn’t smile much in class because she was always in her mind. He could see her red dress flow as she walked down the stairs from the wall. 

Jace was in shock at first. He never saw anyone from the real world in his imagination.  

“Maeve!”  

Maeve turned around very confused and made eye contact with Jace. Her face turned into shock, she quickly turned around and raced down the stairs and down the street. Jace started to chase after her. He ran down the stairs and looked around for Maeve, but she was nowhere to be seen.  

While Jace was looking for Maeve, she was in shock. Maeve had never seen anyone in her head before and she hadn’t planned on starting. She could hear the ringing of a bell in the back of her head. She jolted back into the real world and looked over at Jace. He was staring right at her.  

Their eyes were locked on each other as the rest of the class got up from their seats. The two of them couldn’t process what just happened let alone imagine someone else in their heads.