If you would like to see the original prompt, take a look at it here: http://tipsylit.com/2013/11/04/prompted-backing-it-up/#like-1460

Rose struggled to breathe in her too tight wedding dress. So tight it cut off her air. She glanced down at herself to see what the problem was. The dress was a creamy white lace and satin confection. Strapless to accentuate her full breasts which looked huge from her vantage point because of how small the dress was. She was standing in an alley. How odd. Not knowing what compelled her, she ran to the first baby carriage she saw. It was white with dark blue trim. It was the style of carriage you use for a new baby that doesn’t move around much. She reached the carriage, almost hyperventilating from the effort to move, forget about getting anywhere quickly.

It was empty.

Compelled again, she ran to the next carriage she saw and found that it, too, was empty. Looking down the long alley she saw several more carriages.

Right. She was in The Dreaming. How long had it taken her to catch on this time? There were some truly lucky individuals who woke straight into The Dreaming, like Joe Jacobs, the man she could easily call her uncle though there were no blood ties.

Remembering the steps that she had practiced, Rose wiggled her toes, wanting to stay here and see why she was wearing this dress and looking in empty baby carriages. As if she didn’t know.

She was frustrated with Zach.

Zach. Her remarkably frustrating soul mate. He was everything a soul mate should be. Except for one crucial quality. He wasn’t ready to have a relationship with her. He avoided her as much as he possibly could. And that did take a little doing since both of their families were crowded with psychics. They were too kind to laugh in any mean way about his reluctance. After all, exactly how was someone supposed to handle knowing who their soul mate was from the age of eight?

Eight is how old Zach was when he sat in a canoe with his dad, Jake, mom Dara, and five-year-old sister Rachel, and pondered out loud about what his future wife would be like. Jake and Dara had looked at one another and come to the conclusion that they were going to have to tell him someday, but not today. Eight was too young for that kind of news.

Rachel didn’t think a thing about blurting out, “It’s Rose, Zach. You know how Rose is,” in her sweet little girl voice, dark curls bouncing on her soft, pudgy cheeks.

Rachel was one of Rose Spencer’s biggest fans. They played for hours every time their families got together.

“What do you mean it’s Rose?” Zach snapped at his little sister. He didn’t usually snap at her. She didn’t usually make such outrageous statements.

“Zach,” his father put a comforting hand on his son’s shoulder. When Jake used that soft tone everybody listened. They didn’t really have a choice. Jake had a way with sounds. “Son, this may be a hard thing for you to hear right now. It was hard for me when I first heard about your mom and I. It was hard for me when Carter told us that you and Rose were going to be together. But it happens to be the truth. What I don’t know,” Jake turned an eagle eye on Rachel, “is how your sister knew.”

She turned her big chocolatey brown eyes to her dad and claimed, so innocently they knew it couldn’t be true, that she didn’t know how she knew.

Rose had been a bit luckier when she found out. She had only known since she was a dreamy-eyed fifteen-year-old. Rowan, the go-to guy for all things paranormal in their lives, had been telling the story of how he had come to meet his Jenny. It was the sweetest story she thought she’d ever heard. When she sighed and said she’d like to have a soul mate, and to know who it was, Rowan had told her in his Irish lilt to just come on for a little walk with him when she wanted to know the answer to that. They had that walk in the warm summer breeze that very evening
.
Now here she was in The Dreaming, thirteen long years later, wondering when Zach was going to be ready for anything with her.

Rose finally moved from New York to Los Angeles to head up the Ivy Rose plant there in the hopes that being in the same city with Zach might help him along. Nope. In six months she had seen plenty of everyone else, but not one solitary sign of Zach.

Standing in the sparkling clean alley, Rose looked for more clues as to why she might be there.
Movement caught her attention. Something over there, in an alcove on her left. It looked like Zach. Rose charged down the alley to get a better look at who Zach was with.

It was…her?

Zach waved his hand, making his dream Rose disappear. There stood the real thing. She didn’t look very happy to see him. He couldn’t blame her.

 

You can vote for Rose & Zach in this weeks’ prompted poll here:  http://tipsylit.com/2013/11/09/polling-prompted-who-gets-the-feature-spot/    Thank you!