Life Is but a Dream (17 page)

I see him as I round the house. He is exactly where he is supposed to be. He is naked just as we always are when we meet here —
There you are
— he says. —
I’ve been waiting for you. Are you ready?
—

I stand with my legs crossed and my toes digging into the soft dirt. My entire body blushes as I nod. —
Yes
— I say, pressing a finger up to my mouth to straighten out the crooked smile on my lips.

His eyes are glowing, following me as I approach the swing with careful steps. His eyes are beautiful and I don’t mind being watched through them. My legs rub against his as I slide onto the swing opposite him. Our knees touch. Our hands clutch the same spots on the rope and we start to swing—moving only inches at first but quickly climbing higher.

I lean back as far as I can so that my neck is draped toward the ground. The grass seems to fall farther and farther out of reach—the sky sinking closer and closer to greet us.

We pump our legs faster as the storm chases across the ground, turning houses into dust. My house will be next but that doesn’t make me sad. It’s not like the house I grew up in—this is only a shell, empty inside of anything I’ve ever cared about. We swing one last time and then let go of the rope. We fly away as the house is destroyed. We become thin birds sailing toward the sun—our arms spread like featherless wings.

We are holding hands, speeding toward the horizon. The city blankets the world below us. Its streets are tentacles expanding its reach. Buildings sprout up like weeds and quickly grow taller to turn into rockets ready to shoot us down. Before they launch, before they can ever catch us, the sky peels back like a curtain made of paper.

I see figures appearing on the other side. They pop up like fireworks exploding into the world—a million colorfully scribbled faces, the kind Picasso or maybe a toddler would draw. —
They are angels saying hello
— I tell Alec and he says he knows. They wave their hands and the storm dies below us as the world is coming to an end.

Alec guides us to a mountaintop perch where we watch the valley fill with seawater until it is a swimming pool the size of an entire state. We are the last two people alive and the rocks beneath our feet crumble and dissolve into sand and we are staring out into a new ocean—the sun’s reflection burning a hole in the center of the water.

—
We have to swim out there?
— Alec asks.

—
Then we’ll fall through the center
— I explain.

—
Won’t we drown?
—

—
We can breathe underwater until we arrive.
—

—
Where will it take us?
— he asks.

I smile because we’ve been through this all before and he always forgets. —
Heaven, remember? We’re angels now. We’re safe.
—

I race for the water and Alec trails behind. But as soon as my feet touch the warm waves, the dream fades and my eyes shoot open. The ocean is instantly swallowed by the darkness of my hospital room—the sun replaced by the glare of a security light outside my one window, locked and sealed for my own safety.

I wrap my arms around my chest and hold the memory of him close to me for as long as I can. Even though I miss him now, I’m happy he came to visit me. And I know he is in his room thinking the same thing because I visited him. Our dreams are connected. They have always been that way, even when we were little kids. We just didn’t know it then.

I try to remember every detail of my dream because in this one we came closer than in any other one I’ve had. It showed me what we have to do. I was confused before and thought we needed to learn how to fly. I was wrong. We have to be on the beach, not in the sky. We have to be on the sand, waiting for the sun to open up a place for us to sink through.

I close my eyes, but don’t even try to fall asleep. I pull the blanket over my head to make a cocoon. My breath fills the space around me, warming my skin. Like a baby waiting to be born, I lay restlessly counting the minutes in my head. I want morning to come and my door to be unlocked so that I can find Alec and see if he saw it too. It is the one wish I make on the stone pressed against my stomach.

*   *   *

I haven’t been able to leave my room all day. My breakfast was brought in on a tray and my lunch also. The walls inch in on me, hour by hour. I’ve been in here for twenty hours, four minutes, and twelve seconds exactly. That’s not terribly long, but time stretches out when I’m confined and kept apart from Alec.

The sun has moved away from my window to the other side of the hospital and I want nothing more than to travel with it. I want to be outside. I want to see Alec. They know that. It’s the reason I think they are keeping me in here.

—
It’s afternoon
— I say. —
Aren’t I even allowed to go outside?
—

—
It’s just a precaution
— Nurse Abrams says, clearing away the untouched fruit salad and preparing my dessert—six pills measured into paper cups. —
Tomorrow, perhaps.
—

—
What about group? Aren’t I supposed to go to group? Dr. Gysion will wonder where I am
— I say.

—
You’re not going today. Dr. Gysion knows all about it, don’t worry.
— Her voice is a gentle lullaby in the shade. I can tell she wants to let me leave. But there are rules that she has to follow even though there are others she is allowed to make up. Keeping me in my room is someone else’s rule. That much is obvious to me. —
You have to be cleared by Dr. Richards before resuming your normal routine. Maybe that will happen after today’s visit
— she explains. —
I know your visit with her is scheduled for a bit longer than usual. It’s nothing to worry about. Just some simple tests, I promise. Nothing too bad. Then maybe it’s back to normal.
—

—
Is that why you’re here early?
— I ask, looking up at the clock. It’s only five minutes to three o’clock. Normally I wouldn’t see Nurse Abrams for another two hours when she’d come to fetch me from the lawn where Alec and I would be talking about things we would never share with our doctors.

—
Yes
— she answers. —
We’re going to head down there in a minute.
—

—
Are they going to give me more needles?
— I ask, wrinkling my nose at the thought. They’ve given me two injections since I came back—long needles that appear to be filled with rusty water. I hate the needles. I can never tell if they are taking stuff out or putting stuff in.

—
No needles. Cross my heart
— Nurse Abrams says, and there’s something strange about the way she’s talking to me today. Not detached and mechanical like the past weeks, but softly as if I were so fragile her words might break me. —
Ready?
—

—
I guess so
— I say, and we walk out together.

I keep looking over my shoulder as we make our way toward the examination room. I’ve spent so much time here that I could wander around blindfolded and never bump into any of the furniture inside. It’s two long hallways from my room and I’m hoping to see Alec along the way. I look all around and poke my head into every room, hoping for a glimpse around a corner or even just a flash through an open door, but he is nowhere.

—
Everything okay?
—

—
Fine
— I say.

I’m not fine though. My hands are trembling inside my pockets. My feet are cold even as sweat tickles behind my ears. I know what’s going on just by the way she’s acting. I know I’m in trouble. It’s just as it was in school when my teacher sent me to the office. She wouldn’t say what it was I’d done. She didn’t want me to be prepared. It’s easier to lie when you’re expecting the questions. Everyone knows that.

As we walk through the hall, there is something else bothering me. I wouldn’t ever dare to tell her. It’s my secret for now. I know about the noise inside the hospital. I can’t tell anyone here that it followed us back or they will keep injecting me twice a day. Anyway, the noise is still small like the sound of a television whispering in the next room, but it’s growing louder. Soon it will echo through the hollow halls and ring inside my ears.

My heart races, fast and frightened, as I follow Nurse Abrams with tiny steps. The static is here. Watching me inside the walls of the hospital. Spying through the invisible cracks in the scenery. Listening and recording everything I say. I’ll have to be more careful than ever.

Nurse Abrams opens the door and steps aside to let me pass. —
Go on in and take a seat wherever you like
— Nurse Abrams says. —
Dr. Richards should be by any minute.
—

I move into the center of the room and stand there. The door clicks closed behind me, shutting out the noise. I’m thankful for the momentary silence.

*   *   *

The school receptionist glances up at me as soon as I enter the main office. —
Just take a seat over there, Sabrina. Mr. Harris will be with you shortly.
— She points to a little waiting room off to the side and I wonder how she knows who I am since I’ve never been in here or spoken to her before in my life.

Through the frosted glass window on the office door, I see two students pass by. Their faces are distorted and they move like creatures underwater. I want to follow them, but I have to stay here. Mrs. Green, my first-period teacher, said the office sent a note requesting me to go down. She didn’t tell me why. I’m sure it said why on the note, but she kept it from me.

—
Now, please
— the receptionist says when she notices I haven’t gone into the smaller room as she requested. I guess I didn’t move fast enough and her tone is sharp and short-tempered the way school officials’ voices always are with bad kids even though I’ve never been in trouble.

I walk through the open door marked
VICE PRINCIPAL
. I’m not expecting to see Skylar waiting there too and I freeze up. She is sitting in a chair obscured by the door—a tiger hiding and ready to pounce when I step in. Her eyes narrow at me and her mouth curls into a snarl. —
If you say anything, I swear you’ll regret it.
—

I bite down on my lip and take a seat in the chair farthest away from the one she is sitting on. I shove my hands under my thighs—my hidden fingers firmly crossed.

Skylar huffs and swears under her breath. She is annoyed to be here and more annoyed that I’m here too. I’m not annoyed, only nervous. My stomach is a net of butterflies—my belly full with them like when I imagine the ocean inside my womb, but it’s making me sickish instead of happy. I stare at the blue and green checkered pattern on the rug under my feet, feeling like I might throw up.

—
Did you rat me out or something?
— Skylar growls. I shake my head but she doesn’t believe me. She knows why we are here. She knew as soon as she saw me, but I still have no idea. —
I can’t believe you would tell. God, can’t you take a little joke? Besides, you were the one who got yourself into this mess. Just remember that. You can’t blame me for it.
—

I don’t know what she’s talking about, so I say nothing.

When Mr. Harris comes to the door, he calls my name first. Skylar flashes me a warning look. I see the skeleton of a snake under her skin and shiver. I’m as small as a mouse in her stare. If I get too close, her jaws will unhinge.

—
Come with me
— Mr. Harris says. He is shaped like a pear or a deflated beach ball that is wide only in the center. He takes up most of the space in the doorway and has to step away before I can follow him into his office. He closes the door behind us. Then he gestures for me to sit down in one of the small chairs opposite him.

Mr. Harris turns his computer screen at an angle so that we both can see it. I recognize the photo of me in the corner—the one where I’m blowing a kiss at the camera. This is the profile page Kayliegh set up in the summer, but it looks different than it did. Even though I haven’t touched it, or even looked at it, there are now more than three thousand people who are my friends. Many of these friends have left comments like the ones Kayliegh and I found on the pornography sites in her brother’s computer. They describe in detail all of the sexual acts they want the girl inside the computer to do with them and how much they are willing to pay me for each.

—
Is there anything you want to tell me about this?
— Mr. Harris asks. His words sound thick and slimy as if his mouth is full of paste. It makes his cheeks puffy and his skin red and the rolls on his neck fill with sweat.

—
I don’t know
— I say because I don’t know what else to say.

Mr. Harris stares at me with insect eyes that want nothing more than to spin a cocoon around me and swallow me inch by inch in the thick saliva caught behind his teeth. —
It would be in your best interest to talk to me
— he says, and I can hear his stomach growl when he wipes his chin with sticky fingers.

His eyes are hungry.

They chew away at me until I’m soft and easy to devour.

The entire office is like the inside of a stomach. The scent of digestion is woven into the wallpaper’s pattern. The air is thick and made of grease as thick as jelly. The lights fight through it and cook me from the outside in until the meat will slide slowly from my bones.

—
Look, Sabrina
— he says. —
You’re a good student. You’ve never been in trouble before. Somehow I don’t think you’re the only one involved in all of this. I’ve talked with some of your teachers and they tell me some of the students have been giving you a hard time lately. I’m prone to believe they are involved. But if I’m going to help you, I need you to cooperate with me.
—

—
That’s not me
— I say, pointing at the screen. —
I don’t know anything.
—

Mr. Harris gives me a hard stare, takes a deep breath, and lets it out. Then he moves his mouse around on the screen and double clicks. The screen changes and a video pops up. He refuses to look as the video plays silently on a loop.