Life Is but a Dream (20 page)

I see some of the girls from my group session on the other side of the room. They are talking and smiling and I don’t want anything to do with them because everyone here is changing. They’re not real anymore. They are becoming just like the kids at school. I know they’ll eventually turn on me too.

I stay by myself at the table and start to draw. I need to figure out our way into heaven before I see Alec again. I need to illustrate the path we’re supposed to take.

There isn’t much blank paper in the bin and I run out quickly. I start to use the backs of paper where other kids have been keeping score for card games. I use the little white subscription cards from magazines and any other scrap I find that has enough clear space to fit an image because I’m trying to draw everything I’ve ever seen in my dreams. I think if I can only put them all together in the right order, I will know what I need to do.

—
What are you doing?
—

I look up and see Amanda looking down at me. —
I’m just working on something
— I say. That’s all I’m going to tell her. She might be spying on me. —
It’s very important that I finish
— I mumble. There is a race going on between me and the static. If I don’t win, I’ll disappear.

Amanda leans over the papers spread over the table like islands in the sea. She picks up a handful of drawings that I’ve laid on the corner. I’m nervous she will put them out of order and flash her a look. She’s flipping through the pictures though and doesn’t notice.

—
Did you do all of these just now?
— she asks me.

—
Most of them
.—

—
Wow. This is a lot of work
— Amanda says.

My head spins with images of turning cartwheels on Kayliegh’s front lawn. I can even smell the summer grass stains on my palms. I remember how we always said that we would explore heaven together, leaping from cloud to cloud, hand in hand. It seems connected somehow and I rush to find a fresh piece of paper to draw it.

Amanda sits down and watches me. She has several checker pieces in her palm and keeps stacking them. It’s a quiet noise but those are the most distracting.

I lose focus and look up at her. We both stare at the strange pattern of colored marker, pencil, and crayon that stains my skin. Below it all, though, I still see the two eyes of the grinning cat promising to protect me.

—
We all wondered where you were the last couple of days
— Amanda says. —
They told us you needed a twenty-four-hour treatment. Is Alec getting that treatment too?
—

I remain silently staring and Amanda moves her hands into her lap. She’s a stranger to me. I don’t know anything about her except for our walks back from group session. It makes me suspicious, like maybe she’s a spy for the static.

When the common room door opens, Amanda stands up, returning back to the sofa where she had been before. The way she retreats makes me hopeful that Alec has entered and I look over at the entrance. It’s not him though. It’s Nurse Abrams. She’s talking to the other nurse and I can hear them. —
She was asking about him
— the nurse on duty says, and I see their eyes dart over to where I am. I pretend to draw.

—
Poor girl
— I hear Nurse Abrams say. —
I’m sick of kids like him being admitted. We’re supposed to be helping kids with real problems, not babysitting the delinquent offspring of rich people. Look what he did to her, she was almost better.
—

I won’t look at her when she’s done talking and calls my name.

I start to draw again—scratching the pen’s tip so fast and violent that it is ripping through the paper. She comes toward me then. Nurse Abrams reaches for me, but I yank my arm away like a cornered animal.

—
Sabrina, I need you to come with me
— she says softly.

—
It’s not time
— I say.

—
I know it’s not, but you have a phone call.
—

*   *   *

All phone calls are taken in special rooms set up for us in the north wing of the hospital by the main entrance. They are private rooms but they are watched. Everything is watched by the cameras, I know that now. Nurse Abrams offers to walk with me, but I want to go alone. I heard what she said and I know she’s not on my side. She’s on their side. Besides, I want to go the long way around so I can walk by Alec’s room.

I press my face against the glass in the door.

He’s not in there but I mouth the words
I love you
anyway because I know the words will wait for him. Then I hurry away to the visitors’ desk where a nurse leads me into a little room with a phone and closes the door.

Kayliegh calls exactly at the time they told her to.

—
Hello?
— Her voice sounds anxious. —
Sabrina? I can’t believe I’m actually getting to talk to you! This is the first time they’ve let me call. I’ve tried calling you the past two days but they said I had to wait. So? How are you?
—

—
I’m fine.
—

—
Really? That’s good. I’ve been worried about you. Everyone has
— she tells me.

—
Who’s everyone?
— I ask.

—
You know … our friends
.
Thomas even told me to give you a message
— she says, laughing. —
But I’m not going to say it. You know how he is.
—

—
Yeah, I know
.— I want to ask why she doesn’t seem to know how poisonous he is, but I don’t. I don’t want to talk about him.

—
Sabrina, I need to tell you how sorry I am
— Kayliegh says.

—
Sorry for what?
—

I hear her breath on the other end. I hear the words in her mouth trying to fight their way out. —
I think all of this might be my fault
— she says. —
I think I know how all of those things ended up on your profile. A couple of weeks ago … I was hanging out with Thomas and we were just fooling around online. When he found out I had your password, he wanted to send Scott a message pretending to be you. Just as a joke, you know? And, well, I was kind of mad that you never even gave it a try, so I went along with it. But I swear I didn’t know he was going to tell other people your password. And once things started getting really out of hand, I went to change it … but somebody already had.
—

I have nothing to say because none of that matters anymore.

All that matters is getting to the place behind the sky.

She’s trying to make me forget that—trying to convince me that she is real. The medicine flowing through my body makes it hard to keep things straight—makes my brain feel like soggy cereal.

—
Are you mad?
—

I shake my head and somehow it’s as if she can see me.

—
Everyone at school is like so behind you
— Kayliegh says. —
They all want you to come back. Even Skylar feels so rotten about what she did. She even confessed to Mr. Harris about the video. They took the suspension off your record. That was pretty cool of her to do that.
—

—
You talk to her?
—

—
Yeah, she’s not so bad. I mean, what she did was terrible. But she didn’t know that you were having problems. None of us really knew.
— There is a pause on both ends of the phone. Then Kayliegh clears her throat and says —
I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend. If I’d known there was something this serious wrong with you …—

—
There’s nothing wrong with me
— I say. —
Why does everyone think there’s something wrong?
—

—
Because there is … isn’t there?
—

—
No. I just see things differently … that’s all. You used to like that about me
— I say, wishing maybe I never agreed to take the phone call.

—
I didn’t mean it that way
— Kayliegh says. —
Don’t be mad at me, please. I just want to help you. You’re my best friend.
—

—
I don’t need any help
— I say. —
I needed you to believe me instead of Thomas and Skylar and anybody else like them!
—

Before she can say anything else, I hang up the phone. I don’t care what she has to say to me anymore. I don’t need her. I have Alec now. He’ll never betray me—not like she did.

There is a nurse waiting for me outside the door.

—
How did it go?
— she asks.

—
Fine
— I lie. —
I want to go back to my room now. Is that okay?
—

—
Sure
— she says, but she makes me wait for another nurse to walk with me because they were listening and something I said has made them worry about me all over again.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

It’s dark when the door to my hospital room opens. A thin band of light invades through the crack, illuminating the shadowy corners. My eyes become alert as footsteps cause an eclipse.

The outline of a person appears in the doorway—backlit like an angel. The figure’s head turns to the side and searches the hallways like a child looking both ways before crossing the street.

I hold my breath.

Nurses visit me constantly. They come as often as circus clowns emerging from a tiny car. Bringing medicine after medicine, they fill me with an entire diet of pills in small white cups. I haven’t been able to avoid taking them. Now there’s so much medicine inside of me that I’m melting away like ice on a summer street.

I dread the nurses’ visits. But this is not a nurse slipping into my room and letting the latch lock behind them. Nurses never lock themselves in with me. Nurses enter with marching steps and the flick of electricity to fill the room. Their noise is as loud as an alarm—not the soft padded sound approaching me.

My eyes are adjusting to the dim haze from the security light in the parking lot outside. I watch the strange figure moving toward my bed. My breathing is fast and shallow, seeing a shadow hand press to its shadow face. —
Shhhh.
—

Just by that simple sound, I know it’s Alec.

The springs on the bed squeak as he crawls over my legs to rest on top of me. With his face near mine, I can see him clearly. I trace the small slope of his nose that gets wider at the bottom, connect the freckles under his eyes with imaginary lines, and run my finger over the shape of his lips. Even with only the little bit of light, his feline eyes glow.

—
I was so scared … I mean, I didn’t know if …—
I start to tell him how worried I was and how I’ve missed him to the point of suffocating, but before I get the words to come out right, he covers my mouth with his because he knows. It’s only been two days since we’ve been together but it feels like lifetimes. It feels the same for him too. I can tell by the way he breathes into me all of the things he’s held inside since they brought us back.

Every last inch of me begs for him. I reach under his body and help to pull his shirt over his head. He helps me do the same.

Our clothes make sparks of static electricity in the dark as they fall to the floor.

The feel of his skin pressed against mine makes me feel alive. Blood rushes through my body. I feel real again as I dig my fingernails into his back—gripping him so tightly he flinches because I don’t want him to leave me alone ever again.

As we kiss, Alec keeps pausing to glance over at the door. —
I’m worried someone will come
— he says. —
I don’t think anybody saw me, but you never know.
—

His hair is sweaty and sticking to his forehead. I wipe it away from his eyes and make him look at me. —
They won’t
— I say because it doesn’t matter that they have cameras everywhere—cameras can’t see us where we’re going. —
We’re safe here.
—

—
How can you be sure?
—

—
Because … when you got on the bed, we went someplace else. Didn’t you feel how we floated away? Like being on a boat and drifting into the ocean but that the ocean was made of stars instead of water?
—

I place both of his hands over my heart. It’s the only way I know how to explain. Our hearts begin to beat in the same rhythm and he smiles.

—
Yeah, I guess I did feel something like that.
—

—
Of course you did
— I say, —
because we’re connected.
—

He kisses me again. This time he doesn’t look anywhere but at me. The blankets drop to the floor next to our clothes as we both bend and stretch, pressing against each other until we are out of breath. Then Alec collapses in my arms and we lie like branches of a tree that have grown around each other. I run my hand through his hair and see little sparks like fireflies dance around him. For the first time since we’ve been locked apart, I’m calm.

In the quiet that follows, Alec nestles his face into my neck. —
I really wish I saw things the way you do
— he says. —
You’re lucky. I hate almost everything I see, but you can see the beautiful part of everything.
—

I turn my head toward him.

The light rests on his body like water.

—
You’re the only one who thinks so
— I tell him.

—
Yeah, well it’s clear to me that it’s everyone else who’s mental
— he says with a deep exhale. —
I tried telling that to the doctors here today and you should’ve seen the look on their faces. I swear I’ll really go crazy if I stay in this place.
—

Sitting up, I pull my knees under me and place my hands on his chest. I begin to trace a picture on his skin with my fingers. I make a circle for the sun and so many rays shining from it.

—
Once we pass through the sun, all of this will go away. The grass will take over. It will turn all the roads to fields and all the houses into nothing. It’ll just be you and me then. Just like heaven and we’ll be free like deer running through a forest.
— Alec has his eyes closed as I describe it to him. Every time he breathes, I’m sure the picture is clearer in his mind. My fingers dance on his skin, showing him how we’ll leap and run and swim under a sky that changes colors with however we feel at the time. —
Nobody believes me, but you know that it’s real, don’t you?
—