Life Is but a Dream (5 page)

—
Oh yeah? We’ll see about that
— he says. He bends down, getting on one knee, and starts to untie his shoelaces. In no time, he’s holding a sneaker in each hand and racing to the basket in his socks. He grunts as he swings his arms wildly, throwing both shoes up in the air.

One falls through the net and the other falls toward his head.

Alec covers his face and pretends to yell out in pain when the shoe hits him. Then he’s jumping up and down excitedly. —
The left one went in
— he shouts. —
Your turn again. Now if you miss, that’s game and I win.
—

I’m sitting on the foul line, still laughing. When I don’t make a move to get up, Alec comes over and stands with his arms on his hips.

—
What’s the matter? Chicken?
—

—
No
— I say defiantly.

—
Well, go on. Shoe-toss time
.—

—
Fine
— and I slip off both of my shoes. I’m not wearing socks though and don’t want to run over the blacktop. I take careful steps until I’m standing under the hoop. I look back over my shoulder, asking Alec with a glance if I’m in the right spot and he nods. I flip both shoes at once. Miraculously, they both go in.

My jaw drops open in surprise.

I start to jump around ecstatically, pointing at Alec as he sulks from the foul line. —
That’s two for me
— I say. —
You don’t win.
—

—
I’m still ahead by one letter
— he says.

—
Nope. I declare it a tie
.—

Alec smiles, his expression telling me the game isn’t over yet. He picks up his shoes again and throws them up even before I’ve stepped away. I cover my head, expecting them to rain down on me. When they don’t, I look up and see his shoes have both gotten stuck in the net. I burst into a fit of laughter. For a split second I think he might be a little upset, but then he’s laughing too.

—
That’s it, you’ve clearly lost
— I tease.

Alec tries to claim that having both shoes in means he’s clearly won. When I refuse to give in to his logic, he resorts to a six-year-old boy’s tactic of persuasion—he chases me across the hospital lawn.

I scream as I run and he growls.

The nurse near the door takes a nervous step until she sees we are just playing around. I can’t blame her for being concerned though. Fun isn’t exactly a common sight among the patients. Hiding in corners and secret whispered conversations are all very common. Not laughter.

When Alec catches up with me, we collapse onto the grass. My heart is pounding so fast I can hear it pulse in my eardrums. Part of it is just because I’m out of breath—I haven’t done anything physical like running in a while. Mostly, though, it’s because Alec is so close beside me—his body pressed against my side is what really makes my heart jump.

Lying on our backs, looking up at the sky, the sun dances on Alec’s skin. —
Back home on the beach, I throw a towel down and watch the sky for hours
—he says.

—
I watch the sky all of the time
— I tell him. Then I smile because that’s another thing we have in common. The sky is a place we both return to.

—
Do you ever just gaze up there and imagine you can fly?
— he asks me. —
I do. When I want to get away from everything, I just close my eyes and in a minute, it’s like I’m floating. Up there, I can look down on the city, see all the boredom and chaos, and it starts to seem laughable almost because it can’t touch me when I’m in the sky.
—

—
That’s how the sun must feel
— I tell him. —
It’s like you’re watching from the other side of the sun.
—

—
Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what it’s like
— he says.

—
It sounds perfect
— I say.

—
Let’s try it together
— Alec says.

We both close our eyes and take deep breaths. I lay completely still, against Alec. The sky takes over and colors the inside of my eyelids and I feel the wind tickle my face. Soon the two of us are flying in a clearer and brighter sky than I’ve ever known.

The air around me is the soft breath of a billion fairies. The breeze is the flutter of their wings. The feeling is such a happy one that I can’t help but smile and laugh a little.

—
Better than talking to any doctor, am I right?
— Alec says.

—
Much.
—

*   *   *

—
What is it? Come on. Show me
— Alec says, turning my wrist to get a look at my hand.

I pull my arm away violently.

My action is so swift and sudden that I don’t even have time to think about it. I’ve become so good at hiding things that it’s just instinct—an involuntary reaction like kicking a leg out when a doctor taps your knee with a tiny hammer. But when I stop to think about it, I realize that I do want to show him.

For the first time in months, I’m not afraid to be myself with someone else. So I roll up the cuff of my sweatshirt. —
Okay
— I say, and hold my hand out for him to take in his.

There is a birthmark on my left hand on the part between my thumb and my pointer finger. It’s always been there, obviously. They’re called
birth
marks for a reason. It’s not real big or anything—about the size of two quarters, but no bigger than that. It’s barely a shade darker than the rest of my skin and probably nobody notices it. But it’s different when it’s on your own skin. You stare at it every day and it stares back.

Alec caught a glimpse of it when I brushed a strand of hair away from my mouth. He wanted to look at it. I finally let him and now he’s fascinated by it.

We are sitting in the brightest part of the lawn with the hospital behind us. I’m sitting in the sun. Alec is sitting in the shade of a tree. His hair is transparent even in the shadows. Mine is a lighter shade of dark in the sun.

Alec turns my hand around in his fingers.

His touch is warm but it gives me shivers.

—
I like it
— he says. —
It’s a cool shape.
—

—
I used to draw around it so that it looked like a cat
— I tell him, studying the familiar outline. He smiles at me whenever I tell him the littlest things. —
I called him Fred.
—

—
Yeah, I think I see it
— he says. —
Are these the ears? And this the face
?—

—
Almost
— I say.

He takes a pen from his pocket and hands it to me.

—
Show me?
—

—
Alright
— I say.

I scoot forward into the shade where the lines are easier to see. Lately the glare from the sun is so harsh. It used to have a soft glow with dull edges like watercolor paint. Dr. Richards tells me it’s because of the pills. They make my pupils dilate a little wider and make me light-sensitive. It’s better in the shade next to Alec, but I miss the warmth of the sun on my skin.

I pull my legs up under me and lean against him. Once I start to draw the features in, the cat comes out easily. He’s always there, even when he’s not drawn in. A cat named Fred who lives under the surface, just waiting to come out.

The ears and tail emerge first. Then comes his face. I can make him smile or frown—give him open or closed eyes so he looks to be sleeping. Most of the time, he feels the way I do. That’s why I draw a smile before the last step where I add whiskers. —
See? That’s Fred
— I say, dropping my hand in Alec’s lap.

I kind of expect him to smirk and shrug and then that’ll be the end of it because that’s what anyone at school would’ve done. Maybe they would say it was cute or something before changing the subject. Either way, it was just to let me know they thought drawing a cat on your hand was kind of strange without actually having to say it.

Alec isn’t like them.

His interest in me isn’t fake.

—
That’s seriously awesome
— he says after tracing the lines with his fingernail.

Dr. Richards pretends everything I say is important, but I’ve learned that’s only so she can point out all the places where I’m wrong. My parents do the same thing. They only listen for mistakes, so they never hear what I say. But not Alec—he listens because he wants to know everything about me. I can tell by his eyes. People with clear eyes are sincere. It’s something I’ve always known as easily as a baby knows how to breathe—all people can be judged by their eyes.

—
So? What’s Fred’s deal?
— Alec asks me.

—
What do you mean?
—

He flings his hair away from his face so that I can see the way his eyes shine in the stray sunbeams invading our shade. And when he laughs, I can’t help but laugh with him because the sound of him is contagious. Then he grabs my side, just under the ribs where it tickles, and I squirm away, laughing even harder than before. —
I know you well enough by now to know there’s a story behind Fred
— he says. —
I bet Fred has a whole secret life that you thought up. So what is it? Is he like a ninja or something?
—

—
No
,
he’s not a ninja
— I say, rolling my eyes. Then I fold my arms and hold my head up like I’m offended. But he knows I’m only kidding and it only makes us laugh again. —
Fred’s peaceful
— I say. —
And educated.
—

—
Educated, huh? How so?
—

—
Well, Fred studied at Oxford before coming to live on my hand
— I tell him, remembering all the details of Fred’s biography I’d invented while daydreaming in grade school.

—
I had no idea he was a world traveler
— Alec says. His laughter is a faint breeze against my neck. His fingertips are tiny antennae exploring my arm. —
I wouldn’t have guessed from his size. He seems like kind of a runt.
—

—
Fred’s full of surprises
— I say, teasing him.

—
Yeah? Like what else?
—

—
Well, once he wrote a children’s book about himself
— I say. —
I had to draw the pictures though.
—

—
No way. Really? You really did up a whole little book?
— Alec asks excitedly. —
Do you still have it?
—

—
Sure. Somewhere
— I tell him.

—
I totally want to see that some time
— he says, and it’s the first time either of us has mentioned something that will take place later—after the hospital. Even if it is just an expression, it feels new. Having something to look forward to, no matter how insignificant, is still something.

—
I’ll have to see if I can find it then
— I say. —
I’m kind of a clutter bug.
—

In my mind, I start running through all the places it might be back home. I can picture the stacks of papers piled in my closet. Drawings I haven’t looked at in years—bits and scraps that I scribbled on during class. Mostly though, the piles are of postcards I collected from the places we drove to on family vacations. I know somewhere there’s one with the San Diego Chicken on it and one with the New York skyline, but not the real one—the one in Las Vegas. I have tons and tons of them stashed away. I always loved how the memory of a place could be captured in a picture like that.

I used to spend hours going through those piles in my closet. I’d arrange them by subject and make scrapbooks or collages for my wall. But over the past year or so, it was as if they’d vanished even as they towered around me. Now suddenly, I want nothing more than to sit for hours sifting through them.

Dr. Richards told me this would happen. She said I would slowly start to find old interests appealing again. All the things I stopped doing over the last year and a half. Things like swimming and reading and tearing pictures from magazines. I suppose Fred is one of those things too. Or something like them anyway.

Alec can see that all of this is making me happy—making me come alive before him. —
Tell me more
— he says, not wanting the moment to fade away.

—
Okay. Um … oh, I know … Fred had his own table setting for a while
— I say, suddenly remembering a long-forgotten detail. —
I used little dishes and forks from a toy dish set. One day, I just put them out on the table. My parents thought it was so funny. But then
 …— I shiver as a cloud rolls across my happy memory.

I stop talking and stare off at the hills in the distance. My hand is still wrapped in Alec’s and he squeezes a little harder. —
But then, what?
— he asks.

I reach up with my free hand and tuck my hair away, shrugging one shoulder. —
Then … after a while I could sort of tell they wanted me to stop. They wouldn’t actually say it, but they stopped taking an interest. It’s weird though. I mean, they used to encourage me to use my imagination and then it was like all of a sudden that was a bad thing.
—

Alec shakes his head, letting his breath out with a little huff like the sound a dog would make after coming up empty when begging scraps. Nothing too angry, but enough to show displeasure. —
Parents suck
— he says without much emotion.

—
Are your parents like that?
—

—
Mine? No … not quite
— he says. —
Mine wouldn’t notice a Fred if I drew it on my forehead.
—

—
How come?
—

Alec rolls his eyes. —
Because my parents like to think of themselves as important people. Dinner with the governor, lunch with a judge or whatever. You know the type. On top of that, they’ve got this expensive traveling hobby that takes them away from home a lot. They’re always going off to some country or other and I don’t exactly fit into their schedule
— he tells me.

—
What about you? You don’t go with them?
—