by AC Washer
There was one where Dad bought me a lollipop in a tool store when I was ten. He just grabbed a random one and tossed it in the shopping cart. Watermelon. I remembered sucking on it as we walked to the truck, looking up at him as he smiled at something Caleb said. My hand itched to hold his. I worked up enough courage to “accidentally” brush my knuckles against his before chickening out. I didn’t want to jinx anything. Maybe the next time he bought me a lollipop—or maybe even an ice cream cone—I’d tuck my hand into his.
That never happened.
There were other memories like that, of me scooping up anything I could interpret as affection. And my brain played them over and over again in my head until I hated myself.
Desperate—that’s what I’d been before I learned to despise him, latching onto shadows of kindness. I’d hoped they’d grow and grow until they became real.
But my mother—I couldn’t remember her. Only a vague image popped into my head from a picture of her I discovered behind Caleb’s mattress years ago while playing hide-and-seek. I knew who the red-headed woman pushing a baby swing was as soon as I saw her. Excited, I’d shown it to my dad. I’d waited until he was drunk, but not enough to get angry. Sometimes he said more after he’d had a little to drink.
But he’d had more than I realized. He’d ripped the photo from my hands and thudded over to the bathroom, tossing it into the toilet. I’d turned away, biting down on my balled fist at the sound of urine hitting water. He flushed when he finished.
On day five or six, Maeve stopped bringing food to my room. I would creep downstairs now and then and eat whatever leftovers she’d saved in the fridge and grab a few things for the following day.
When Maeve suggested I go back to school on Monday, I shrugged. When Monday arrived, nothing much changed except I began applying makeup again. My bruises looked the same, but I didn’t analyze them past getting the job done. Yellow for the purple areas, green for the red, peach for the yellowing edges, dab with a heavy-duty concealer.
Go downstairs. Eat something. Leave. Come home. Sleep.
Mickey led me to school the next day and the day after that. Students’ and teachers’ voices melted into a buzzing drone that played in the background. Mickey and Bridgette stayed close, never leaving me by myself. But I didn’t care—I didn’t feel like thinking about it enough to care.
Instead, I spent my spare time counting the tiles on the classroom ceilings, doodling on paper, skimming chapters of schoolwork that I would have to read over and over again because I couldn’t concentrate. I ignored the other students’ glances and whispers, and they, for the most part, didn’t bother me.
Saturday came again. When the sun stabbed through my window and into my face, I cracked open an eyelid, made out 8:11 am on my bedside alarm, and slung a pillow over my eyes. I slept until 1:00, no one bothering to disturb me.
My stomach rumbled, but I tried to ignore it. I hadn’t eaten much last night—a leftover veggie sub—but it kind of annoyed me that I still had to be hungry on top of all the other messed up stuff I needed to deal with.
After spending another hour in my room, I headed down to the kitchen.
Mickey and Maeve both sat at the counter, their heads pivoting toward me as I entered.
“She lives!” Mickey said with a smile too tight around the edges to be genuine.
I avoided his eyes as I made my way to the fridge, grabbing some milk.
I opened and shut the silverware drawer without saying a word.
“Kella,” Maeve said as I grabbed a bowl from the cupboard.
“Kella?” Maeve tried again.
I grabbed a box of granola from the pantry and poured some into the bowl, quickly followed by milk.
“Kella.” Maeve reached out and placed a comforting hand on the back of mine. I froze, staring at it. Someone placing a hand on top of mine shouldn’t seem like a language as foreign to me—as uncomfortable—as Irish had been.
“We think—I think—you should visit a counselor. Someone you can talk to about, well, everything you’re going through. Someone who will help you work through it.”
I kept staring at her hand on mine until she moved it away.
I looked up in time to see Maeve and Mickey exchange a look. They were worried. I got that, but a therapist…
“No,” I said, my voice hoarse from disuse. “No, I’m not visiting some shrink who thinks they know what’s going on in my head after fifteen minutes.”
“Not a shrink, Kella. A therapist. Someone who just talks with you—helps you process losing your parents.”
I shook my head adamantly.
“Kella, I really think it could help you.”
I stared down at my granola for a long time. When I met Maeve’s eyes again, I had to clench my jaw to keep my chin from trembling.
“No,” I said.
“But—”
I turned away, bowl in hand as I headed out of the kitchen.
“Just think about it, okay?” Maeve called after me.
I paused before circling back to the counter. “No.” I looked her in the eye, willing her to see how serious I was—that she wouldn’t change my mind.
“I really don’t need someone else telling me I’m messed up. I already got that and talking about it isn’t gonna change anything. My dad’s dead. After what he did to us—to Caleb—I wanted him dead. And now I can’t stop thinking about every stupid good thing he’s ever done.” I snorted. “Things that weren’t even that good.”
I put my bowl on the counter and placed my hands on either side of it, leaning forward.
“I’m upset that the guy who beat me up and almost killed my brother died. I’m depressed that the mom that abandoned us because she loved heroin more than her kids is dead. While my friends daydreamed about getting a pony, I spent my childhood imagining my mom coming back to rescue us. I clung to some stupid belief that she’d only leave us for a very, very good reason. Instead, she was shooting up. I don’t need a therapist to know that’s messed up—that I’m messed up.”
“Kella.” Maeve said my name with enough genuine concern that it made me look away. Concern from anyone but Caleb—well, I wasn’t used to it.
“It’s not good for you to let these things build,” Maeve continued. “We can’t let that happen—not with your metal health issues. It would be too dangerous.”
Oh, so she wasn’t worried for me, she was worried about me. Big difference. I swallowed down a fissure of disappointment. “There is no ‘we.’”
Spinning away, I marched out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and into my room, slamming the door shut without meaning to. I plopped down on the floor and cradled my head in my arms.
Dangerous.
Sure, I might “see” things, but it wasn’t like I was one step away from going psycho. Whatever. I’d deal with everything when I was good and ready—when I got Caleb back and stopped drowning in memories.
In the meantime, my only plan consisted of sleeping. A lot.
Chapter 9
At least, I tried to sleep. I tossed and turned, thoughts and memories spiraling together much like dark clouds swirling around the center of a tornado. Only one silver thread weaved through the storm: Caleb. The more I struggled to sleep, the more I saw his face attached to plastic tubing and machinery. The image made me recoil. I’d try to shake it from my head, but my thoughts always boomeranged back. Caleb was the only family I had left.
Eventually, I grew tired of trying to keep my thoughts of Caleb contained. So when my mind flicked over to him again, I looked. Really looked, ignoring the rush of guilt that ate at me as I tried to see past the tubes into his face, his eyes closed in what looked like sleep.
And the more I looked the more real he became—and the more real he became, the more I wanted him to wake up, to say something—anything—to me.
I wanted it so badly it made me shake. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut before opening them once more—finding myself standing, staring straight into his open gre
en eyes.
“Kella.” The way Caleb said my name—like it was a surprise—wrenched at my heart.
“Caleb.” I rushed at him, flinging myself into his arms as I buried my head in his shoulder.
For a second, Caleb didn’t move. Then he chuckled as he wrapped his arms around me, resting his chin on my head. My head bobbed in time to the expansion of his chest as he breathed, the steadiness calming me down, centering me.
Too soon, he shifted in my arms.
“Stop that,” I said, flexing my arms tight around his back.
“Um, I kinda would like to stop hugging now.”
“Not your decision.”
Caleb laughed but stayed put, humoring me. But after a few more seconds, he started squirming again.
“Stop it,” I said.
“I just want to step back so I can see you.”
“Nope. This is my dream and I say you have to stay exactly where you’re at.”
“Huh. That again. Seems like you’re still confused.”
“Hmm?” I tightened my grip on dream-Caleb just in case he thought he was going to change things up on me—like morph into a rat or something. Dreams were stupid like that, and I needed him to be here for me right now.
“This is my dream,” Caleb said.
“Sure. I’m not in the mood to argue right now, so have it your way.”
He grabbed my upper arms and pushed me back so he could see me—really see me—before his gaze wandered to our surroundings. Only then did it register that we were in the same blank, dusky world as the last time I’d dreamt of Caleb.
His brows scrunched together in his adorably nerdy way as his gaze swung back to me, like I was a new math theory-theorem-thingy he was trying to figure out.
“Everything’s kind of like it was that one time.” Caleb picked up a strand of my tangled hair, leaning forward to examine it before he let it drop again. He grabbed my hand and leaned closer still, tracing the veins in my wrist with his fingers.
“You’re so lifelike. I didn’t notice it before, but that’s probably because your hair smelled so bad it distracted me. Which…I don’t remember smelling anything in my dreams before. Come to think of it, my dreams have never been this detailed. Ever.”
I opened my mouth, about to say something about him always overthinking everything, but then I remembered my last conversation with Deena.
Kate.
With all the studying, and him being in the ICU, and finding out that Dad died, I’d forgotten that Caleb had told me the real name of his nurse last time I’d dreamt of him. Nurse Kate was legit.
I licked my lips and shut my mouth. I didn’t want to tell Caleb about it and risk him wasting what little time we had together dissecting something that was probably nothing more than a…a really weird coincidence.
As it was, Caleb was turning around in a circle, examining our surroundings carefully. He tried running a hand through the fog that drifted around us, but it shrank away from his touch, reappearing only when he shifted his hand somewhere else. It was kind of cool. I’d be intrigued too, except that this dream was the closest thing I’d get to talking to my real brother until he woke up from his coma, and I needed whatever version of him I could get right now.
“Seriously, Caleb?”
“Huh?” He didn’t even glance up as he wiggled his fingers under a tiny scrap of fog that hovered just above his fingertips, watching it react to his movements with wide eyes.
“Do you really need to do this out right now? I mean, I need you right now, it’s my dream, but you’re completely ignoring me. Not that I’m the center of the universe or anything, but…yeah. Here, I’m supposed to be the center of the universe.” And I needed more than anything to talk with him right now.
He barely even glanced at me before saying, “I’m not ignoring you, but this place… I’m not so sure this is a regular dream.”
I crossed my arms in front of me. “Of course it is, and you’re studying that foggy cloud stuff instead of talking with me.” I paused. “Wow, I sound like your last girlfriend.”
“Naw. If you were anything like Jennifer, I wouldn’t be trying this hard to get out of a coma.” He grinned at me before staring back at the fog, absently scratching his neck.
“Oh,” I said, somewhat mollified. But some annoyance crept back as I watched Caleb reach his hand further and further into the fog, watching it shrink away from his arm.
Oblivious, he said, “You know how your foot starts tingling after it’s been numb? It’s not quite the real thing, but you start feeling again. That’s kind of what this place is like. Not the real thing, but getting close to it. Maybe it’s kind of a transition stage to wakefulness.” His gaze flicked briefly back to mine, eyes bright with excitement. “If I keep going—push past whatever fog this is—I just might be able to get out of this coma.” When his hand didn’t reach any sort of obstacle, he drew it back, satisfied.
“Okay, that’s a great theory and all, but let’s just assume this really is another dream, and it’s the closest thing I’m gonna get to actually talking with you. Which makes sense because dreams help you process things, and right now, I’m really needing help in the whole processing department.”
Caleb tossed me a smile over his shoulder. “But if I’m right, I’ll be awake soon, and then we can process to your heart’s content.”
“Oh, come on.” My hands ended up on my hips like some kind of scolding grandma, but I was too annoyed to care. “I seriously need to talk. Can’t you just stop being so—so you for a second? Stop with the questions and be a good dream-Caleb before something wakes me up.”
“But if I’m right, I have no idea if I’ll transition to reality regardless of what I do or if I have a finite time in which to push myself through this place. Honestly, we’re wasting time arguing.”
I glared at him. “I couldn’t have said it better—that last part, anyway.”
He gave me a teensy-weensy kind-of apologetic smile. “Just let me at least try?”
That smile sucked. “Fine.”
He mussed my hair and I slapped his hand away before he ran headlong into the fog—and slammed into it hard enough to bounce back a couple of feet, landing hard on his butt.
We looked at each other in stunned silence. “Well. First point goes to dream physics?” I said.
“What the…” Caleb scrambled up and stalked toward the invisible wall, the fog shifting away from him, before he stopped right in his tracks about ten feet away from me. He looked back at me, his eyes narrowing,
Caleb strode toward me. “I need you to move,” he said as he pushed me a few feet back. “Riiiight there. And stop rolling your eyes.”
He turned to face the fog that had drifted along with us, and then he jogged away from me until he slammed into the invisible barrier. It must have moved along with us because it was still only about ten feet away from me.
“Huh,” I said.
He started laughing. “‘Huh’ is right.”
He all but bounced over to me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the wall.
“No, no you don’t!” I said, sweeping his hand off my arm. “Your theory’s a bust. Now it’s time to talk.”
“Oh, come on, Kella.”
I folded my arms, glaring at him.
“Okay, okay, fine, I get your point.” Caleb sighed. “Just… let’s do this one little thing and you’ll have my complete, undivided attention.”
I narrowed my eyes into little slits. “Or?”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “Or what?”
“I don’t know, pick some stupid dream thing that’ll happen to you. An anvil falls on your head or you’ll dance with an elephant in a tutu.”
“I don’t have any control over any of this. These dreams—the ones in this place—aren’t like any of the others I’ve had.”
I raised a brow. “That’s because it’s not your dream, genius. It’s mine.”
Caleb stilled and looked at me for a long moment.
&n
bsp; “I think you may be onto something there. This space—it seems centered around you, so it makes sense that—”
“No!” I waved a finger in his face. “No theories. You. Me. Dream conversation right now!”
“Okay, okay. Dream conversation.” He looked over his shoulder at the invisible dream barrier. “Go.”
I ground my teeth. “Fine, let’s go. But after we slam into the wall, I get a long, long hug and you have to look at me the entire time we’re talking. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, grinning at me. I rolled my eyes but let him pull me along.
We walked. And walked. And walked. Nothing stopped us. Nothing changed. The fog seemed to follow us around forever
Caleb stopped.
“Finally. Okay, my turn. So, someone killed—”
He held up a hand. “Hold on one second. And—and just…” He stepped away from me, an apologetic smile on his face. “Stand there.”
My jaw dropped. “Did you just shush me after I said the word k—”
He turned away and charged into the nothingness. Again. And ran into a barrier. Again.
I walked over to Caleb, trying to care as I looked at him sprawled next to my sneakers, but he kind of deserved it this time.
He looked up at me with a half-dazed expression on his face. “So much for my original theory.”
“Well, I kind of tried to tell you that.”
He scrambled into sitting position, his legs crossing. “But this…” He gestured at me and the space that he’d run into a moment ago. “This opens up a new possibility. I mean, everything seems a lot more real here than in a dream. Look at your hands,” he said, grabbing the one closest to him, and pulling me down into a crouch. “See the uneven cuticles? And where you bit off your pinkie nail? I never see that amount of detail in dreams. That’s kind of why I thought it meant that I might be breaking out of this coma.”
“Again, this isn’t your—”
“And the physical rules surrounding this place are connected to you and your position—like you’re the epicenter of this,” he said, waving his hands at the fluffy white stuff.