by Ginger Scott
The dark circles under his eyes swell with emotion, and the whites become glossy and pink as he swallows down the knot of emotion he’s trying to keep tucked in place—manageable. He probably blames himself for her being alone. He blames himself because he’s surviving and there’s a chance that maybe she isn’t. He’s taking all of the blame because he doesn’t know that he and I, we share more than just dreams. We shared ice on that road, and we share the results of our choices and actions.
“Why didn’t you warn us? When you woke up . . . here?” he asks, sharing some of the blame with me now.
“I tried,” I say. “I could never get into a deep enough sleep. It’s like once you’re out of . . . whatever that place is . . . you can’t get back in.”
He nods then glances away with a heavy sigh. I’m guessing he hasn’t been able to get back either.
“Do you know how you ended up here, Justin?” I resolve myself to the eventual beating I’m going to have to take, even if the fault isn’t completely mine. When my mom died, I hated the world. When she got sick, I blamed anyone I could think of, and I fought them all, warranted or not. That’s what Justin’s going to do. He’ll apologize later, or he won’t. But telling him what I know is still the right thing to do.
Damn you, Mom, for giving me such a strict moral code.
“Car crash,” he answers, shifting in his bed in anticipation. His hands grip at the bed sheets, already holding himself back. He’s piecing things together.
Shit.
“There was an accident, yeah.” I gulp. “You and I, we were . . . driving.” I finish with a heavy breath, meeting his stare and working to decipher the thoughts behind his eyes while I see his friend step out of the room in my periphery. There’s a lot of emotion brewing in there, and a lot of it is angry. Rage is always the easiest thing to see in someone’s eyes; you learn that when you work with bulls. Right now, Justin Hawthorne is a bull. And I’m really fucking glad he doesn’t have a gun. If he did, he’d be pretty hip on putting a bullet in me all over again. This time, though, I wouldn’t wake up somewhere else.
33
Damsel
He’s gone. I wake from a dream where I stand over the grave that Cowboy dug for me. A grave Kellen dug for me. The entire dream is nothing but still air—an odd warmth despite the winter season—and rustling in the brush near the massive, newly-filled hole. I stare at the soft dirt and think about the body underneath it all. I wonder what Gustavio’s story is; if he’s in there for a reason or his name is merely some shred of a memory I once read tucked into the deepest part of my brain.
I wake up no longer thinking of Gustavio, but thinking of Justin and wondering where he went. He told me he was leaving. He said he had no choice. I’ve barely started to remember, and now he’s gone.
He’s gone and I’m so cold and so alone.
“Hello!” My voice echoes into the corners of the warehouse. There’re a few dots of light from cracks in the metal siding where the sun is seeping in. It must be early morning for it to be so bright against the back wall of the building. I wonder when workers will arrive.
My jacket still smells like him, like honey and firewood. One of his hairs is trapped on a button, and I leave it there, afraid to get rid of evidence that he was real.
Not that this is real.
Kellen and Justin are gone. I’m still here. My math and science brain is working in overdrive with these two very singular variables. In this grand experiment, learning how they relate and what they’re dependent on is key to me waking up for real. The only way I will go home—my real home, which isn’t far off from the dreamt version of my sisters and parents—is to solve this puzzle.
First, though, I need help.
“Hello?” I scream again, nothing but echoes. I rub my eyes, checking whether they’re tired. I’ve noticed the puffiness is usually an indication of how absolutely twisted things may get. I judge this moment as a solid medium.
The door I let Justin in through opens easily as I step outside. I was right; the sun is just now climbing over the skyline. It makes long shadows of the industrial buildings I’m surrounded by. Streets outside are still empty, only now, I can’t even hear the air move. Not a breeze, not a bird chirping, no traffic anywhere in the distance. As I step, my movement is silent. Despite the gravel and broken concrete below me, there is no crunch to my steps.
Maybe the level today is a little higher than medium.
It’s winter. I’m still bundled in the coat Justin bought me last night, the coat that isn’t even real but that I love. I don’t need it now, though. Without air, there is no feel to the space I’m moving through. I’m not warm, but I’m not cold, either. I simply exist. I pull my arms free of the sleeves as I walk faster and eventually, despite not wanting to let it go because it’s a piece of him, I do. I drop it to the ground and run. My legs feel as if they are slugging through mud. The scenery on either side of me zooms by but I’m not moving fast at all. It’s an odd paradox that turns my stomach nauseous.
Willing myself to move faster has no effect on my body, but it quickly changes where I am. I think of home, of my driveway and my mom’s van, and soon, I’m rushing down our street toward it. It’s the only vehicle parked on my entire block, and the door is slid open as if my sisters are about to pile inside.
“Bea! Angelica!” Though intuition says not to hope, I still expect them to rush from the house and run at me full-force, knocking me into the dry grass so we can roll around and laugh. The door remains closed, and the van stays just as it is.
I walk into my house easily. No locks in the way, no intruders there to fight. I am alone.
I am alone.
Wandering the rooms and hallway of my home does nothing for my memory or discovery. My father’s study is filled with books, the same books he has at our real home, that looks almost the same as this one I’ve imagined. My bed is my bed, the exact version both here and there. The clothes hanging in my closet are exactly the same, too. I feel for my favorite pair of boots along the floor under the hanging dresses. I pull them out when my fingertips touch their laces.
I saved for these boots all on my own, which was nearly impossible since I don’t have a job. Dad doesn’t want me to work because my studies are too important. It took birthday cards and Christmas money to get something frivolous. I wore them to junior prom with the hand-me-down dress from my oldest sister, Lana. I went with Justin, and as I slip my feet into the boots, I can visualize the look on his face as he nervously waited for me at the front door. My father hated him even then. Justin insisted he pick me up and meet my family, though. That dance, it was the first time he kissed me. The first of so many kisses. I touch my lips lightly, holding on to the feel of his mouth on mine.
He’s gone.
I stand and walk around the perimeter of my room, touching pictures that are taped to the wall—photos that I have in real life. There aren’t any clues to be found here, nothing that is different. All I can fathom is I’m happy with my life, content to not make a change even though I’m so overwhelmed by my ambition. All my mind keeps telling me is that I’m strong enough—I’m strong enough to kill a man, to spare another, and to never be caught.
“Is this the lesson I’m supposed to learn?” I shout my question under the pressure of tears wanting to escape my burning eyes. Tightness creeps into my chest, so I fall back to sit on the small chair my sisters and I share for reading and naps. It’s the one frivolous piece of furniture my parents bought us, some fantasy of my mother’s that we would be like the girls in Little Women, all gathered around to hear her tell us a story. I think that happened once, but we’ve all loved this chair in our own way. Big and yellow, with soft cushions and rolled arms. We got it at a garage sale.
This chair is real.
I stroke the wearing fabric, smoothing the velvet threads up then down until the tightness subsides and my breath returns. I need to keep looking, to find some clue that will help me prove my hypothesis.
The boys are go
ne. I remain. I am stuck here, forever.
I hope like hell I’m wrong, but every minute that passes in this place solidifies my hunch. I don’t want to stay here. I want to watch Justin’s final game, to see him get away from his home life and break free from all of the shit that’s only around him because of his parents. I want to convince my dad that he is not what he seems, that Justin is good, and my judgement is solid. I can be both my own woman and in love with a boy who maybe doesn’t fit my father’s expectations.
I want to say all of this to my father. I can’t say it to him here because I’m alone. I’m trapped in a dream where I am all alone.
“Ahhhhhh!” I scream so loud that the blood pulses in my temple. I do it again, and again, until my head hurts. I can’t give up. There is a clue here somewhere. If not at my house, then maybe at school.
I grab my favorite photo of me and Justin at the tailgate party before the first game of the season. I hold it curled in my hand as I race through the front door and run to my school. My stride is faster in my favorite boots. My legs move more freely now, swifter, and in what feels like a single blink, I’m running through the dark, cold, and empty hallways of our high school. No rooms are lit, and the lockers are all wide open and empty as if the school has been abandoned.
The only light I see spills out from the hallway at the very center of campus, where the counselling offices are. Only one of the glass rooms has lights on, and it’s hers—it’s Megan Esher’s. I test the handle, and it jiggles but doesn’t open. Everything I’ve come up against so far has been easy, unlocked and obvious. Whatever is in here, though, is secured. What I need is in this office; I know it in my gut.
I rush to the open lockers, flinging doors out of my way, hoping to find something inside one of them, anything I can use to break through that soundproof glass.
Nothing.
“Ha!” My maddened laugh is amplified by the concrete floors and the empty corridors that shoot off in every direction. I look to my right and see the fading darkness. To my left, I see the same. How can guns, bullets, knives . . . hell, even horses, appear in this dream world but I can’t find a single fucking rock?
My back pressed against the brick wall across from the rows of lockers; I slide down until my legs jut out and my ass hits the ground. I feel utterly defeated. Maybe . . . maybe if I sleep here and get to the dream within this dream I can find something, leave something, the way I did with Justin’s bullet; give myself a clue. I can’t seem to shake this sense, though, that I don’t have the time.
As forever as this place feels, it also feels finite. I’m in a box, trapped by time and place, deprived of hope. I should have kept the coat. At least I could cling to it here while I sit on what should be a cold floor. The floor is nothing. This building—nothing.
My existence here—nothing.
Eyes glazed over from holding them open for too long, I wish for a breeze to force them closed. I don’t even have the will to blink. I let the wish leave my lips.
“Air,” I hum. The sound dies at my ears, no one around to hear it. I’m literally the living test of that philosophical question. I heard it. The sound was there. But I’m nobody, so who gives a rip.
I let my gaze drill into the locker directly across from me, the door half open, nothing inside but a sticker half scraped away. That sticker is clinging just as I am. I nearly write it off as more meaningless noise in this torturous loop I’m trapped in when something about the color and design tickles the back of my mind. Leaning forward, I squint to read it clearly.
ASHFORD CHOCOLATE COMPANY
I’m on my feet to confirm my hunch within a half a second, and the closer I step to the locker, the clearer the words read.
I have hundreds of those things left in my house—both versions of my house, actually. The chocolate sales were—are—happening. I’m sure the time remaining has dwindled to days. I was never going to sell enough. In reality, I knew it. And deep down I didn’t care because going to Washington was my dad’s dream for me. Sure, I want the success and I want to grow into a remarkable adult, but I’m also . . . tired. And failing at the chocolate sale is my way of giving myself an excuse to just . . . stop. This was—is—my way to fail at something.
I laugh, lightly at first, then hard enough to tear up and shake in my chest. I reach up and pick at the sticker, the edges slightly rolled as if someone already failed at removing it. My scratching gets more and more forceful until eventually, my thumbnail breaks close to the skin and sends piercing pain up my hand. The exposed cuticle begins to bleed.
“Damn it!” I suck on my finger, erasing the trace of blood forming there.
The envelope.
The photo of Justin, and the money.
He cut himself and sucked the blood away.
My palm flattens on the open locker door, and scratched into the inside of the door is a pattern of a few simple initials.
JH + DSL
It’s his locker. There’s a reason I’m seeing this. I’m not the kind to ever get caught up in signs, but this entire experience has made me question things I thought I knew. I hold the door flat, gripping the outside with my right hand and feeling along the inside for the hinges. There are only two. I glance over my shoulder and down a few yards to the glass walls of the counselling offices. A metal door, swung hard enough, over and over at the same pressure point, that might do it.
I look back to where my hands are gripping, my fingertips wedged in the crack where the door connects, and I tug and lift from the free side. I grunt as I put force into pulling up, and then again as I yank down. Each motion loosens the grip on the hinges a little more, and when I see the space grow where the screws hold the brackets on, I push my other hand in further until I’m able to curl my fingers around it completely and wrench it free.
With heavy breaths of hope and desperation, I march with it to Esher’s temporary office, screaming for nobody to hear as I cock the door to the side and swing as hard as I can to the very center of the biggest piece of glass. I hammer away at it again, and again, each hit coming in with more force, more speed, more determination. When a small piece finally chips off and ricochets along the floor, I’m emboldened to strike harder.
A crack forms next, followed by another in the opposite direction, and finally, I hit the weakening glass in its heart and the tempered window crumbles into shatterproof pieces that fall at my feet like crystals and ice.
I laugh with relief. I cackle, in fact. And it’s loud. And nobody hears it but me, which is fine because I am the one this sound is for.
I did it. I found a way.
I step through the crumbled glass—again, no crunching sound—and immediately proceed to pull open drawers. Each one is empty or filled with something innocuous and uninteresting—a box of pens, file folders, a tape dispenser. The final drawer is locked, of course.
“Subtle,” I say to no one.
Inspired by my glass-breaking maneuvers, I flip the desk to its side and climb so I straddle the drawer I need and am able to pull on the handle. I groan so loud I feel my skin turning red with the strain, and eventually, the front of the drawer bends enough for me to wedge something inside. I leap over the glass to grab Justin’s locker door, then rush back to the desk to push the metal edge in the small space I managed to create. I step down on the opposite side and while the drawer pops out some, the locker door also warps from my weight. I flip it around and stomp my foot down, bending it back to straight with the first blow and then overcorrecting the bend with the next. Each time I attack the drawer face it cracks a little more, until finally, the locker door snaps in half.
My hands are small enough to feel inside, and I bring out papers and folders in torn and bent messages as I’m able to grasp them in my hand. Every page either has my name, Kellen’s name, or Justin’s at the top, so I know this is the stuff I need. I want all of it. I want the key, the solution—the way out!
I don’t know where my sense of urgency comes from, but there’s a s
peeding sensation rattling my chest as if an actual clock were living inside me, ticking seconds being broken down into halves, then thirds, then quarters. Everything has to happen faster, yet my hands are moving slower. Afraid I’ll run out of time, I pore through the documents I’ve been able to retrieve, my eyes scanning quickly while my mind computes.
It’s everything we’ve been through in here—our first meetings, our applications, Esher’s notes. She’s circled several things that are similar for each of us: waking dreams, headaches, sleepiness, lethargy, thoughts of grandeur and aggression. Night terrors.
These things, they’re all side effects. In every file, it’s clear that nothing she’s noting was here before. Where we started is nowhere near where we all are now, mentally and healthy-wise. My hands scramble at that thought, searching for the documents she kept electronically. I need the tablet.
My mouth is watering, and my head feels light. It’s not the sleepiness I normally succumb to but something heavier, harder to ignore. It feels as if I only have seconds left to hold my head up, as if the nerve endings in my hands and arms are misfiring. My fingers flare, and I have to push my hand into the drawer twice, missing the first time. I move to my knees, resting my forehead against the drawer’s casing to see inside. It’s dark and the drawer is deep, but I’m pretty sure I spot the tablet in there. I can’t reach it, not like this.
Strength is a limited resource for me right now, so I move on my knees and lift and push the desk over so it’s flipped to its top, the heavy fall of the pad inside jarring. I hope it didn’t crack. I reach back into the space in the drawer and feel the sharp edge. I grit my teeth and whisper quiet prayers that it works well enough to see something.
It’s like pulling a square peg through a round hole, and by the time I finally get the pad out, my hand is aching and weak. I use my knuckle to press the on button and swipe the tablet so it’s alert. There are a few cracks across the display, but the screen lights up and things are readable. The welcome screen words send lightning through my chest.