All the Lonely People

by Jen Marie Hawkins

  I balance, fingers stumbling again over the raised scar. I’m drunk on sensation and my eyes can only process color. First the white of the scar, then the flesh surrounding it. The green of our hillside. The endless blue of the sky. The gray stone tower jutting up against the horizon.

  His aura bleeds into my vision. It’s not the usual slate, but deepest plum—the exact shade of an African violet. I know a moment before I look at his face that it’s Henry beneath me.

  The shock of it changes none of the euphoria I feel.

  I trace a thumb over his fleshy bottom lip, breaking its seal with the dramatic cupid’s bow of the top one. My fingertips read the braille of stubble on his jaw. It says don’t stop. His hair is a mess on the ground, and I don’t know how I managed to miss the difference, how something didn’t give this away immediately. Of course everything feels different: because it is.

  He is an atlas of perfect destinations. I’m lost in the deep green forests in his eyes as I sail the ocean currents on his hips. Something hazy and inaccessible taunts me from the deepest recesses of my mind. Something about magnets and maps and a mission—the thing we came here to do. Except we ended up doing this instead.

  I look down at Henry, and the angles of his jaw clench sharper. The furrow of his brow, deeper. He knows we’ve gone off course. I close my eyes again, trying to hold on. Begging the powers that be for another minute. Thirty seconds, even. But it’s too late, because my brain has identified this for exactly what it is. The moment you realize a dream is just a dream, a cruel breaker trips and it’s gone.

  I fling back into my body with a high-voltage jolt. In Patrick’s room. Middle of the night. Curtains blowing. My throat is ragged; I’m panting like I’ve run a race. My hair and t-shirt stick to my skin. I throw the blanket in the floor and peel off my pajama pants. The cool night breeze from the window brushes over my damp knees. I’m a live wire left behind by a storm.

  Only a Jack and Jill bathroom separates my room from his. I dart upright. I could walk in there right now, crawl into his bed, whisper this secret to him.

  But…

  Reality returns to me in degrees. Henry and I are barely even friends. We only just had our first real conversation last night. My heart pounds and I quake with disappointment. That was the way it’s supposed to feel. I don’t know how I know; I just know. The shame I couldn’t feel in the dream submerges me now. Why has it never been like that with Dylan?

  Maybe not taking my medication is messing up my perception of things.

  Tears well and I cover my face with my hands. My throat aches. I need water.

  My feet glide over the smooth floor planks, across the rug at the foot of the bed, over the threshold and onto the cool tile of the bathroom. I paw around in the dark for the light switch. I find the wall, closer than I thought it was, but it gives way and...

  “Sorry,” says a startled voice, moments before the light flips on.

  Not a wall.

  Henry and I freeze, face-to-face in the narrow bathroom. There’s bare skin everywhere. My legs. His chest and arms. We’re immobilized by the exposure, by our eyes adjusting to the light.

  His hair sticks to his face the way mine sticks to me. He shimmers with sweat-sheen. He crosses his long arms in front of him, following the v-shaped lines that dip down into his boxers, which I am not looking at. At all.

  We stand frozen. Maybe only seconds have passed. I can’t tell.

  I feel his eyes all over me, but I avoid them, diverting my gaze to his collarbone. My stomach plummets when I see it there: the déjà vu.

  A small, puckered scar glistens white on the left side of his chest. I’ve never touched it, but my index finger twitches with memory. I know what it feels like, even though I’ve never seen Henry with his shirt off until this exact moment.

  A drizzle of perspiration rolls between my ribs, down my stomach, into my bellybutton. It shoves me in motion. I dash from the bathroom and shut the door behind me.

  “Sorry,” he says again, from the other side of the door. “Was getting a drink of water.”

  Instead of replying, I hold the knob in the vise grip of my sweaty palm, praying he won’t turn it. We’re both silent. I wait there until the strip of light under the door disappears and I hear him go back to his room.

  He never even turned on the faucet.

  Chapter 21

  : Rain :

  I LIE IN bed until noon on Sunday, listening to a downpour that rivals the hurricane remnants that swept through Asheville last summer.

  The streets flooded and Dylan and I took his dad’s kayak down main street. The muscles in my neck wince at the memory. It’s a good memory I don’t really deserve.

  I squirm under the blankets—my own personal shame fortress. I’ve had to pee now for approximately three millennia, but I refuse to go in the bathroom. Or even leave this room, for that matter, until Henry goes downstairs. Because I am super mature.

  The store is closed on Sundays so that George can attend church. Henry apparently doesn’t, however, because his voice filters down the hallway. Talking on the phone, laughing, and moving around in his room. There is no clear prediction for when I’ll be able to pee. I hope I can outlast him.

  I don’t even let myself think about the fact that he and I are here alo—see? Won’t even complete the thought.

  The bathroom door opens and I pull the blanket over my head. I give it a minute before I peek out. When the push button lock clicks, I breathe again. Faucets squeak as he runs the shower. He’s totally naked on the other side of the door. But it’s not like I’m picturing it with perfect recall or anything.

  My phone buzzes on the desk, so I sit up and glance at the caller ID. Dylan. Again. I reject the call and throw myself backwards on the pillow. I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel so guilty. And he will sense the guilt the moment he talks to me. I made it worse by not answering his calls last night. I scroll through all my missed texts.

  I reply to Maddie first.

  You should see his brother.

  I think it instead of typing it, then shove my phone under a pillow and groan. I can’t do this. I have to work with this guy for weeks. I can’t go getting a crush because we finally talked to each other like human beings. Or because of a stupid dream. A dream with the same eerie qualities to the ones that have come true. Disordered causality? Nope. Not gonna think about it.

  It makes no sense that I feel betrayed, but I do. Mama is hosting co-ed sleepovers for my friends? This is not something she would normally do. It’s not like it’s a youth group lock-in at church or anything.

  My phone starts ringing again. Dylan.

  I turn it off and toss it aside. Now there will be no doubt that I’m avoiding him.

  I close my eyes and listen to Henry’s movements as he leaves the bathroom, opens and closes drawers in his bedroom, and then disappears down the stairs. I take the opportunity to make a mad dash to the bathroom.

  It’s locked from my side.

  I press my forehead against the cool frame of the door.

  Drawing a deep breath, I tiptoe to the hallway and poke my head out. When I’m sure the coast is clear, I dash to his room and push the door open. My heart pounds in my throat. I glance behind me before I slip inside.

  His walls are covered end-to-end with astronomy posters. Constellations. One that’s solid black with the definition of quantum entanglement on it. In case you’re wondering: a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the others, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.

  I think I fell asleep before I finished reading it.

  The room is a wreck. His bed is unmade, dark blue sheets twisted around the foot of the bed. Above it on the wall are pictures of his family and friends. His dad and Patrick. Mons and Zara and Sanjay. Then there are squares where the paint on the wall is a little brighter, like photos used
to hang there, but have been taken down. I wonder how many old girlfriends he has. Maybe he even has a current one.

  Footsteps on the stairs jar me out of my nosy investigation. I fly into the bathroom and lock the door. A moment later, the door handle jiggles.

  “Jo? You in there?”

  I have to pee so incredibly bad, but I don’t want to do it with him standing outside the door.

  “Yeah,” I call.

  Silence descends. I can’t tell if he’s still standing there, but I keep holding it, listening to the drip, drip, drip of the rain outside. My eyeballs start to float.

  “You feel okay?” His voice is muffled through the door.

  “Yep, great.” Please. Go.

  A pause.

  “I’m headed out to meet Zara,” he says.

  I stare at the tile backsplash over the sink, legs shaking. Why is he telling me this? And worse, why does it make me jealous?

  “Have fun!” What else can I say? His shadow under the door disappears, returns, hesitates.

  “The deli on Brixton, if you want to come over.” His shadow vanishes before I can answer.

  I should go, I think. This is good. A step forward. But then I remember we only hung out last night because of George’s request. Maybe he told him to invite me to this, too.

  So I stay in my room all day instead.

  Chapter 22

  : Act Naturally :

  I HAVE ONE goal when Monday rolls around: Be cool.

  I tossed and turned all night, afraid to dream. Each time I’d feel myself falling asleep, I’d startle awake again.

  When I get downstairs, Henry’s reclining on a counter stool with a book in his hands, green Chuck Taylors propped next to the cash register. My ears burn at the sight of him. At least he’s wearing clothes now.

  “Good morning,” he says, glancing at his watch and then up at me.

  “Morning.” I don’t bother to point out that it’s nearly lunchtime. Instead, I make myself busy straightening shelves and do my best to avoid talking.

  The awkwardness hangs between us like a smoke screen all afternoon. The store is so dead that I check to make sure the Open sign is lit up. Twice. He doesn’t bring up Saturday night or his ignored lunch invitation, and I pretend to be very interested in running new inventory reports. By mid-afternoon, George wanders out of his office with a big cardboard box.

  “Favor to ask.” He drops the box between us on the floor. It’s full of wooden shapes that look like puzzle pieces.

  “I need this display put together for the front window. We’re out of shelf space and a shipment for the Boomtown Festival is arriving tomorrow.”

  Henry and I nod silently.

  “Work together.” He says this like he assumes that’s the last thing we’d want to do. Henry lifts the box and takes it to the front corner of the store and I follow. He drops it on the rug by the window and sinks to his knees.

  We organize the pieces on the rug, according to the directions sheet.

  “This one goes over there.” He hands me a wooden piece that matches others in a pile I’ve made. I take it and set it down. He glances up at me a couple of times and I pretend not to notice. How can I not notice, though? His emerald green University of Bristol tee brings out the color of his eyes so much that his face may as well be a Venus flytrap for idiot girls.

  I click the base together while he reads the directions.

  “Were you hungover yesterday?” he asks, voice low.

  I glance up at George’s office door. He chews on a pen and stares at his computer screen. Far enough away that he can’t hear us. Or isn’t trying to.

  “I didn’t feel great, but I wasn’t sick.”

  He nods. “The tea always helps me.” I can practically smell the peppery herbal aroma when he mentions it. Which rings a bell: I could smell the tea in the dream.

  Do Not Think About That.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it helped.” I swallow. “Thanks for that.”

  “Sure.” He corrects my wobbly display base, adding a piece to stabilize it. He starts building the next level and I hand him the pieces in order. “So how were the dreams?”

  I drop the display piece in my hands. Then quickly pick it up. The blush crawls the length of my body. Even my toes are blushing.

  “What dreams?” Becoolbecoolbecool.

  He full-on stares at me. I swallow. Swallow again. Why is there so much spit in my mouth?

  “The lucid ones.” He narrows his eyes like I’m a moron. “The ones we discussed.”

  “Oh.” I shrug it off like this is Definitely No Big Deal and I’m not at all worried that he freaking knows or something. “I didn’t dream anything at all. Or can’t remember if I did.”

  It doesn’t sound remotely true. I re-sort the display pieces and pretend I didn’t just say that in my Liar Liar Pants On Fire voice.

  “That’s interesting,” he finally says. “Mugwort always makes me dream.”

  “Not me. I was out like a light.” My voice squeaks on the last word.

  Henry chuckles. “You all right?”

  “Yep.” I don’t look up. It’s not like he can read minds. Right? I hope to God that isn’t a quantum physics thing. Or a ley line thing. Or a Henry thing.

  His eyes are still on me, and I make the mistake of meeting them. Mischief swirls like a whirlpool there. My stomach drops when he says, “I had crazy dreams after. Woke up in a sweat.”

  “Yikes,” I say, and grab the directions. I stare at a blank spot in the middle of the page, pretending to study meticulously.

  “I mean it wasn’t unpleasant.” The way he says it… “I got up to wash my face, and that’s when I kind of barged in on you by mistake. Sorry about that.” He pauses. “You seemed a little off-kilter yourself.”

  “Who, me? No. Maybe sleepy.” I stare harder at the page, wishing there was a volume button for my pulse. I swear it’s shaking the whole building now. I don’t know how he knows about The Dream, but it feels like he has read the script and seen the movie.

  “You, uh, figuring those directions out?”

  I nod and squint, bringing my eyes up to the words. They’re upside down.

  Henry reaches over and takes the page out of my hands, flips it around, and hands it back to me. “Might be easier to read it this way.” His dimples wink.

  Inside my head, I’m summoning the meteors. Crush me right here where I sit, please.

  “I probably need glasses,” I mutter.

  We fumble with the display for a few more awkward minutes until my phone rings in my back pocket. When I’m 64 blares through the store. I could silence it and ignore, but I’m so desperate to get out of this embarrassment quicksand that I press the answer button.

  Dylan’s face lights up on-screen. There are pillow lines on his face.

  I glance at the clock on my phone. “Did you just wake up?”

  “I didn’t sleep much, but yeah. I was worried about you.”

  I can see his aura again. It’s the color of a storm cloud.

  Henry continues working on the display but keeps glancing up at me. I stand and walk to the opposite aisle and crouch down behind a collection of Ramones albums. Appropriate, because I wanna be sedated.

  “There’s no reason to be worried about me. I’m fine.”

  “I’ve been calling you for two days.” His eyes well up and he frowns.

  I swallow a lump of guilt. Dylan cares about me. It may not be in the way I need him to care about me, but he does care.

  “I know. I’m sorry. Our schedules are opposite right now. And I’ve been going to bed early. Why don’t we set up a specific time to talk every day?” I say it with a lot more conviction than I feel, and then punctuate it with a smile.

  “You seem strange. Are you taking your meds?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “So your luggage finally made it?”

  Oops.

  “Yep,” I fib. “Saturday, actually.”

  Dylan seems to relax a
little. “Well, that’s good. Might take a little while to feel like yourself again.”

  My teeth clench. I used to love it when he said things like this. It was comforting that he didn’t think I was wounded in some way because I had to take medication. But now? He makes me feel like I’m a wild thing to be controlled. Like I’m not me if I’m not taking meds. And I feel more like me right now than I have in a long time.

  “Look, I’ve gotta go, I’m working.” It sounds like a brush-off. It is a brush-off. My nose burns like I need to cry, and if I talk to him for much longer, I’m probably going to.

  “Okay. What time do you want to talk?” He sits up on the edge of his bed and runs a hand across his face, covertly wiping his eyes. “Tell me when to call you and I will.”

  “I’ll text you,” I say. “We’ll figure out the time then. Talk to you later.”

  I hang up. Leaning against a box of unsorted records, I take a deep breath and close my eyes, then wait a full thirty-second count before I re-join Henry on the rug. He’s got the display half assembled. He works diligently, snapping wooden pieces together and securing them with screws. I drop to my knees and stare at the remaining pieces.

  “That your boyfriend?” He works without looking at me.

  “Yeah.”

  “He seems a little…” Henry glances over. “Annoying.”

  Like I need people pointing out obvious things to me right now. I sigh.

  “We’ve been dating for a year. This is the first time we’ve been apart.”

  Henry raises an eyebrow. “Ah. That explains all the crotch selfies.”

  My mouth falls open like a broken door. He chuckles.

  “Oh, come on. Did Mons seem like a guy who’d keep secrets?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I clamp my teeth together and yank a corner piece out of his hand and position it where it goes.

  “Look at you, all flustered.” He laughs, teeth on full display. “It’s charming. Really.”