Kissing Midnight

by Rede, Laura Bradley

  “What do you want to do?” I whisper.

  His eyes flick from my eyes to my lips and back—just a momentary glance, but it’s enough. “What?” he says. “Right now?”

  I know if I say yes, now he will say kiss you. And I want to. I’m surprised by how much I want to. I can feel that yes all the way down to my core, but I’m too afraid to say it. “In the future.”

  He turns his head to look back at the stars, and I feel relieved and disappointed all at once. “I just want to live,” he says. “That’s all I ever want. To live, no matter what it takes.”

  He says it so quietly, he might as well be talking to himself, but the desire in his voice, the hunger to be alive, speaks to me deep down. Not everybody feels that way. My brother didn’t. There have been days when I didn’t feel like living either. I want to drink that feeling in.

  On impulse, I turn and kiss his cheek.

  He tenses, caught of guard by my—boldness, I think. He said be bold — but then he turns his head and his lips meet mine like flame meets a fuse, sending trail of heat down my body. I kiss him deeper and he rises to meet me, rolling toward me until he is above me, his chest against mine, the warm weight of his body pressing me into the soft blanket beneath us. Dev is a good kisser. Even without much basis of comparison, I know that. He kisses me hungrily. I can feel the tension of his body against mine, the press of his breath. For a long time, we stay lost in the kiss, letting the world spin around us like the fake stars over head. I can tell he has made out like this a million times before, but I haven’t. This isn’t my first kiss, but it’s the first one that has really held the promise of more. It’s delicious and frustrating and overwhelming.

  I need to come up for air. Gently, I push Dev away and try to make the room stop spinning.

  He rolls onto his back, smiling up at the ceiling. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Wow.”

  For a minute we just lie there, breathing hard. Dev’s hand finds mine in the dark, fingers entwining between us. With his other hand, he picks up the remote and presses a new button. Above us, the sky bursts into a meteor shower, dozens of silver streaks flashing across the domed ceiling.

  I gasp like a kid at a fireworks show. “Shooting stars!”

  “What do you wish?”

  At first nothing at all comes to mind. With the memory of the kiss still exploding through my body like stars across the sky, I feel like my wish has been granted. At least, the only wish that could actually come true.

  But I can’t say that. I’m too shy. “You first,” I say. “What do you wish for?”

  He smiles at me in the dark. “I know exactly what I want.”

  “So tell me.”

  His smile is mysterious. “I’ll tell you later.”

  I smack him on the shoulder. “No fair!”

  “First tell me yours.”

  I pout at the ceiling. “Does it matter what we wish? The stars aren’t real. Will the wish even come true?”

  “Aha!” He aims the remote at the ceiling again. “Abracadabra!”

  The meteor shower fades and goes black. Then, slowly, a circular skylight in the ceiling above us spirals open and through it I can see a patch of the real night sky. The stars look fainter and smaller, but all the more beautiful for being real, as if the night has taken off her mask and shown us her true face.

  “Wish,” he says.

  I shut my eyes. I don’t know what to wish. There are so many things I want, and most of them I can’t have. Nothing will bring Enrique back.

  Focus on the future, I tell myself. It’s almost New Year’s Eve. The start of a new cycle. I think about what Dev said. I wish to really live.

  I open my eyes. Dev is smiling at me. “Did you wish?”

  I nod.

  “Good.” He reaches into the cooler beside him and grabs out a fortune cookie. “Now gaze into your future and see if your wish will come true.”

  I unwrap the crinkling plastic, snap the fortune cookie in half and toss half to Dev, who catches it in his mouth, crunching loudly. Then I tug out the tiny slip of paper.

  But even as I turn the fortune over, the feeling is coming over me: that cold, prickling feeling. Time seems to slow down. No, I think, not now, not here. The slip of paper rattles in my trembling hand, but I can’t stop myself from looking.

  The words are hand written in blood red ink. “Bold, be bold, but not too bold…”

  Suddenly I remember where I’ve seen them before: carved above the door in my dream.

  I drop the fortune and the cookie at the same time. The cookie smashes on the floor, and the fortune flutters down after it. The room seems to be getting darker, the blackness closing in around me like a circular skylight spiraling shut.

  “Saintly?” Dev’s forehead creases with concern. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I struggle to pull myself together. “The fortune…”

  He scoops up the little slip of paper and smoothes it flat. He grins as he reads it. “I like it. Which reminds me, I was going to tell you my wish.” He takes my hand and looks me in the eye. “Saintly, I wish you would go out with me again. We don’t have to break into anywhere or sneak around. You can decide what we do. I just want to get to know you better, okay? Tell me we can hang out again.”

  Dev’s hand is warm and strong in mine. I feel the room grow more solid around me at his touch. My mind lightens, like a cloud has lifted. Cautiously, I look at the fortune in his hand.

  “Happiness lies ahead.”

  That’s all it says.

  It was all in your mind, I tell myself. The things you imagine aren’t real.

  What is real is this: the warmth of Dev’s leg against mine, the expectant look in his blue eyes. I thought he was just one more complication, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe Dev is just what I need after all.

  “Yes,” I say, “I’d love to.”

  Chapter 11

  Saintly

  “What time is it, Mr. Fox?” The little girl’s voice rings out in the chilly air. She’s one of a long line of little girls standing on the far end of the darkening meadow. They are all in pastel party dresses, like they’re getting ready for an Easter egg hunt. The first fireflies rise around them like sparks from some hidden flame, but the girls don’t seem to notice. They are all focused intently on the far end of the meadow, where a young man in a dark suit stands facing away from them, towards the ragged black hem of the woods. His face is hidden in his hands.

  “One o’clock,” he says.

  They each take one step forward. Some stretch their legs so they almost leap. Others tip-toe so they hardly move.

  A second girl speaks. “What time is it, Mr. Fox?”

  “Six o’clock.” There’s a smile in his tone.

  They move forward six paces, some boldly, some as if they wish they could go back.

  There’s a tremble in the third girl’s voice. “What time is it Mr. Fox?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  Eight paces, then freeze. One little girl is very close, a girl with curls the color of copper, dressed in a long brown dress. She stands behind him, her face grim with determination, her shadow, long in the twilight, like the straight black hand of a clock.

  “What time is it, Mr. Fox?”

  “Midnight!” He spins around. The girls scatter like birds, screaming with laughter.

  But the copper-haired girl is too close. He catches her around the waist and hoists her like a doll. She thrashes wildly, her hair flying, small fists pounding his chest, but he’s much too strong. He holds her effortlessly, and I can hear him laughing as he steps out of the shadows. I’m about to see his face…

  “Saintly! Saint!”

  Someone is shaking me. I try to fight them off, but something is pinning me down, holding me tight. I cry out.

  “Saintly, it’s me!”

  I open my eyes.

  Delia is standing over me dressed in her bathrobe, her blond hair damp, her blue eyes wide. “You wer
e yelling in your sleep again.”

  “I was?” I sit up, disoriented. I’m in bed, the blankets tangled around me. I kick them off.

  “You were! I came back from the showers and I could hear you two doors away. God, girl, what were you dreaming?”

  “It was a kids’ game.” My voice sounds distant. My mind is still in the meadow.

  Delia laughs uncomfortably. “Remind me not to play Candyland with you.”

  “No, not that kind of game. It was What Time Is It, Mr. Fox. Do you remember that game? We used to play it at the park?”

  Delia turns to the mirror and picks up her hairbrush. “Was it like kick the can?”

  “No!” It feels important. “Remember? Someone was Mr. Fox and we would ask him the time—”

  “Oh, like Mother May I, right? Or Red Light, Green Light?” Delia studies me, her head tilted to the side.

  “Yes, but more intense. You had to get him before he got you.” My whole body is still shaking. I pull the covers up over my shoulders.

  Delia sighs and turns to the mirror. “I never won at those games. I always took these huge steps and got way close, and they always tagged me out.” She picks up her brush and starts running it through her hair. “You were the one who always won.”

  I hug the covers tight around me. “You mean I never got tagged out.” I was always so timid, I played it safe with baby steps and never got too close. “But not getting tagged out isn’t the same as winning. To win, you’d have to get him first.”

  Delia pauses, mid-brush. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Her eyes find mine in the mirror. I can see the concern on her face.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” There’s no way to explain the feeling of the dream: the strange seriousness of the girls. The panic on the little girl’s face when he caught her, like it wasn’t a game at all.

  Delia turns to face me. She looks tired, and she keeps her voice low. “Are you sure it’s all helping, Saintly? The therapy and everything?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and I mean it. In the five days since my planetarium date with Dev, I haven’t had any more episodes. The strange dreams continue—I’ve had the dream about the door almost every night this week—but my daylight hours are reassuringly normal. It’s as if Dev, with his carefree sense of humor, repels anything strange.

  I shrug off he blankets and untangle my feet. “It was just a weird dream, that’s all.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “And speaking of therapy, I’ve got to get ready.”

  A few hours later, Dr. Sterling sits across from me in what must be his “casual pose,” leaned back in his chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. I think of these positions like yoga poses for therapists: “Steepled Hands of Thought.” “Downward Face of Sympathy.” “Chin Up Tiger.” I keep imagining entire classes of therapists moving through the poses in unison while an instructor barks criticisms: “More turn out, Dr. Sterling! We want open! We want receptive!”

  “Mariana?” Dr. Sterling cocks his head to the side, concerned. “Did you hear me? I asked how you’ve been sleeping.”

  “Oh!” I snap back to reality. “Fine. I’ve been fine.”

  “No more dreams? No more disruptions to your sleep?”

  “Nope.” It’s a lie, but I don’t see the sense in bringing up last night’s dream. Sure, it disturbed me at the time, but now that I’m here in Dr. Sterling’s very normal office, it seems silly to be upset by a dream about a kids’ game.

  “And your waking life? How was your Christmas?”

  I shrug. “Fine. Good.” Christmas was actually a non-event. Aside from exchanging presents with Delia and a brief long-distance call from my mom, it was a lot like any other day.

  He nods. “And how are things with Dev?”

  “Good.” I can’t help smiling. In the five days since our date at the planetarium, Dev and I have spent almost all of our time together. Sure, a lot of that has been spent painting sets and organizing costumes with Delia, but he and Delia get along well and the three of us are having fun.

  And Dev and I have managed to steal some moments alone, too. Things haven’t gone any further than they did in the planetarium, but only because I want to take it slow. There are still a lot of things we don’t know about each other—I still haven’t told him about my brother or said anything about Westgate, and he hasn’t told me much about his past, either, but right now I’m enjoying living in the moment. “It’s going well.”

  “Good.” Dr. Sterling smiles encouragingly. “I’ll be honest, Mariana, I had my hesitations when you asked to scale back your medications. I knew you were capable of handling it, but I wondered if our timing was right. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by your progress this past week and, now that you’re feeling in a more stable place—” he pulls himself up a little straighter in his chair, “—I was hoping we might go a little more in depth. I’d like to talk about your brother.”

  Crap. The bottom falls out of my good mood. Talking about Enrique is the last thing I want to do. I mean, it’s not like I want to forget him. I just don’t want to talk about him now, when the ground has finally stopped shifting under my feet.

  But I can’t say that. I have to cooperate with therapy.

  I shrug one shoulder. (That’s my patient yoga pose: Downward Shrugging Shoulder. It’s very Zen, like “What is the sound of one shoulder shrugging?”) “What do you want to know?

  “Well…” He puts both feet on the floor and leans forward, elbows on knees. “Whatever you want to tell me. We haven’t talked much about—” He has to glance at the notes on his desk to remember my brother’s name, and I mentally detract points. “—Enrique, and in light of the dream you told me about before, the one with the door, I feel we should.”

  “But that dream wasn’t about him.”

  He holds up a cautioning finger. “Let’s not pass judgment on that just yet. At the time, we discussed the significance of the clock ticking in your dream. Did you, by any chance, read the books I recommended? Peter Pan? Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart?”

  I nod. “Sure.” I’ve read them both several times before.

  “Very good.” He gives me an approving smile. “And do you understand why I suggested them?”

  One-shouldered shrug again. “The crocodile in Peter Pan has swallowed a clock. Captain Hook hears it whenever the croc is near.”

  Dr. Sterling nods sagely. “Hook—the only adult, the only one who grows up—is pursued by the constant passage of time, by the threat of his own mortality. Does that mean anything to you, Mariana? Do you identify in any way?”

  “Ummm…” You always have to be so careful how you answer stuff in therapy. “I guess anyone would identify. I mean, no one lives forever.”

  “Good dodge.”

  I look up suddenly. “Excuse me?”

  Dr. Sterling looks surprised. “Excuse what?”

  “I… I thought you said something.” I mean I thought someone said something. It didn’t really sound like Dr. Sterling. But there’s no one else in the room. “Maybe I heard someone in the lobby.”

  Dr. Sterling nods, but he’s watching me closely. “You’re right about that: No one of us is immortal. But most of us are able to forget that fact, yes? At least, people your age are. Previously, I suggested the clock in your dream is simply the passage of time as you mature, and the door you fear is a symbolic portal to adulthood. But, taking it one step further, I wonder if that ticking isn’t an awareness of your own mortality.”

  An awareness I didn’t have until Enrique killed himself. That’s what he means.

  I really don’t want to sound uncooperative, but I just can’t handle this today.

  “I don’t really want to talk about mortality,” I say quietly.

  “Me, either.”

  I freeze. I know I heard the voice this time.

  But Dr. Sterling didn’t. He smiles at me sympathetically. “I just would like to hear your thoughts about the door in your dream.” He gives me a leading-the-witness look. “What do you t
hink it might represent?”

  “What?” My eyes scan the room for anything that might have made the sound I heard. A radio? A phone? Is there a window open?

  “Mariana?” Dr. Sterling’s look is concerned, but I can tell, underneath it, he’s eager. He thinks I’m getting twitchy because he’s on to something, because he has struck a nerve.

  I look down at my hands.

  “You mean,” I say, “do I think the door represents death.”

  “Bingo!” a girl’s voice says. It’s so close and so clear now, I can’t pretend it away. I look up in spite of myself.

  And there she is, standing behind Dr. Sterling. I recognize her from somewhere, although it takes me a second to remember that I’ve seen her around campus. The only reason I remember at all is the fact that she’s dressed the same now as she was then: same red and white striped T-shirt, same denim jacket, same flop of bleach-blond hair hiding the same gray eyes. Except now I can see that she is transparent, like a ghost.

  She smiles at me, and I feel like I’m going to hyperventilate.

  “Exactly.” Dr. Sterling smiles, too, like I’m a seven-year-old who just read a hard word. “Death. I’m wondering, Mariana, if your brother’s death didn’t make you hyperaware of your own mortality. In the dream, you are afraid to follow someone through a door, perhaps in the same way you are afraid you might follow Enrique into death.”

  “It’s not him in the dream,” I say. “It’s a girl.” I’m staring at the girl standing behind him. She doesn’t look like anything to be afraid of. She has a bright, genuine smile, and she keeps bouncing on the toes of her sneakers and blowing her over-long bangs out of her eyes with nervous little puffs of breath. Very normal.

  But I know these things have a way of turning on me. They are almost never what they seem.

  “We often substitute one person for another in dreams. You said the woman in the dream was young? About the age Enrique would be right now?”