Dream Smashers

by Angela Carlie

  “Five, four, three, two, one!”

  Evan puts his hands up to my face. The heat melts my ears. He looks at me.

  “Happy New Year, Autumn.”

  “Happy New Year.”

  He pulls me close and kisses me for a moment, and then hugs me long and hard. He lifts me into the air and we twirl around with the rest of the people who dance, cheer, kiss, blow horns, and sing.

  This is going to be a good year.

  Rainy and Caleb come crashing into our personal party.

  “Happy New Year!” Rainy screams at the top of her lungs.

  Grams and Jacinda stand off to the side, watching. Grams smiles, but Jacinda looks angry as usual.

  I give Grams a hug. “Happy New Year.”

  Her body shakes. She nods her head and says, “Happy New Year, dear.”

  Evan and Caleb sprint over to love on Grams. After one last hug, they’re off to run their race.

  “Good luck!” Rainy and I holler in unison.

  Evan blows me a kiss. I catch it and put it in my pocket.

  Then they disappear. The crowd of bobbing flesh swallows them whole.

  “You guys are pretty pathetic.” Jacinda scowls.

  Deep breaths.

  Grams lights a cigarette and inhales. She blows the smoke out through her nostrils. If not for the nasty aroma, the smoke could fool the world as being innocent fog. “You were young once. Let them be.”

  Rainy stands next to me and crosses her arms in a fashion that says ‘back off.’ We are a united front against the dream smasher before us.

  “Oh please, Ma! I was never that pathetic,” Jacinda says with a slur.

  As I watch her now, I see the only real side of Jacinda that I’ve ever known. The sliding down a slippery slope side. She’s in super bitch mode—crash mode. And when she crashes, she drinks.

  A strong stench glides its way to my nostrils, spoiled warm alcohol. Nothing else smells like it. Nothing compares. Alcohol smells like, well, alcohol. I guess urine is close, but not quite. Like the bar she used to drag me to when I was little, in the middle of the night, just at closing. Before Grams and Gramps took me from her. When beer and fruit tainted drinks layered the floor and I was stuffed under a table, hidden from other patrons until Jacinda got herself kicked out, leaving me forgotten to fall asleep until daylight. Only then would someone discover me. Someone who must have known who I was because they didn’t turn me over to authorities. Instead they handed me back to the evil monster. Those memories, those smells, are burned into my brain forever.

  She reeks, and I hate it.

  My blood turns to gasoline, ready to combust at any given spark. I’m pretty sure steam escapes my body in the cold air and that Rainy sees it because she wraps her arm through mine, giving me the kindle to ignite. “You promised!” I say. My throat burns.

  Jacinda’s breathing turns raspy and increases in rate. Her jaw clenches as does her fists.

  To reiterate my point, I say, “You’re a liar!”

  Grams walks away, as if she doesn’t want to deal with anything anymore. She must think I’m old enough to cope with the dream smasher on my own—my wicked ghost who haunts me daily.

  Jacinda’s bottom lip curls. “Now look what you’ve done.” She too walks away, but then, turns back to face me. “I ain’t promised you nothing.”

  “Yes you did. You promised Grams too!”

  “Do you ever wonder why I hate summer so much?” She snarls. “Why I left summer out of your name?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” My mind races to think of a single reason why she could possibly hate summer.

  One by one, rain drops plop onto the sidewalk, trees, us.

  Only a maniac would like winter over summer.

  “When were you born?” She glares.

  I don’t answer her. I don’t have to. July 10th. I’m the reason she hates summer.

  Plop, plat, ding, tick, pitter. My fuse is out, spent.

  Air escapes Rainy with a hiss. “Oh, she did not just say that.” She marches over to Jacinda who takes a step back. “You have no right to talk to Autumn like that. She didn’t ask to have a junkie for a mom, but look what’s she’s got.” She pricks the air with her finger, pointing at Jacinda. “You—“

  “It’s not worth it.” I hobble toward Rainy and put my hand on her shoulder, stopping her from saying another word. “Don’t waste your breath. Nothing we say will change a thing.”

  Jacinda’s face scrunches into a grimace, reminding me of a picture Grams has of her as a kid at the circus. A clown handed her a balloon, probably getting a little too close, and that’s when someone snapped the photo. With fear in her eyes and a frown on her lips, she held a hand close to her body and cranked her torso away from the scary clown. In a way, I’m the scary clown, and she’s still the little girl afraid to enjoy the gift being offered.

  I wipe the drops of rain from my brow. “Mom. We’re not gonna do this anymore. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Rivers pour from Jacinda’s eyes. She smears her nose with the back of her hand.

  “I mean, when you’re clean, then you can see me. But, until then, I’m done.” And I am too. I wait for some sort of pain to stab my guts or a sense of freedom to overcome me or tears to burn my eyes, but none of that happens. I feel…normal. Not happy, not sad. Indifferent.

  Jacinda sniffles one more time. “Okay.” She nods her head, turns and then fades away into the fog.

  The rain turns into a shower.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  One Year Later

  “Are you sure about this?” Evan hollers as loud as he can to be heard over the engine and wind. He looks fantastically bug-like with giant goggles covering half his face.

  I nod my head, hesitant, even though I know in my heart of hearts that this is going to be the most amazing thing ever in the history of things that I’ve done. I can’t wipe the smile off my face, even if I had a wet wipe to do so. It’s not like we could turn back now anyway. We are in the plane, impelling super-fast in the air to the drop zone 14,000 feet high. To me, that seems like the height of outer space.

  My tandem dude hooks himself to the harnesses around me and signals for me to move toward the exit. I try not to pee my pants.

  Rainy and Angel look rad in pink jumpsuits and matching goggles. Fortunately for us, the tandem sky-dive company offers jumpsuits in two fashionable color choices—pink or blue. Rainy’s smile stretches as wide as mine. She gives Caleb a wink, but I can tell that she’s just as freaked as I am.

  Angel grins with an I’m-not-sure-about-this look on her face. I’m surprised I got her to come at all. Outside of school and church, this is the first we’ve convinced her to do something with us since James died.

  The three-minute signal buzzes, my heart leaps, and my muscles become rigid. I can’t stop laughing at how ridiculously stupid this is. If the chute doesn’t open, I’ll end my life as a pancake with some tandem parachute guy that I just met squished on top of me. Not the way I plan on dying.

  The wind blows—hard and stinging. Out the door, below us, a quilt covers the ground. Olive, beige, brown, lime, asparagus, forest green, chocolate, earth, every shade of green and every shade of brown imaginable are represented in the patchwork that lay before us—far, far, far below us.

  The green light flashes above the door. Two experienced jumpers throw themselves out.

  Paralyzing Fear introduces himself.

  I turn around. Rainy, Angel and Caleb attach themselves to their tandem dudes. Evan smiles at me, giving me a thumbs-up and a wink.

  “Are you ready?” my tandem dude says. I don’t answer. We step toward the door whether I’m ready or not. “Ready, Set, Go!”

  We jump.

  Air shoots up my nose, making it hard to breathe.

  I’m falling with nothing to grasp onto, nothing to stop me, only air.

  The knot holding the beaded hemp bracelet my mother made to my wrist suddenly unravels.
The bracelet vanishes upwards. Gone. Forever.

  Sloppy-emotion bubbles and consumes my guts and comes out in a completely irrational and uncontrollable laugh.

  Pure. Freedom.

  Giving Thanks

  Dream Smashers was a difficult novel to write. For putting up with my more than usual impatience and irritability, I thank my son and husband. I love them to pieces. They gave me space to work through the demons of this story and supported me until the end.

  My dad’s an awesome poet. He inspires me to write from the heart. My mom’s my cheerleader and biggest fan. For some reason, she thought she’d be able to retire when I published my books, which makes me smile out of flattery and laugh at the same time.

  I am fortunate to have an awesome group of critique partners and authors who worked with me on making Dream Smashers the best it can be: Gary Corbin, Kate Davis, Cheryl Sears, Carolyn J. Rose, Randal Houle, and the peeps from PDX Word Wranglers (Vannessa, Mark, Joe, Erik, Phillip, Thomas, and Dawn). I also appreciate Monique Bucheger for her help with prayers.

  Katie McAllister (my other biggest fan) and Breanna Kurth for reading Dream Smashers in its early stage and telling me it wasn’t as good as my other novels. (In other words, it needed to be rewritten. Again and again and again.)

  Thanks to Ali McCart from Indigo Editing in Portland for her superb advice and remarks on the first draft.

  One agent of over a hundred who took the time to give me feedback was John M. Cusick. Thank you.

  Megg Jensen, Karly Kirkpatrick, and G.P. Ching welcomed me into the DarkSide. They are awesome writers with fabulous YA books available now. They are also formatting goddesses. Much thanks to them.

  Publishing this book became one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. It’s not easy putting your soul down on paper and then exposing it to the world. Book bloggers are a portal to readers and I appreciate all the hard work they put into their blogs and reviews to help readers find good books and authors promote their work.

  Thanks to Danae Ayusso for introducing me to Wattpad.

  And thanks to you, the reader, for supporting my writing.

  About the Author

  Angela Carlie writes fiction about young people. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband and son. She loves reading, writing, hiking, kayaking, and traveling.

  For more information, please visit www.angelacarlie.com OR www.angelacarlie.blogspot.com

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