by Alex Flinn
I knocked on the door. No answer. Yet I was sure it was his house. I knocked and knocked and called and called. Finally, I climbed up a tree across the street. The branches were shaky, creaky, but I had to check.
When I did, I saw that all the plants in the greenhouse were dead. I knew then it wasn’t the right house. Adrian would never let anything happen to his roses.
Have to keep looking.
April 25
Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe it’s time to give up.
May 22
My life is falling apart.
My father is gone. He said something about laying low, and I haven’t seen him in a week. And yesterday, there was an final notice of eviction on the door. So, soon, I’ll be on the street.
And through it all, the thing that worries me most is . . . does he still remember me? He meaning Adrian. Does he still even care? Does he love me? Does he know I love him?
May 23
I never sleep in school. I just don’t.
But today, I’m just so tired, so WEARY, that I actually fell asleep at my desk in English class.
That’s when I had the strangest dream, the type of dream I used to have when I lived with Adrian.
The setting of my dream was like The Persistence of Memory, that painting by Salvador Dalí, the one with the melting clocks. There we
re clocks everywhere. More than that, everything in the room was melting, the desks, the classroom door, even the blackboard. The room was empty, like my smarter classmates had already evacuated. I started to leave too, careful not to touch the lavalike desks.
That’s when I saw her. Kendra. She was dressed in a red jacket and gray pants, like the White Rabbit in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. She held a giant pocket watch. She sang:
You’re late! You’re late
And if there’s anything I hate
It’s girls who say they are in love
But won’t substantiate!
“What?” I said to Kendra/Rabbit. “Won’t substantiate? I looked all over the city for him!”
“You didn’t look hard enough. Or long enough. And, besides, he was still up in the country most of the time you were looking in the city. And now . . .” She sang again. “You’re late, you’re late, you’re late, you’re late, you’re late, you’re—”
“I get it! Can you possibly give me any useful information in these dreams?”
“Time’s a-wastin’.”
“I know. My life is falling apart.”
She shook her head. I noticed her long ears made a shaky sound when she did, like a real rabbit. “No, not for you, silly girl. Time’s a-wastin’ for him.”
“What do you mean, for him?”
She sighed and waved her arm. Suddenly, she was transformed into the creepier-looking white rabbit from Tim Burton’s Alice. I became aware of the clocks again. They seemed to be melting faster, running, sliding off the furniture and onto the floor.
She started singing again, a strange tune I didn’t recognize.
I placed you in this scene by Dalí,
To let you know it would be folly,
To wait too long, so don’t delay.
To find him, you must go today.
“I’ve gone every day.” A clock slid off the desk in front of me and toward my feet.
“But not the right place. Or rather, you were in the right place, but at the wrong time.” She tapped her pocket watch. “And time is of the essence.”
I jumped to avoid the sliding clock on the floor. “So you’re saying go back somewhere I’ve looked before?”
“Duh.”
“But where?”
She checked her wa
tch. “I’ve already said too much.”
“You’ve said nothing.”
“I’m late!” Her voice seemed small and far away. “I’m late!” Smaller still.
Wait!” I screamed.
That’s when I noticed all my classmates staring at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was.
Still, I know what I have to do. Look for him. As soon as I get out of school, I’ll go. I’ll go everywhere I’ve been before, and I’ll find him.
Today.
May 24
It was a suspenseful day yesterday, and a more suspenseful night.
When I woke in class, the melting clocks were gone. I was in school, and it was almost three o’clock.
I knew what I had to do, as soon as school was over. I had to find Adrian.
I started with the subway. In the dream, Kendra said to look where I’d already looked. I know it was just a dream, but it had seemed so real that I decided to follow her advice.
But by evening, I was frustrated. I decided to go with the long shot, g
o back to the apartment, see if my father was there, if he could tell me where Adrian was. Maybe he would if he thought Adrian would give him money.
I got off the subway and was almost to my apartment. It was dark, almost 10. I ran faster.
That’s when somebody grabbed me.
“Where is he?” a voice demanded. I couldn’t see his face, but the voice was a low growl in my ear, and I felt something hard—a gun—against my back.
“Where’s my father?” It amazed me how calm I was.
The man cursed. “He owes me.”
“I don’t know.” I thought of Kipling. If you can keep your head . . . I told the guy, “I haven’t seen
him in a week, but I’ll tell him—”
“Save it. Scumbags like him can disappear without a trace.”
Didn’t I know it?
He shoved the gun aga
inst me. “I want the money from you. Now.”
I didn’t have it. But I couldn’t tell him that, so I said, “Okay. I have to go back to my apartment to get it. If you’ll just . . .”
And, suddenly, I knew exactly where Adrian was. The house. The one in Park Slope with the dead greenhouse. It all made sense. If he’d stayed upstate too long, he wouldn’t have answered the door. Even though he’d gotten someone to tend the plants, that person might have let them die. I knew he was there.
“I have to get on the subway,” I said.
The guy started calling me things I can’t bear to write here. “Don’t play games with me. I know where you live.” With the gun, he forced me toward my own apartment, the last place I wanted to be trapped.
Still, I went inside and pretended to rummage in the drawers, in the closets, looking for it, saying stuff like, “He used to keep it under the mattress.” All the while, I wanted to scream out for Adrian. The guy was getting impatient, and I said, “If you’d just let me call my boyfriend . . .”
“And have him tell the police? I don’t think so.”
“He wouldn’t. He’d give you the money. He’d do anything for me.”
I should never have let myself get sucked back into this world.
“You’re not going anywhere,” the guy said.
Despite the gun, I tried to break for it. He was between me and the door, so I lunged for the open window and screamed into the dark street, screamed Adrian’s name. Even though I knew he couldn’t hear me, my fear and love and desperation combined to tear the sound from my throat. I thought of Jane Eyre, when Jane hears Rochester’s anguished cry across the moors. I was looking for magic.
It didn’t come. The guy pulled me from the window and, again, demanded his money.
I had to admit I didn’t have it. I begged for more time. What good would it do to kill me, after all?
But the guy wasn’t buying. He grabbed me. I screamed, and he slapped me hard. I fell on the floor. He jerked me up by the arm. I screamed again.
“Shut up!” he yelled, and I did. My head was spinning, spinning from the slap. The room was starting to blacken, and I thought it was my vision blurring. But then, I looked up, and I saw black-winged angels, circling like crows. The angels, all of them, had Kendra’s face. The thunder of their wings drowned out everything else. I was hallucinating. The guy was s
aying something, something I couldn’t understand.
“Let me go!” I shrieked.
A giant Kendra-Angel swooped at the guy’s head.
“Lindy!”
Kendra? No, it wasn’t Kendra’s voice. It was another voice, a man’s voice, so familiar. I turned toward it, as did the gunman.
Through my blurred vision and the flying Kendras’ wings, I saw him. Adrian! It was Adrian. A dream. It had to be a dream, just like the angels. Adrian was clear across town. He didn’t know where I lived. He never left the house.
And yet, he was rescuing me.
It had to be my imagination. And yet, my imagination was so clear. It said, “Lindy!”
“You’re here!” I said.
The man said, “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot.” I felt the gun against my head, and yet all I thought, all I cared about thinking, was that Adrian was there, for real there. Adrian was rescuing me like a hero, the hero I always wanted.
I heard a low growl, as if somehow, seeing me like this brought out his animal, his beast tendencies. He crouched low, like a tiger about to spring. I felt the guy shaking.
Adrian spoke, and somehow, his voice was huge, thundering, terrible.
“If you harm her,” he said, “I’ll kill you.”
I felt the gun leave my head and turn toward Adrian.
And then, so many things happened at once. Adrian sprang, snarling at the gunman. A shot rang out. I screamed and screamed. Then the guy was on the floor. Adrian was on top of him, his claws in the guy’s neck.
Black Kendra-Angels circled the room, singing, and the guy lay, unmoving, on the floor. Adrian threw the guy off of him and crumpled to the ground.
I lay frozen. A Kendra-Angel offered me her hand, helped me up. I ran toward Adrian.
“You’re here!”
“I’m here,” he agreed, softly, weakly. Above our heads, the Kendra-Angels were singing and sprinkling something. Rose petals?
I leaned over him and felt wetness. Blood? No! He couldn’t be shot, couldn’t die. I loved him more than I’d imagined, not like a friend, not like some weak thing I had to care for, but as what he was: A hero. My hero.
“I should call the police. Or an ambulance.”
“No!” He grabbed my arm. “Pleas
e. Please, no. Stay with me. Be with me.”
I had to get help. I couldn’t let him die. Yet he held my hand, and I was talking, babbling, explaining all the reasons I hadn’t come back to him, hadn’t found him until now, until it was maybe too late. I started telling him how everything had been different, living with my father after him.
“Why?” His voice was so weak.
“Because I’d been with you. Before, I knew only what it was to be his daughter, to live day to day and wait for it to be over. But now, I knew what it was to have someone talk to me, care for me . . . be with me . . . and . . .”
“Love you?” His words were a gasp. Oh, God, I had to get help. I couldn’t let him die. Yet he kept holding my arm, keeping me there, as if my being there was enough. I stood. Around me, the Kendra-Angels were circling. They were singing something I couldn’t understand. One of them cuffed me with her wing, pushing me back toward Adrian. But it was crazy. I had to get help.
I said, “I should get an ambulance. If anything happened to you, I—”
Adrian pushed himself up. “I love you, Lindy. I know I’m too ugly for you to love, but I’ll always . . .”
Around me, the Kendra-Angels were singing, and I was crying. “I love you too, Adrian. But please, let me—” Again, I stood. Again, they pushed me back. Adrian grabbed my arm. “Then kiss me,” he said. “Let me have the memory of your kiss, even if I die.”
Die? But then, I understood what the Kendra-Angels were singing. “KISS HIM! KISS HIM!” Over and over, they sang it. “KISS HIM!” Their voices reached a crescendo, and the wind off their wings literally blew me back onto the floor beside him. “KISS HIM!” they sang.
I kissed him. His forehead. His cheeks, wet from my tears. His mouth. The air smelled of rose petals, and the Kendra-Angels were singing like, well, angels. Was he dying?
And then he yelled, “Watch out, Lindy!” and I felt the guy grab me. Somehow, I got his gun in my hand. Somehow, I fired it. There was smoke, glass shattering.
Rose petals, falling everywhere.
I turned to Adrian.
He was gone. Gone!
“Adrian!”
In his place, on a bed of roses, lay someone else.
KYLE KINGSBURY?!?!?!?!?!?!
“I’m here, my love,” he said.
It was a hallucination, just like the rose petals and the Kendra-Angels. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe Adrian had never been here at all. Maybe I’d been attacked. Maybe I was dead.
I wouldn’t mind, if I could only be with Adrian.
In my vision, I spoke to Kyle.
“Kyle Kingsbury? Where’s Adrian?”
“I’m here,” he said. “But what did you call me?”
Stupid, snobby Kyle. Still thinking it was all about him.
“Lindy, it’s me,” he said.
“Where is the boy who was here before? His name was Adrian, and he was—”
“Ugly? Hideous.”
The nerve! “No! He was hurt. I have to find him!” I started for the door.
He chased me. “Please wait.”
“I can’t, Kyle. You don’t understand. There was a boy here, and he was—”
“Me.” He grabbed my other hand. “He was me.”
Crazy. But then, he asked me to close my eyes, and after a while, I did, just to make him let me go. He was holding me so hard.
“Do you know my voice, Lindy?” he said, and he reminded me of one night when we’d watched a movie together. He said, “When the movie was over, you’d fallen asleep. I picked you up and carried you to your room.”
That had happened. And his voice. His voice was so familiar. He continued. “You woke in the darkness and spoke to me. You said my voice sounded familiar. It was familiar. It was me. Kyle. Adrian. We’re the same. I will always remember that day because it was the first time I had hope, the first time I spoke to you without you noticing how hideous, how less than human I was. The first time I thought that maybe you could love me.”
I finally started to understand. Kyle was Adrian? Adrian was Kyle? “But how . . . ?”
“Magic. A witch put me under a spell—I would say a cruel spell, but it really wasn’t, because it led me to you.”
Magic. Magic like melting clocks and Kendra-Angels. The mirror. Somehow, it wasn’t that hard to believe.
“How was the spell broken?” I said.
“Magic. It was magic, and the magic is called love. I love you, Lindy.” He leaned and kissed me.
I kissed him back because, finally, I understood. Kyle was Adrian, and Adrian was Kyle. It was like one of my books, like a fairy tale, and I was the princess, the one that transformed him with my love, my kiss. And, in turn, he transformed me from a lonely, unloved girl to a romantic heroine.
October 23
It’s been a while since I’ve had time to write, so let me catch you up.
Adrian and I are still together. For a while, I wasn’t sure what to call him, particularly after he explained to me that he’d changed his name from Kyle to Adrian after finding out that “Kyle” meant “handsome” while “Adrian” meant “dark one.” Now, he is handsome and isn’t dark, so it seems like Kyle would be right. Yet it’s Adrian I came to love.
“How about Stud Muffin?” he suggested when I told him this.
“Adrian it is,” I said, and it has been. People at school call him Kyle, but that’s because they don’t know him like I do.
School? We’re both back at Tuttle for senior year. I got my scholarship back, and Adrian’s dad (surprise, surprise) managed to pull some strings for him, too. It’s kind of weird, seeing Sloane Hagen in the halls. She glares at me as if I stole her boyfriend—and maybe I did. But the guy I’m dating
isn’t the same guy who dated Sloane. He’s changed completely. Yesterday, for example, I saw him talking to this new guy, a ninth grader. The guy has a stutter and really bad acne. Kyle was talking to him about tennis team tryouts.
The old Kyle would never have bothered with someone like that. He wouldn’t even have bothered with me.
“The old Kyle would have made his life miserable,” Adrian said when I mentioned it to him. “Don’t remind me about that guy.”
“There was always some good, deep inside him.”
“Yeah, real deep. So deep you’d need an archeologist to find it.”
“I saw the good in you,” I said.
“You see the good in everyone. That’s what I love about you.”
I said, “I love you, too.” And I did.
The person I don’t see at Tuttle anymore is Kendra. No surprise, really. What I found out about her was, she was the witch who turned Kyle into a beast. Because he was apparently such a jerk to her at the dance (and in general), she placed a curse on him, and someone had to kiss him to end it. I did. Oh, and after it was all over, she transformed into a crow and flew away.
Yes, you read that right.
But the weird thing is, once I knew Kendra was a witch, I started thinking about all those dreams I’d had about her.
Like, were they really dreams?
Or was she there, in person, trying to help Adrian and me get together?
Another thing she did with her magic was, she gave Will his sight back.
Will is a teacher at Tuttle. Adrian and I still live with him in the brownstone in Brooklyn (which was, btw, the one I saw that day). Adrian told his father it was because it wasn’t worth the effort of moving back in with him, just for one year of school, but we all knew that wasn’t the whole story.