Dreaming Awake

by Gwen Hayes

  That thing had Gabe’s voice, it wore his clothes, it mimicked his mannerisms to perfection, and it was clearly upset about my surprise pregnancy and its own lack of sandy brown, perfectly tousled locks of hair.

  “No,” I said, deciding that this was just too much. Maybe it was a trick.

  “Donny, I . . . You . . . What the hell?”

  “Are you really him?” I asked softly, looking at the thing. He was terrifying. This couldn’t be happening. Please let this be a dream. Was he a demon too? All three of us fell for monsters? Maybe all men were. That would explain a lot.

  “It’s me. I swear,” he said.

  “How can I be sure? Tell me something only you would know.”

  There went his hands to his hair again. And when that frustrated him, he did the fist thing. So far, he was very convincing. “You want trivia right now?”

  “Yes!” Why did he always make things so difficult? Add another check to the “He’s probably Gabe” list.

  “Like what?”

  I had to stop looking at his head. “I don’t know. What tattoo do I have on my left boob?”

  “I thought you said to tell you something only I would know.”

  I glared at him, right at his empty eye sockets.

  “Fine. You have a secret picture of us in your compact thing.”

  I tried to put my hand on my hip, but it was all . . . not my usual hip. I had the graceful lines of a rhinoceros; there was no way to pull off my usual haughty stance. “I so do not keep your picture in my makeup compact. It’s a mirror, genius.”

  “Yes, you do. I saw it. It’s not the one you use all the time; it’s the brown one in the bottom of your purse. The picture is from the night we had a picnic at the beach, but it rained so we ate in the car. I teased you about the S Club 7 CD you still had in your glove box, and you sang one of the songs to me really badly. Then we took pictures with your cell phone. One of them is in that mirror thing.”

  All I could do was blink at him.

  “Remember the time you told me I had lettuce in my teeth and to grab a mirror from your purse? I grabbed the wrong mirror first.”

  My heart seized a little. He’d never said a word.

  Clearly, the thing to do here would be to pass out, but it was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I had to deal.

  The fight had gone out of me, though. It was a lot easier to be tough when Ame and Theia had my back. My aching back. I lowered myself onto the couch, holding the small of my back like I’d been practicing being pregnant for a long time.

  “Are you okay?” His hollow eyes were trained on my stomach.

  “No,” I said. “Are you?”

  “How bad do I look?” he asked.

  I so didn’t want to tell him. “What happened to you?”

  He shrugged his human shoulders. “I dunno. I woke up like this. I don’t remember anything. You?”

  “I woke up like this too.”

  He sat in a chair across from me. I stared at his feet. The rest of him was too much to contemplate.

  “We need to get out of here,” he said finally. Neither one of us wanted to discuss my pregnancy or his . . . condition.

  “I couldn’t find a way out,” I said. “Are you a demon like Haden or something?”

  “What? No. I’m just me.”

  “Gabe, you don’t have a face.”

  “Right. I’m pretty sure I’m not a demon, though.” He paused. “What about . . . ?”

  He’d gestured at my large tummy. The baby was settling down, not rolling around so much. I wondered if it was sleeping or got more active when I was walking around. I purposely didn’t know much about being pregnant. Did babies sleep in there? What else was there to do?

  Gabe was still waiting for an answer. I shrugged. “I just don’t know. Honestly. I’m trying not to think about it too much because I will probably go insane if I do.”

  “Were you late? When we were at the cabin and stuff, before we came here, were you late?”

  It was tempting to answer with a joke. I knew what he meant, though. I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Would you have told me if you were?”

  His words hung on the air like the accusation had nowhere to go except be stuck between us.

  I shook my head again. “Probably not.”

  “Damn it, Donny. Why can’t you share stuff with me? Am I so awful?” Gabe held up one hand. “Obviously, right now I am. But before I turned into Skeletor.”

  “What’s a skeletor?”

  “He was He-Man’s archnemesis . . . but that’s not the point. I’m your boyfriend and I’ve tried to be a really great one. Why can’t you ever rely on me? If you were pregnant, you should feel like you can come to me.”

  “This conversation is stupid,” I said. Damn those tears trying to make a break for it. “If I was pregnant before we got here, I didn’t know it, so there is no point to be made. Maybe I would have told you—I don’t know. But what if and maybe aren’t helping us get out of here.”

  “Do you think it’s mine?” My eyes must have widened because he quickly covered. “I know you didn’t cheat on me. I’m not asking if it’s another guy’s kid . . . you know what I mean. Do you think . . . ?”

  “Do I think this baby is human? I don’t know that either.” I touched my stomach with one finger. I still had a hard time believing what I was seeing was true. “I’m very conflicted. On one hand, I don’t want to be pregnant. On the other, I feel . . . I don’t know . . . responsible? To keep it safe, ya know? It seems pretty innocent.”

  “It sounds like you mean you’re feeling maternal.”

  I scrunched my nose up. “God, I guess you’re right. I feel kind of maternal.”

  I tried the word on and risked a look at his face. God, I missed his eyes. They were always so warm. “Do you feel . . . fathery?”

  “I’m not sure. I feel . . . worried about you. Like I need to take care of you more than usual. But I’m not sure I feel anything about the . . .”

  “Baby. It’s called a baby.” Oh, fabulous, now I was defending its honor. “Look, it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like I expect you to go to childbirth classes or anything.”

  “You’re awfully snappy,” he said. I couldn’t disagree with him, but I certainly wasn’t about to agree either. “And why can’t you expect me to go to childbirth classes with you? Maybe part of the problem is that you never expect anything from me.”

  “Part of what problem? The problems I’m looking at right now have nothing to do with what I count on you or don’t count on you for. We’re trapped in a hell dimension. I’m near the end of gestating a baby of unknown origins, and you have turned into a feature creature of some kind. Childbirth classes are a zillion miles from where we are.”

  “Maybe, but like you said. Here we are . . . trapped. We’re in hell, together, and the worst things that can happen to us . . . have.” He held out his arms. “I’m still here, though, Donny.” He pointed to my stomach. “Whether that is my responsibility or not, I’m still here.”

  “Where else are you going to go?” Okay, yes, I was being churlish.

  But what if this was my life now? What if we were stuck in hell forever and I had to raise this baby with Gabe the skeleton man? What if it came out like some kind of monster too? I didn’t know if I could love a normal baby, but somehow I might have to love some kind of demon? It could come out with scales or vampire fangs. Would Gabe still be around then? Could I stand to look at him every day for eternity the way he was now?

  I’m not as shallow as the sneetches, but this was extreme. I like boys a lot. I like the good-looking ones best of all. Gabe was the hottest guy I’d ever been with. I was extremely attracted to him, which is why I put up with all the things I’d never wanted before to be with him.

  I heard a little voice inside me. Liar.

  Okay, maybe there was more than physical attraction, but whatever was left would have to be really strong to overcome the fact that he had n
o face.

  “Donny.” His voice lowered to that warm, rich tone that always curled my toes. “Please, this one time. Can you need me just a little this one time?”

  I looked at him. Hard. It was possible that we were going to die. Why couldn’t I let my guard down? Okay, so he was really hideous-looking, but he never let me down. No matter how hard I’d pushed him, Gabe stayed.

  He’d been a looker, but it was probably past time that I realized he was even better-looking on the inside than he had been on the outside.

  “I do need you,” I whispered. And then I added, “Bonehead.”

  Gabe took a deep breath. “If I come over there, are you going to let me be nice to you?”

  I nodded. Quickly. “That would be appreciated.”

  He moved to the couch and sat next to me, so I rested my head against his chest. It was easier this way, to not look at where his face used to be. God, I missed his face like, whoa. We stayed quiet for a long time. But then I decided I needed to know what had happened to him.

  Gabe tensed when I asked. “I woke up in a dungeon. I was surrounded by skeletons and corpses and even though my cell was unlocked, there was no way out of it until you activated that secret passageway into your room.

  “I don’t know what happened to me before I woke up. I’m kind of glad about that, I think.”

  He stopped talking but the way he breathed suggested he was working up to continuing, so I didn’t butt in. Finally, after several long seconds, he asked me how ugly he was.

  “You look like . . . an X-ray of you. That’s all.” I tried to say it brightly. I’m pretty sure I failed. “This is your worst nightmare, isn’t it? Waking up without your perfect hair?”

  He chuffed out a laugh. “I’m less concerned with my hair than most people think. But yeah, waking up hideous is horrible. Does that make me shallow?”

  “No. I think waking up a skeleton would freak anybody out.”

  “Donny, I don’t know who I am if I’m not good-looking. That’s probably stupid, but that’s how I feel. If we get out of here alive, I can’t go back like this, Donny, I just can’t.”

  His heartbeat sped up beneath my ear. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get there. Rest assured, I’m not going back pregnant either. God, Gabe. I swore this would never happen to me. Like ever. I know everyone at that damn school is going to think it’s no big surprise. So the class slut got knocked up—”

  Gabe covered my mouth gently. “Don’t talk about my girlfriend like that. You’re not a slut. That’s not what I see when I look at you.”

  I had to shift because not only was the conversation making me uncomfortable, but the baby was doing something to my internal organs. “What do you see?”

  “Okay, but if I get mushy, you can’t get mad because you’re the one who asked.”

  I poked him in the ribs. “Why do you stick by me when I know all your friends tell you I’m easy?”

  “First of all, anyone who makes the mistake of calling you names is not a friend of mine. Second, you are the opposite of easy. You’re the most challenging person I know. I’m a guy, and not a very complicated one, but even I can see that you use your hotness like a suit of armor. You let very few people see what you look like under the front you paste on for the world. I want to be one of those people more than I can remember wanting anything.”

  Little earthquakes shook the walls around my heart. There was nothing to hold on to while I rode out the aftershocks, one after the other as each moment of my time with Gabe replayed all the ways he’d become indispensable. As the wall crumbled, I realized that it hadn’t been keeping my heart safe from Gabe after all. He was already on the other side of it.

  “So is waking up pregnant your worst nightmare?” Gabe asked, politely ignoring that I hadn’t responded to his eloquent laying of his heart at my feet.

  “God, yes,” I answered. Knowing I needed to grow up and be honest, I squeezed my eyes closed and continued. “Also, I don’t know why I’m such a bitch. I know you have been nothing but nice to me. I realize that you have been cutting yourself off from the sneetches at an alarming rate in order to stay with me. I know it bugs you that I don’t let you say mushy things to me like a normal girl would. I just— Why do you put up with me?”

  “I’m not gonna lie. There are times that I wished I’d chosen a different girlfriend. Somebody sweeter, less complicated. A nice girl who enjoys the same things I do, doesn’t mind my friends, and is maybe even proud that I’m her boyfriend.” He stroked his hands through my hair.

  “Dream on, dude.”

  He chuckled. “This fantasy girlfriend also wouldn’t be friends with demons, or half-demons, and our dates would not end with me not knowing where the hell she was when I woke up lying on a curiously damp dungeon floor surrounded by cadavers in various states of decomposition.

  “But no. I had to choose you, a girl who can’t even have a normal girl name, a girl who would prefer it if we only met up when it was time to have sex and then I left her alone the rest of the time, a girl who tries to drive me into jealous rages whenever I can convince her to go out in public with me. It’s like you choose your clothes with the express goal of effing with my head every single day.”

  “I really do. I love it when you think I’m dressed totally inappropriately and you want to be mad but can’t because all you think about is getting me back into that janitor’s closet. So, again, I ask . . . why are you still even here?”

  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, that for the first time ever, I believed that maybe I really was.

  I never knew what I had to offer Gabe, other than the obvious. All the times I got mad at Amelia or Theia for their low-self-esteem issues, and I’d been packing around the same ones wrapped in different paper.

  “I don’t want to be pregnant and I don’t want you to be Skeletinator or whatever.”

  “Skeletor,” Gabe said, correcting me.

  “Whatevs. But I do want you to always think I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. And I hope you never give up on me. I will try really hard to be less difficult and maybe occasionally I will surprise you with being nice.”

  “That’s all a guy can ask for.”

  A noise outside the door sent every hair on my body straight up. By the time I got my ungainly ass out of the chair, Gabe was already across the room. He had a fire poker in his hand. Why hadn’t I thought of grabbing a fire poker earlier? I was so not cut out for scary castle living.

  “Stand back from the door!” It was Varnie’s voice.

  Gabe and I exchanged relieved glances. Varnie was hitting the door from the other side, probably trying to smash the lock. As the wood splintered and he made progress, I lost my marbles again.

  Gabe noticed the look on my face right away. “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t want him to see me like this.” I panicked.

  “Hey.” His voice was smooth. Gabe had a way of laying on the butter that always chilled me down when I got worked up. “It’s going to be okay. Varnie will help us figure out what to do, right?”

  I nodded, but tried to tug my top down over my huge belly. Gabe pulled off his hoodie, his T-shirt below riding up with the action. His abs were still perfect, his skin still that healthy shade of bronze. While his face was covered with the shirt, I could imagine him the same. But once it was off, the sight of his skeleton head cut me all over again.

  He handed me his shirt and I sank into it, pulling it over my plus-one gratefully. “I’m going to stretch out your shirt.”

  Even a skeleton head can portray an eye roll. “I don’t care about the shirt.”

  I didn’t care either if he cared, actually. He wasn’t getting it back. The familiar scent of him soothed me—his soap, his cologne, and something that didn’t come in a bottle or bar, something that was unique to Gabe. I used to chalk it up to pheromones, but I suspect it was more than that.

  And then the door burst
open. Varnie rushed in and stopped in horror at Gabe. “Duck me!”

  “It’s okay,” I said, stepping in front of Gabe. “The bonehead is my boyfriend.”

  Varnie swung his head to look at me and his jaw dropped at the sight of my rounded stomach.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” I said. “But I suppose that is way too much to ask for right now. Let’s get out of here first and then we can figure out the whole Renesmee thing I’ve got going on.”

  Varnie whistled. “How long have we been down here?” He shook his head. “Wow.”

  “Where’s Ame?” I asked him.

  “Follow me,” he replied, and we tried to keep up with him.

  He was moving pretty fast through the corridor. I tried not to take in too much of the scenery. It was damp and chilly, like cold sweat. Varnie was a man on a mission, though, and I didn’t blame him. Nobody wanted to think of Amelia all by herself in a place like this. Especially if she was still being all lights-are-on-but-no-one-is-home.

  It was hard to keep up with my new body, and Gabe hung back with me, not willing to chance a separation. Thank God.

  “Is it too much to ask that we look for a kitchen? I’m starving.”

  The boys halted and stared at my baby bump.

  “You guys need to stop. Am I the first pregnant woman you’ve ever seen or something?” I rubbed my belly. “I would sell my soul for a grilled cheese sandwich right now.”

  Gabe clapped a hand over my mouth. “Are you crazy? Don’t even joke like that around here.”

  Varnie looked sad for a moment and then shook his head. “We need to keep moving.”

  We followed him around a corner, but it was like he poofed.

  “Varn?” I whispered. “Varnie?”

  “Where could he have gone?” Gabe asked.

  I didn’t like the prickles his sudden absence left behind. “Let’s just hang out here until he doubles back when he realizes he’s lost us.”

  Gabe nodded but we both wondered if and when that was going to happen.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Amelia