As such, the soothing feeling he used to give me haunted me like a wraith that night, and I couldn’t help but to think of the time we spent together, whether it was real or not. It didn’t matter to me anymore; what mattered was what it meant, what it made me feel to have someone constantly available to hear me out. I’d stopped going to actual therapy years ago when Mum got too sick to take me and Roger couldn’t be bothered, but Danny somehow seemed to fill that role.
Ever since he went away, my dreams felt hollow, although sometimes, I swore I could hear him laughing. It hadn’t happened in a while, but it happened again on prom night. New, though, was the sound of his voice. “Well, this is certainly different than your usual t-shirts and yoga pants.” My eyes remained shut as I breathed in the warmth of the sun that my sleepy brain had painted into the sky as I tried to make peace with the possibility that I was actually losing it. “Ashley, come on,” his voice said again, more stern this time than before. I refused to open my eyes and give into my own mind games, determined to outsmart myself. His voice echoed out once again, though, this time saying, “You’re dreaming. You can’t sleep when you’re already asleep. Open your eyes and talk to me.”
Entirely expecting to be met with the vacant sight of the meadow around me, I think my heart skipped a beat when I opened my eyes to see Danny lying right beside me. He was in the exact same position as he had been the day we first met – arms behind his head, ankles crossed, and lazed back into the grass. The only difference was his eyes, now open and digging hard into mine.
I shot up immediately, though he remained lax. His presence stunned my use of words for the moment, so I stammered a bit before I finally got something out. “You’re,” I fumbled over my syllables, trying my best to say something, “you’re here?”
“Of course I’m here,” he replied, trying not to smile. “You can see me, can’t you?”
“Yeah, but you’re here,” I continued to yammer at him, stupefying myself just a bit more. “I mean, you’re here with me in my dream again.”
He gave in, allowing himself to smirk, a sight I had sorely missed. “Yeah, I know. I swore I’d never come back, but here I am. Really, I was going to stay gone, but it seemed like you were sort of slipping again over the past couple days, so I figured I’d throw you a bone and show my face around here again.”
“How did you know?” I asked him, trying to maintain my grip on my words. Who knew how long I had him for, so I needed to make the time count. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. How did you figure out that I was getting upset?”
Casually, he shrugged a bit, shutting his eyes against the sunlight. “I don’t know. I just kind of had a feeling. Was I wrong?”
I pondered exactly how much I should tell him, how much he would actually care to know after the last time we talked in those dreams, after how I treated him before. “No. You aren’t wrong at all. I’ve kind of opened my eyes to the person I’m becoming, and I’m not so sure I like what I see.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here. I think maybe you needed to see for yourself what I tried to tell you before. I’m not one for ‘I told you so’, but to my credit, I did try to warn you about all of this.”
“Why did you come back tonight to try to make me see what was happening when I was already on my way to figuring it out myself, though?” When a horrid realization washed over me, I could feel the color drain from my face. Even though his eyes were shut, I scrambled to cover my naked body, shifting awkwardly to cover my chest with my arms and crossing my legs in a dreadfully uncomfortable way, a human pretzel of failed modesty. “Why not a night when I fell asleep wearing clothes?”
“Relax,” he told me calmly. “I wasn’t looking at you. Your lack of clothing isn’t for me, and I have more respect for you than to spy.” He took a moment before snorting, “You’re with Joey right now in the real world, aren’t you?”
There was no point in lying to him if he already knew – I’d learned that lesson the hard way. “I am,” I admitted, my voice a mousy whisper. “Please don’t go, though. I really want you here. I need your perspective on things, because I can’t seem to figure them out for myself.” I removed one arm from my chest, extending my hand out to him. “Here, wake me up. I’ll grab some clothes and come right back.”
He popped his eyes open, looking curiously between my face and my outstretched hand, and finally, he flashed me a brief smile before placing his hand into mine, shooting me back into that hotel bed. The thought of finally getting a chance to talk to him again, to try to make things right was what propelled me out of bed regardless of how comfortable I was, using the moonlight from the window we’d forgotten to shut to stumble my way around the unfamiliar room.
I quickly found my bag where I’d left it by the door, digging into it for the tank top and pair of sweat pants I’d brought to put on in the morning so I didn’t have to go home in my prom dress. When I had them on, I crawled back into bed and struggled to fall back asleep for a few minutes, too excited to relax.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I found myself back in the meadow again, and Danny was right where I’d left him, still lounging against the base of the tree. He smiled as he took in my clothing, chuckling a quick, “Much better. I feel way less like a pervert talking to you like this.”
“As comfortable as it is to sleep naked, I’d do just about anything to keep you here. I kind of need you tonight,” I confessed to him.
He rose into a seated position, crossing his legs and turning to face me properly. “You seem like you’re slipping again. The last time we talked, I was so convinced by what you were saying that I thought leaving would be the best option for you, to let you enjoy your new life without the constraint of having me around. I thought I would let you flourish, and that was cool for a while, but now, it seems like it’s suddenly a lot less cool.” He paused for a moment, looking me earnestly in the eyes. “I’ve never seen someone get everything they’ve asked for, someone with the world at their feet, feel so utterly miserable.”
“Am I a bad person, Danny?” I asked him, unable to look at him under the weight of the guilt that was trying to consume me, choosing to instead stare out at the tree line on the other side of the clearing. “Am I a bad person for shirking off the people who care about me in the pursuit of something I’m starting to realize might be a little superficial? I didn’t realize how much I was giving up for this weird popularity until Ellie kind of spelled it out for me in black and white the other day.”
He seemed a little surprised. “Ellie had something to say about it?”
Trying to keep the tears at bay, trying not to remember her scorn and fury, I nodded slowly. “Yeah, she definitely had something to say. It was all stuff the old version of me was sort of thinking subconsciously, but it’s always different when you hear someone else say it, especially when they’re yelling at you. Yeah, you said it, and that hurt, but Ellie is supposed to be my best friend. I never thought I would lose her to anything, let alone all this weird, crazy madness.”
“What happened to prompt this little intervention she gave you?”
“Her crappy boyfriend broke up with her, and I was sort of insensitive about it. She’s hated him for so long and always talked about breaking up with him someday, but then it happened and she was really shaken up.” I shook my head. “But I guess, without me around, things were getting better for them, and then, he was just gone. And then I came in and acted like it wasn’t a big deal because I was too wrapped up in myself to realize that, to her, it was.”
I could see him sit up in my peripheral vision. “I understand that, but people make mistakes, Ashley. Life gets crazy sometimes and the things you care about fall to the wayside for a while, and, maybe, it just takes a rude awakening to make you realize you’re kind of just letting them.”
Face wrought with disbelief, I turned back to him. “No,” I said blankly. “Tell me what a terrible person I am. Don’t tell me you understand; don’t tell me it’s okay.”
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br /> “Well, I didn’t say it’s okay, because it isn’t,” he replied with a stern tone, scolding me calmly. “But I don’t think I need to make you suffer any more than you already are. You’re making yourself suffer enough without my fuel in your fire.”
I continued, “I didn’t even realize how bad it was until she made me see how bad it was. She’s been getting so upset with me for the past few weeks, and I just brushed it aside. I thought she was just jealous, because she always joked about us being in the in-crowd, and I thought she was upset that it happened for me but not for her. And as I say that out loud, I realize just how bitchy it sounds.” I chuckled dryly. “When did my life become one of those coming-of-age movies? Loser girl becomes popular and learns it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, losing her actual friends in the process and finding herself with nothing.”
With a bright smile, Danny added hopefully, “Hey, if that’s the case, all you have to do is give a really touching speech and then everything goes back to normal. Your friends are back, the popular kids have learned you’re maybe not so bad, and everything is peaches and cream from there on out. Nothing that can’t be solved in an hour and a half up on the big screen.”
“Well, this isn’t fiction,” I told him pointedly. “This is real life, and that’s not how real life works. I can’t just break up my prom queen tiara and give a piece to everyone I’ve hurt to smooth things over after I’ve messed them all up with my naivety in a world that’s too big and scary for me.”
“You won prom queen?” Danny asked, missing the point a little. “I want to be upset about your popularity but that’s actually kind of fun.”
“It’s super cheesy, but I won’t pretend I wasn’t a little into it,” I giggled with him. “It’s hollow, contrived drivel, but I was a little jazzed.”
He let out a hearty laugh. “Did you just say it was ‘hollow, contrived drivel’? I can’t believe that actually came out of your mouth! Jesus, first came the painting and reading and self-imposed solitude, then the ironic popularity, and now the flowery language? What’s next, are you going to put on a flannel, take me to an organic coffee shop, and tell me about a band I haven’t heard of, you little hipster?”
I couldn’t stop myself from joining him in chuckling. “Since being a hipster is ‘in’ right now, maybe that’s why Joey’s friends like me all of a sudden. Maybe it has nothing to do with him and all to do with me. Maybe Ellie’s accusations and my sudden, crippling self-doubt are all baseless and I’m freaking out over nothing.”
“I mean, probably not, but it’s a nice thought,” he told me, his words a bit cutting but his smile sincere. “You said they were ‘Joey’s friends’, though, not ‘your friends’. I’m guessing there’s a reason to that.”
Nodding, I replied, “They’ve never really felt like mine. I have fun with them and it’s been really nice not to get picked on all the time, but it feels like he’s just loaning them to me. The more I think about it, the more I’d kind of like to just give them back to him, but the way he talks, I don’t know if he even wants them, either.”
“He’s too busy hating the people around him to notice the toll it’s all taking on his girlfriend?” Danny paused to roll his eyes. “He sounds like a nice guy.”
I could stand for tearing myself apart, but I found myself defending Joey. “If anything, he cares about me. I’m not saying that to try to pick a fight with you, but while I’ve doubted a lot of things in the time I’ve known him, I’ve never once doubted that he cares about me.”
“Sometimes, people come with extras, though, Ashley. When you date someone, you date all of them; you don’t just get to pick and choose what parts you want to keep.” He gave me a chance to say something, but I didn’t, trying to reflect on what he was saying. “Sure, he’s got it bad for you, but he’s also got this army of people standing behind him, and you don’t get to build a wall to try to keep them out, because they’re part of him. When you date someone, you get all the good and all the bad, and it’s up to you to figure out which outweighs which.”
I took a moment to digest his words before piping up with, “I do love Joey, and I’ve tried it on for size, but, Danny, I don’t think I love all the stuff he comes with.”
“Well, as long as you’re dating him, it’s not really going to go away.”
Before I had a chance to try to figure out a way to keep only the parts of Joey that I liked and do away with everything else, an alarm sounded through the meadow, filling the peaceful atmosphere with the upbeat rock song I’d become accustomed to hearing from my boyfriend’s alarm on his phone.
Truthfully, I didn’t want to go back to my real life, didn’t want to face what I had let it become, but I didn’t have much of a choice. In a perfect world, if I knew Danny would stick around all the time, I would find a way to sleep forever. Even when it was complicated, even if I had no idea whether or not he was actually there or if this was my brain playing a lengthy trick on me, things with Danny seemed so much simpler than they were in my real life.
“I should get going,” I told him instead of answering to what he had to say.
“Don’t worry,” he told me with a gentle smile, “I’m planning for this to be a normal thing now that you’re realizing what you let happen, so you’ll see me again before too long. You seem to do better with me around, so consider me here.”
I felt a wave of security rush through me, and I heaved a sigh of relief, smiling feebly at him. “You can’t possibly know how much that means to me. I promise I’ll stay transparent with you this time, too – no more half-truths and dancing around subjects. You give the best advice, so I’m glad you’ll be around.”
He said with a soft look in his eye, “We’ll sort this mess out, Ashley. I promise you that.” With a smile, he moved his hand into mine and gave me a firm squeeze, and the next time I opened my eyes, I was back in the hotel room, awake once again.
Chapter Twenty
All alone, I sprawled out across the bed, contented with not yet getting up and having to face the mess I’d made. Now that I had Danny back, whether or not I knew if it was real, I would do whatever it took to keep him around. When I couldn’t figure things out for myself, he was always there to either help me solve my problems or to just listen as I vented about them. I appreciated that he’d given me space when he thought it was what I needed, but I appreciated even more that he was back to help me figure things out when I couldn’t do it by myself.
Out here, I had the same fake friends as I went to bed with, still no Ellie, and, when the bathroom door creaked open as I was lost in thought, a very naked Joey standing before me. While the sight of him alone was usually enough to calm my storm, that day, it just kind of made me uneasy.
I thought about what Danny said, about how you couldn’t pick the parts of a person that you want, and all at once, I almost began to resent Joey for everything that he came with. I couldn’t avoid anymore what I knew to be true – his friends only wanted something to do with me because of him, and without him around, they would still be picking on me just like they did before. As long as I was with him, though, they seemed inescapable, and I found myself thinking for the first time that maybe, I didn’t actually want to be on this ride anymore. Joey’s entire life was enormous, looming before me like a giant mountain, and it was beginning to feel like, no matter how much I climbed, I would never be able to reach the top.
Suddenly, regret coursed through my veins, yanking the color from my face and landing in my stomach, concocted into a churning, nauseous feeling. I was in way over my head with all of this. I knew it from the start, but I wanted to believe that I could have something normal for once in my life. I’d just made the mistake of choosing the most abnormal person I possibly could have chosen to try to find it with.
Instead of asking why my face was contorted, Joey smiled at me, eyes alight with affection, but the usual flash-mob of good feelings felt lost on me that day. “Morning,” he beamed as he rubbed a towel through his
long hair, making no effort toward modesty as he turned to the mirror attached to the long dresser across from the bed. “Do you want to grab some breakfast before I head to work?”
For once, though, I didn’t. Danny had awoken an old part of me, the part that dating Joey had stashed away deep inside, and I just wanted to indulge in being her for a while. I wanted to go home, listen to music, and paint. Then, I’d take a bubble bath and maybe go to bed early to get a head start on dreaming. I just wanted time to center my mind and figure out what I’d done to my life, and how to go about fixing it.
My reply took no consideration. “That’s okay. I’d rather just go home.”
Joey turned back to me, somewhat surprised by my answer. I was almost always too eager to accept his invitations to do things, so my first rejection seemed to take him back a bit. “Is everything okay?” he asked, voice decorated to match the growing concern etched into his face.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I told him, trying not to look anyplace but his eyes, “but if we’re going to chat, could you maybe put underwear on or something?”
He chuckled to himself as he went to his bag, pulling from it a pair of black boxer shorts. “After last night, I assumed it wouldn’t bother you if I were naked, but cover it when I’m not using it, got it.” Now a touch more decent, he dropped his wet towel into the chair by the desk and plunked himself onto the bed beside me. “So, I know you better than to just take this at face-value. Something is definitely wrong.”
I climbed out of bed very shortly after he sat down, projecting my disgust with myself onto him so I didn’t have to face the fact that maybe, I was my problem. Joey didn’t drag me into the deep water – I swam all the way out here by myself, and now, I was drowning.
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