I turned my head away from the sharp wind and smelled fresh cut grass and sunlight. Still cool, in the way any subconscious other than my own is, but softer, drawing me in. Caleb.
Turning once more and I found the final thread—smoky and pulled tight, a warm glow that gave off no heat emanating from the seam. Mark.
If I had just stopped at Sam and Caleb. If I hadn’t gone into Mark’s head, had remembered that he’s a mimic, that he would remember … maybe it would have all been okay.
“Did you just…” Mark asked, eyes wide.
We’d woken up at the same time, just like I had with Damien, and Mark stared at me over Sam, still asleep on his lap. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but Sam’s comfortable couch, the hum of classic movies on the TV, the dark room, the seductive pull of other people’s subconsciouses, was irresistible.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” I whispered.
It hadn’t been as bad as Damien’s nightmare—not as viscerally violent or confusing, but what I had seen in Mark’s head definitely was a nightmare. Pleading with his sister to fix him, while crying over the fact that he would be broken forever. The pain and self-loathing had been such a sharp edge I worried I’d wake up with physical cuts.
“Where’s Joan?” he asked urgently, leaning over Sam to hiss at me.
“What?”
“Where’s my sister?”
“Oh, I think she’s still in the kitchen,” I said. “With Adam maybe.”
“So she wasn’t…” He looked so, so afraid.
“No, no, no,” I said, realizing what he was so panicked about. “That wasn’t her. Not really. It wasn’t really Sam either.” No one had heard his brokenhearted lament except for me.
“Right. Okay.” He nodded his head and his shoulders went down in relief. But then he looked back at me, eyes narrowing. “Why me?”
“What?” I asked, unsure what he was asking.
“Why did you go into my dream?” he asked, jaw clenching.
“Oh, um,” I stumbled, “I was—”
“You did it with everyone, didn’t you?” Realization dawned on his face as he leaned back and away from me. “You know, I’d almost be impressed by that level of control if it wasn’t so…”
He clenched his jaw, like he didn’t want to finish that thought. I didn’t know what to say, not when looking at an expression on Mark’s face that I had seen on Emily’s. Betrayal. He felt betrayed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered finally, knowing I had to repair this as fast as I could. “I—”
“Just—” He cut me off. Sighed. “You should go.”
I have my answers now, at least. Somewhat. I had wanted to know if I could trust Mark and Sam and all the Atypicals that Damien had hurt, wanted to know if they were telling me the truth about Damien, if they were good people, and it turns out they’re just broken people. Like Damien, like me. Except Damien and I just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again and they at least seem to be trying. To be growing.
I also wanted to know if I could be normal. Have a normalish life. I can’t even hang out with other Atypicals without royally screwing it up. I have my answer.
I’ll never be normal. The monster that followed me out is stuck to me for good.
MARCH 20TH, 2017
Aaron and I sat on the cliff’s edge, looking out over the watercolor expanse. An ocean of pink and purple starshine ebbed and flowed beneath us as a soft breeze fluttered our identical eyelashes, somehow more prominent in the dreamscape.
“This is really nice, Rosie,” he said after a few seconds, a year, a hundred years.
“Have we been here before?” I asked, my voice echoing gently through the infinite abyss.
“I don’t think this is a real place,” he teased and I rolled my eyes, feeling lighter than air.
“I mean, together, in dreams. This all looks familiar. Have we been here?”
He looked away from me and back out across the broad ocean that, in the past few seconds, had transformed into a blanket covering the whole world.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think I’d remember.”
“Do you remember all the times I come into your dreams?”
“I think this is your dream, Rosie,” he said, turning his face back to me. “If you recognize this place, it must be yours.”
“So you’re reading my mind,” I guessed.
“That’s one option,” he said and I didn’t ask what the other options were.
We sat in silence, staring at each other, and I watched him transform from Aaron in the present to Aaron of the past, the knobby-kneed boy of ten who would catch fireflies for me in the summertime. As soon as the boy appeared, he was gone again, and I was looking back into the world-weary face of a young man untethered.
I know how he feels.
“I think I do,” he said suddenly. “Remember, I mean. All the dreams.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to that. Did I want him to remember? No one else ever does.
“Why don’t we ever talk about it then?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, his familiar shrug out of place in the fantastical Technicolor landscape. “We just don’t talk like that.”
“Do you ever wish we did?” I asked.
“Do you?”
“I…”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Showing Aaron my vulnerable underbelly has never been easy. But somehow, in a place that was so separate from reality but increasingly becoming my true reality, it wasn’t as complicated.
“I do, sometimes, I guess,” I said honestly. “I wouldn’t really know where to begin but … I think I’d like to know you. More than I do.”
“I know what you mean.” He nodded, squinting into the bright purple sun, staring directly at it in the way you never can with the real sun, seeing its whole shape, its beautiful perfect roundness.
“I just don’t … I don’t know how to connect to people. It’s like I forgot how.”
“Is that why you dig into people’s heads?” he asked, his voice turning sharp, the pinks and purples of the world turning bloodred in an instant.
“What?” I asked, turning to Aaron, who was transforming before my eyes, morphing into an unrecognizable monster.
“You’ve been here for too long, Rosie,” said the demon wearing my brother’s face. “Why did you come here?”
“I—”
“Why did you come here?” he asked again, his voice transforming into something familiar, and then he wasn’t Aaron or some horrific monster, but Mark. A Mark made of stone, with cracks forming along the lines of his face as he pleaded with me.
“Why did you come here?” he asked, his voice choked with tears. “You don’t belong.”
More fissures formed on his face, around the corners of his desperate eyes, and darkness spilled out through the cracks like light, a blinding kind of darkness that spread over his entire body, spread into me, the world, flowing out over the cliff’s edge like a waterfall. I was trapped under the weight of it, unable to move, unable to change it, and then—
I woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for air.
A nightmare. I’d just had an actual, honest-to-goodness normal-person nightmare. But I was still lucid dreaming, still thinking that I was diving, that I had wandered into Aaron’s dream or he had wandered into mine but really … he was just a figment of my imagination in the same way Mark was.
I hadn’t talked to Mark since the other week at Sam’s. I’d texted a bit with Caleb still, and thanked Sam for having me over, passing pleasantries back and forth before the conversation dried up, but I was operating under the assumption that I would never see or speak to him again. After all, it’s not like his sister was my therapist anymore.
I should probably get on with finding a new therapist.
APRIL 6TH, 2017
Another three weeks without roaming around people’s dreams and I’m starting to wonder if I’m completely broken. It’s not that I d
on’t feel the dreamworld anymore, I do, I can sense the edges of it, can smell dust and sunlight and freshly cut grass and perfume on the sharp, cold air, the hallmarks of my family in slumber. But it just feels right out of reach. It reminds me of those anxiety dreams of Aaron’s that I went into when this all first started, but in reverse. In those, he could never run fast enough to get away from the thing chasing him, his feet always being dragged down by molasses. This feels like I can never run fast enough to reach the edge, like it keeps moving, just beyond my grasp, every time I take a step.
I’ve been wondering if this is just what happens after you’ve had your ability for a while. If it just starts to even out, to dull, as your body gets used to it.
I hung out with Caleb and Adam today, hoping for a little bit of normalcy, hoping that I’d be able to glean some useful insight into what it’s like to be an Atypical who has had their ability for over a year. Instead, we mostly ended up talking about how much it sucks to tell someone about your ability and, according to Adam, how much it sucks to be told about an ability. How it turns your entire world perspective upside down.
“I mean, it’s a really jarring thing,” he explained. “Like, I’m the biggest fantasy and sci-fi nerd there is—”
“Psh,” Caleb scoffed. “I’m a way bigger Star Wars fan than you.”
“It’s not a competition,” Adam said.
“It is when we do Star Wars trivia and I get more answers than you do,” Caleb teased, and Adam pushed at him playfully, their momentary scuffle turning into a nauseatingly sweet kiss.
“Emily and I used to do trivia nights,” I said sullenly, which sobered them up from their lovefest pretty quick.
“There’s this coffee shop near her dorm that does trivia nights that we would go to every week,” I continued. “There’s one next week, so…”
“You should ask her to go!” Caleb suggested earnestly.
“Yeah, so … I actually already did?”
They both got very excited about that, asking me frantically what she’d said.
“She said yes but not … enthusiastically?” Emily and I had been texting a bit for the past few weeks. She got back from a spring break writer’s retreat and said she’d had a lot of time to think about everything that happened and she was still really pissed but she wanted to maybe meet up again sometime before the end of her semester. A few days ago I texted her about trivia, thinking that would maybe be a good way to ease back into spending time with each other.
“I mean, a yes is still a yes, right?” Adam said, shrugging his shoulders, which were drowning in Caleb’s letterman jacket. It was so strange seeing them, so … normal. Just two high school sweethearts, wearing each other’s clothes, holding hands, and getting froyo with a friend like they were completely average people. Like one of them didn’t have a supernatural ability and the other wasn’t connected to a mysterious government organization meant to study them.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “A yes is still a yes.”
That was my hope. A second act, like Damien had said. I know that he wasn’t the most reliable expert on who was deserving of second chances, but GOD I hope Emily gives me one. I feel like I’m running out of them everywhere else.
As we walked around Cambridge, eating our frozen yogurt on a surprisingly warm day, talking about romance and how stressful it was to be us, I did start to feel a little normal. Just normal enough that I came home feeling confident, which is how I walked directly into a serious conversation with Aaron.
I was just sitting in my room, minding my own business (by which I mean, going through every single item of clothing in my closet to try and find something cute to wear to trivia), when I heard a knock on my doorframe.
“What?” I barked, without looking at who it was, still half-inside my closet.
“Got a sec?”
I turned around to see Aaron standing in my doorway, looking … nervous.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, stepping around the piles of clothes on my floor and flopping down to sit on my bed. “What’s up?”
“I want to plan a trip for all of us this summer,” he said, the words coming out in a rush like he was afraid if he didn’t say it quickly he wouldn’t say it at all.
“A trip?” I asked. Aaron took a few steps into my room to stand in front of me.
“It’s been a long time since we had a family vacation, you know?” he said, eyes big. “And I was thinking it could be really nice to do something all together this summer. Maybe go camping like we used to.”
“You think that’s a good idea? With Dad, I mean…” I trailed off, letting the subtext stand on its own.
“It’s not like we’ll be dropping him somewhere in the woods to fend for himself,” Aaron said. “We’ll be with him the whole time. I think it could be really good for him. For all of us.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, pulling one leg up onto the bed to wrap my arm around it. I used to love our camping trips. But the idea of being stuck in a couple of tents for a week, unable to escape my family, really scared me. But I knew that if Aaron presented the idea to our parents—which it sounded like he hadn’t yet—they’d insist on a family bonding camping trip.
And I know, in my heart of hearts, that I shouldn’t hesitate to jump at this idea. That this is a good, important opportunity to make things better with my family, to connect with them after months and months of hiding inside of my own head.
“Okay, cool,” Aaron said, nodding. “So, the thing is, I know money is tight right now. Because Dad isn’t able to work at sites anymore and there’s only so much admin he can do, and you haven’t been able to work—”
“Give me a break, Aaron,” I said, prickly, “it’s been kind of a hard year.”
“God, Rosie, why are you always like this now?” Aaron sighed, exasperated.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my stomach starting to twist into knots.
“You jump down my throat at every opportunity.” He sighed again. “I feel like all we do is fight these days. We never used to do that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s easy to not fight when you never talk,” I snapped, challenging him without thinking about it, without really wanting to. But he didn’t pick up the gauntlet I’d thrown at his feet, instead collapsing on the bed next to me, still somehow so much taller than me even though we were sitting side by side. He leaned his elbows on his legs, examining his hands as he twisted them together.
“I’m not the person you think I am,” he said softly, sending a chill down my spine. He had taken my line—I was the one who was supposed to convince him I was better, but here he was talking like he had to apologize to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You keep expecting the worst in me,” he said. “Like I’m still that fifteen-year-old asshole who wouldn’t take you to the movies with him and his friends.”
“Yeah, well, it was always supposed to be the two of us,” I said. “What’s the point of having a sibling if you can’t hang out, right?” I said it like it was a casual thing, like I was simply pointing out how things were supposed to be if we followed the script, but I knew he could see through it and understand that, somewhere along the way in him growing up and discovering his ability, he’d abandoned me.
“I needed to do my own thing for a while,” he explained. “But I’m not that person anymore.”
“So who are you?” I asked, twisting the tassels on the throw blanket under me into braids so that I didn’t have to look at him. This was the most open and vulnerable conversation we’d had in what felt like years and I was terrified of moving too suddenly and breaking everything apart.
“I’m a guy who’s just trying to do something nice for his family because it feels like everything’s gone to shit?” he said and I looked up at that to see a soft smile on his face, one I didn’t see very much anymore.
“Wanna help me?” he asked and I nodded.
“Good,” he said, getting up with a heavy sigh. “I need money.”
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“Oh, so that’s what this was all about,” I said, rolling my eyes and feeling back on more certain territory. “And we almost just had a nice moment.”
“We did have a nice moment, Rosie,” he said, smiling. “So don’t ruin it.”
“How much?” I asked lightly.
“Not sure yet,” he said. “I’m still looking up RV rental prices.”
“Ooh, are we traveling in style?” I asked.
“I think a true road trip could be nice.” He nodded, looking pleased with himself. “Just start saving.”
I’m going to. I’m going to pick up more shifts and look up fun places to go and spend the summer with my family, doing my absolute best to be the person we all wish I could be. Second acts, right?
April 10th, 2017
Dear Mark,
You’re never going to get this letter. You’re never going to get any of the letters I’ve written to you. I guess I could mail them, when I’m somewhere far, far away, but I don’t think … I don’t think that would be fair.
I’m trying to learn. To be better, the way you wanted me to be. The way that so many people have wanted me to be.
I talked to Sam earlier. Not how I expected my day to go.
I wanted to come back. To see you again. Sam said that you were having a hard time and before I knew what I was doing, I was getting into my car and driving east. That has to mean something, right? That I wanted to come back? But I know you don’t want me there. So I’m just sitting in my car, writing this letter that you’ll never see. I don’t even have most of the other letters anymore. The AM kept them, the ones that I wrote when I was there.
You know what Sam said to me on the phone today? Oh man, you would be so pissed at her. She called me worried about you. Wanting to know how it worked when you took over my power, like I had any fucking idea at all. She said she wants to “protect” you. I wish she could, but I don’t think your girl there has that within her powers. Your sister couldn’t, I couldn’t, why would Sam be able to?
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