Natalie Cuddington
I see Chance once I round the corner off my street, and he waves at me, and I notice something on his right forearm, under his elbow. I can’t see what it is exactly, and he doesn’t run to catch up with me or anything, so I can’t get a better look right away. I wave back and smile. Once I get across the street, he’s behind me, and I keep looking back at him, but every time I do, he just smiles and nods his head a bit. Is he keeping distance because I was a weird bitch to him yesterday? He can’t blame me for acting the way I did, can he? I mean, really, how many times do you see someone’s face melt off? And how many times does someone tell you it has something to do with that fact that you can create dreams? Seriously. I finally take in a deep breath and stop walking for a minute. He sort of tugs on my sleeve as he comes up beside me, and then he shoves me gently in the shoulder.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“How was the rest of your night?”
“Uneventful.” Thankfully.
“Are you still mad at me?”
“I wasn’t mad at you,” I say softly.
“Scared of me?”
“I wasn’t scared, either.”
“Then what was it?”
“I don’t know, it was just… too much.”
“Ok, I get that.”
I stop walking and look at him. Like, I really look at him. Here’s this guy who seems to know exactly what I’m going through, and here I am, not wanting to hear any of it. He stops walking too, and turns to face me, but he has to squint in the sun. I want to see what’s on his arm, but it’s hanging by his side and I can’t see it now. It looked like kind of like a tattoo, but it was white.
“Do you want to just not talk about it for today?” he asks.
“Yeah, that would be good.”
“Ok, so what if you go into another nightmare again?”
I was about to start walking again, but as soon as those words come out of his mouth, I stop. I can’t move. “What?” I ask.
“What if you go into another nightmare again?”
“That’s what happened? I was in a nightmare?”
He nods slowly and takes a step closer to me. Everything is spinning. I can’t even comprehend what he’s saying to me. I was in a nightmare. I was in a nightmare. Does this mean everything my brother told me when we were little, was true? Any stories he told me about monsters and being inside people’s heads, that was all true? I can’t. I can’t even process any more thoughts, and I can’t breathe. I don’t even know how to take in a breath. I clamp my hands over my mouth and step back from Chance, wanting to run somewhere that will take me away. He takes a step towards me, and I take another step back. I look into his eyes, and it hurts me to see how much pain is in them. His eyes are hard, yet somehow soft at the same time, because they’re glossy, like he’s trying not to cry. But I have no idea why he would be crying. He raises a hand to me, but doesn’t step in closer to me this time. I shake my head and step back again.
“Becca,” he says carefully. “I know this sounds insane, but you have to just let me explain this to you.”
“Why?” I choke.
“Because it’s dangerous for you to not know what’s going on.”
“Oh is it, now?” I realize I sound sarcastic, but I don’t mean to. It just happens. I’m just full of these weird and crazy emotions that I never had before. I feel angry and confused and despaired. I feel like something is sitting on my lungs and I can’t breathe, I feel like I don’t even have room to try and breathe. That thing that’s on me is so heavy that I can’t move; I can’t break free.
“Please,” he says again, his voice hurting. “I want you to be ok with this. And I know you will be in time. I know it’s hard, but you have to let me help you.”
I shake my head again. I want him to help me. I do. I want him to show me this crazy magical world and tell me that it’s ok and that I can overcome all of these feelings, but I just can’t let that happen. It’s too much. I feel like if I let him explain this all to me, if I let him show me everything, that just means I’m letting the crazy in. I’m letting it get bigger than it needs to. And I don’t need this. I don’t need this to happen to me, to remind me of my brother, to scare me, to humiliate me, to make me feel like I don’t know how to breathe. I just want to move back to Toronto and ride the subway until I can’t hear the sounds around me anymore. Until the screech of the train on the track and the ‘bing-bing-bong’ that plays before the doors close, just become sounds so familiar that I don’t even notice them anymore. I want to feel the warm wind on my face as it approaches, the long line of people taking an eager step forward as it slows in front of them. I want to ride the subway forever and watch the people as they come on and get off, as they read, or listen to music, or sleep as they wait for their stop. I want to wonder where they’re going, and where they came from, I want to make up stories for them in my head, and do only that until there’s nothing left.
“Becca,” he says again.
“What?” I realize then that I’ve been crying, so I look away, feeling a little ashamed of myself. I don’t want to be that girl who just cries at everything. I’m really not that girl. At least I didn’t used to be.
“We can miss one more day of classes.”
I notice then that his hand is still out to me, offering it to me. I don’t take it, but I step in closer to him. He lowers his arm and I take another step closer to him, until we’re walking side by side, and I have no idea where we’re going.
We walk in silence in the opposite direction of the school for about 10 minutes, until we come to the edge of a forest with a trail. It’s not a wide trail, so he takes the lead and I follow him, trying to listen to the sounds of the birds, instead of the thumping of my heart. He looks back at me a few times and smiles but I don’t smile back. I wish I could but I’m feeling so confused about everything, it sort of feels wrong to smile. Instead I nod at him, and he nods back.
We finally make it to a bit of a clearing, and Chance sits down on a big log sitting across a little stream. I slowly walk over to him and watch as he runs his fingers along the bark and the knots, carefully examining it like it’s a precious stone. The water running beneath his feet is quiet, but the slight rushing sound is filling my ears anyway, as if there are no other sounds around us. I step carefully on a stone sticking out of the water, and sit next to him on the log.
“In the hall, at your locker, when you thought Zac disappeared, and heard someone laughing, that was a nightmare. And yesterday, in the caf, when you watched Zac’s face melt off, that was a nightmare.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s happening to you, is you’ve been chosen to be an Aura.”
“By who?” I interrupt.
“By no one.”
I shake my head, but he raises his hand before I can argue with him.
“No one person,” he says. “Rem isn’t controlled by people… Well, no forget I said that. It’s controlled by Auras, but it wasn’t necessarily created by people.”
“So how did it get there?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It was just always there, as long as everything else has been. And when there needs to be a new Aura, it just happens. People don’t go looking for someone, or hold interviews, just people who are capable of it get the power to be one.”
“That’s weird.”
“It’s a little weird, I guess.”
We sit there on the log, our sides almost touching, our heads turned to look at each other, and just stare. Gaze. Whatever word you want to use, I don’t care. But we don’t say anything. I don’t say anything because I’m too lost in everything he’s telling me, that I don’t know what to say. Why he isn’t saying anything, I have no idea. But I have no problem with having a minute or two to just sit in silence.
“So when you get the powers to become an Aura,” he starts again, slowly, “you don’t know what’s happening, or how to control it.” He looks down at his feet and shifts his hands under his thighs, so that he’s sitting on them. “You sort of get stuck in both worlds. When someone’s having a nightmare, you experience half of it. You don’t leave and actually go into the person’s head, but you basically see what they’re seeing.”
“So…” I say, really not even sure what I want to ask.
“So when Zac disappeared by your locker, it was because the nightmare you were experiencing was taking place somewhere remote. There was no one else with the dreamer, so you didn’t see who was with you. In the nightmare, there was creepy laughter, so you heard that.”
“So when Zac said that I just disappeared? He was lying to me?”
“Yes.”
“What? He was?”
He nods his head. “Zac was there the whole time. When he saw me coming, he backed off and then came back later so he could look like the good guy.”
“Why? Why would he do that? And why didn’t he find any of what was happening, weird?”
“Because he knows a thing or two about nightmares.”
“What do you mean he knows a thing or two about nightmares? Why are you tiptoeing around all of this?” I ask, getting annoyed. “Why aren’t you just telling me straight up what’s going on?”
“I am, Becca. But I’m trying to ease into it. You just told me earlier that this was all too much for you.”
“Well it is. But you dancing around certain subjects isn’t making this any easier for me!”
“Why? Are you angry because you don’t know whether or not you should be trusting Zac? You want me to tell you straight up that he’s bad news?”
“Is he bad news?” I ask.
“Yes. He’s really bad news.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s from Dredd. He’s a Malevolent.”
“What’s that?”
“I told you yesterday. They’re the people who make nightmares.”
“So?”
“And remember how I told you nightmares were really bad for you?”
“So are hot dogs.”
He smirks. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Becca.” He stands up and shoves his hands in his jeans pockets. He raises his shoulders up a bit and looks down at me. I can see the white tattoo on his arm, and I try to figure out what it is, but I don’t think I’ve seen the design anywhere before. “Right now, it’s under control. Right now it’s not a huge deal if someone gets a nightmare every now and then. But when they’re strong enough to overthrow us, it gets bad, really fast.”
“Example?”
“Ever heard of the plague?”
“What?”
“Black Death?”
I stand up too, forgetting about the stream under my feet. I gasp as the cool water rushes into my shoes, wetting the bottom of my pants. I put a hand on the log behind me to steady myself and I carefully step out of the water and onto the mud. Chance is smiling, like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Dammit,” I say under my breath.
“Watch yourself.”
“Ha. Ha. It’s just a little water. I’m fine.”
“I never thought otherwise.”
I shake my right foot out in front of me and some water sprays off my shoe in a million directions. I shake my other foot out and then I walk my way around the stream. “Let’s just walk and talk,” I say.
“So pretty much every health pandemic in history, that killed way too many people, way too fast, was because of the Malevolents.”
“The nightmare people,” I say.
“Right.”
“And how did it get that bad?”
“They’re strong. Sometimes too strong. Sometimes there’s too many of them. Auras have two jobs. One, we go into people’s heads and create their dreams for them. And two, we go into nightmares, and turn them into regular dreams.”
“You go into people’s heads?” I ask. “How?”
“I’ll show you.”
“You know what?” I raise my hand to his arm and he stops walking to look at me. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re ready, Becca. You’re going into nightmares without knowing it, and pretty soon, you won’t be in the school anymore when it happens. And probably even sooner, instead of half experiencing the nightmares, it’ll take you right into the person’s head, and I won’t be there to help you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Chance.”
“I’m saying you have to go see this place as soon as possible. Whether you want to or not. Because if you don’t, you could get hurt.”
He leads me farther into the forest and we walk around trees with twisted branches and tree stumps sticking out of the ground. I listen to our steps crunching on the twigs and leaves, and the birds chirping up in the high branches. A mosquito buzzes by my ear and I swat at it, but it doesn’t seem to care. It continues to buzz and I continue to swat it, more annoyed than anything.
“Here,” Chance says, startling me and making me immediately stop flinging my arm around.
“I don’t see anything.”
“You have to look really closely, almost like you’re looking past it.” He points ahead of him, but all I see are two birch trees.
I shrug. “I don’t see anything.”
“You ever look through one of those books that have hidden pictures in them?”
“You mean I Spy?”
He shakes his head. “No, the ones that just have designs and colours filling the pages, and you can’t see a picture unless you stare at it in this special way? And a 3D picture just pops out at you?”
“Yeah.”
“You have to look at it like that.”
“Well I don’t know how to do that when I don’t know what I’m looking for. Where am I supposed to be looking?”
“Right in between those two trees, where you’re looking now.”
I squint my eyes in the direction that Chance is pointing, and then blink a few times and let out a deep breath. I always had trouble with those weird hidden picture books. I just didn’t want to say anything to Chance and have him make fun of me or something. I make my eyes cross and then suddenly I see four trees, and I’ve made it even harder for myself. I shake my head.
“I can’t do it,” I say.
“Here, try this.” He walks up to the space between the two trees, but stands off to the side a bit, and then puts his hand out right in the middle of them. “Focus on my hand.”
“Ok.” I look at his hand and study the lines in his palm. I focus on his strong fingers, the ones that wrapped so gently around mine when I was apparently experiencing someone else’s nightmare.
“Now look past my hand. Right behind it.”
I focus on the trees in the distance, but I see him shaking his head.
“Too far,” he says.
I throw my hands up in the air. “How do you know how far I’m looking!?”
“I can tell. Just right behind my hand.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what it looks like, and then maybe it’ll be easier.”
“It doesn’t really look like much.”
“Thanks, that’s so helpful.” I let out a breath and try to look past his hand again, and all of a sudden, it’s like I’m looking at a glass wall. His hand is suddenly right in front something that almost doesn’t look like it’s there. It’s like I can only see it at the right angle, or if the light hits it right. I don’t want to look away and lose it, so continuing to stare in the same spot, I say, “I think I see it.”
“What’s it look like?”
“Like normal, except there’s sort of something in front of it.”
“Like glass?” he asks.
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Awesome.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “Ok, keep looking, keep focusing, and if you look hard enough, you’ll be able to see through it.”
“I can see through it.” I keep my eyes on the glass looking area even though I want to look at Chance. It feels strange not to look at him while I’m talking to him.
“You can see forest through it. You can’t see Rem through it.”
“What?” I lose focus and blink, looking away.
“I said you can’t see Rem through it.”
I look back to his hand that’s still outstretched, but I can’t see the glass anymore. “Crap, I lost it,” I huff.
He sighs and walks over to me. “Now that you know what you’re looking for, you should be able to see it again. And if you look hard enough after you see the glass, you’ll see the dream world on the other side, like you’re looking through a window.”
“What if I don’t want to see the other side?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to see the other side? The other side is amazing. It’s like, the coolest place you’ll ever go. It’s literally what everyone dreams of.”
I have convinced Chance to call it quits with the whole dream thing for the day, and we’re walking back to school. He agrees that it can be a lot to take in all at once, and lets it slide for the time being.
“I mean, most people get into this when they’re really young, so it’s not hard to believe.”
“How young?” I ask.
“Six, maybe?”
“Were you six?”
He nods. “It’s really easy to get into it, because you would never think that a place that like couldn’t exist. You still think Santa and the Easter Bunny are real, so if someone tells you magical lands are real too, you won’t argue.”
“So how come I’m getting into this so late in the game?”
“Some people start out later. For different reasons. I personally haven’t met anyone who started out this late in a long time. I was still pretty young then, 10, I think, so I didn’t talk much to them.”
“Hmm.” I can’t help but think about my brother. Did he have something to do with me becoming an Aura? Was he even an Aura? I want to ask Chance if he knew him, but I’m too afraid to ask. Even though he’s explained this all to me, and it’s starting to make sense, and even though I saw a pane of glass seem to appear in the woods, I still feel crazy talking about it in detail.
We get closer to the school and I start to get nervous. I skipped almost two whole days and I’ve never done anything like that before. I was always a good student, who never talked to hot guys or went to forests with not-so-hot guys, or partied, or anything. What if I get in trouble?
I pull a hair tie out of my jeans pocket and slip it around my wrist before brushing through my thick hair with my fingers. Chance looks over at me as I grab it all in my hands and put it into a ponytail.
“You should wear your hair down more often,” he says with a smile. “It looks really good.”
“Thanks.” I almost blush. Almost. “It’s just annoying when it touches my face.”
We get to the front doors of the school and I look at my watch. We’re halfway through lunch already and I haven’t even noticed my stomach growling. We walk down the main hall together and get in line in the cafeteria, which has now dwindled down to pretty much nothing. There are only a couple people in front of us and I don’t even have much time to decide on what I want. When it’s my turn, I look at the food options in front of me and just ask for a medium fry. The cafeteria lady hands it to me and I walk over to the cash. Chance follows me into the eating area and we look around for an empty table. I spot one and am about to walk over to it, when Zac stops me mid step and flashes me a wonderful smile.
“Hey Becca,” he says.
“Hi Zac.”
“I missed you in second period today.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling well. I’m better now, though.”
“You want to eat lunch with me again?”
I almost say yes, but then I remember what Chance said about him being bad news. About being a nightmare person. “Nah, it’s ok. I’m going to eat with Chance.”
“Who’s Chance?”
I tug on his sleeve and make him step in a bit closer to me. “My friend I met in English class.”
Zac sort of laughs a little bit. “Ooooh, Chance. How’s it going, bud?”
“Fine. If you don’t mind, we’re going to go eat our lunch.”
“Aw, come on, man, no hard feelings, alright!?”
Chance grabs my arm and drags me behind him to an empty table in the corner of the caf. I glance back at Zac and try to figure out what he’s laughing about. No hard feelings about what? I open my mouth to ask Chance what that was about, but he just shakes his head at me, his expression strong and closed off.
“Not here,” is all he says.
We eat our lunch in silence, and luckily, no scary things happen. The warning bell for the start of next period rings, so we throw our garbage out and go our separate ways. I make my way upstairs to my Law class, but of course, bump into Zac before I make it there.
“Hey beautiful,” he says. I blush and duck my head a little bit, really not sure how to respond. I’m starting to wish I’d been more social throughout high school.
“I’m going to be late for class,” I manage.
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Nothing, I don’t think.”
“Well why don’t you come over to my place? My parents are going away for the weekend and I’m having a party.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I start. “I don’t really know anyone.”
“So then come to the party. And you’ll meet people. I’ll introduce you to all the cool people. I mean, really, do you want to be hanging out with Chance for the rest of the year?”
“What’s wrong with Chance?”
“Oh nothing. If you’re into that.”
“I’m not into anything. He’s my friend. And why do you care who I hang out with?”
“Well I only care when it isn’t with me.” He makes a pouty face and his eyes are all big like a puppy dog’s. How does he do that?
I actually giggle. How is he doing this? Chance basically told me that Zac was evil, and here I am, blushing and laughing with him, and considering going to his party. But how well do I really know Chance? I’ve talked to him like, three times, who’s to say that Chance isn’t the evil one? Why should I trust Chance just because he told me about this world first? What if Chance is just pretending to be nice so that I trust him and fall into his trap? Plus Zac is hot, so how evil can he be?
“Sure, I’ll go to your party,” I smile. “But I’m not much of a partier, so I don’t know how fun I’ll be.”
“Oh I’ll make sure you have fun, don’t worry. And everyone will love you. What do you drink?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I haven’t really drunk much.”
“Didn’t you say you used to live in Toronto?”
“So?”
“So, isn’t it like party central there?”
I shrug. “Not if you’re me. I went through a lot at the end of grade seven, and I was sort of in a bad place.” Stop spilling your depressing life story, Becca. I shake my head a bit. “I just didn’t really have a lot of friends and I didn’t get out much. Not in that way, anyway. I went shopping a lot, and spent a lot of times in old book stores and independent coffee shops.”
“Well that sounds really cool. I’ll bet you it’ll sound a lot cooler once we’re drunk, though.” He winks at me and I can’t help but smile. “I’ll get you something easy to drink. A nice, flavoured vodka you can mix with some juice or pop or something.” He starts walking backwards so he can keep talking to me, as I stay frozen in the hall. He’s going to get me alcohol. Am I going to drink it?
So no scary stuff happened at school today. Interesting. Maybe I was crazy after all, and I’m not actually someone who creates dreams. I feel a little more like myself as I walk home. More like my normal self before I started school and talked to a hot guy and thought I went into a nightmare. I feel like Becca from Toronto, instead of Becca who doesn’t know who she is. I’m actually nervous about going to this party, and contemplating whether or not I should get drunk. I didn’t decide to stay sober throughout high school because I was against getting drunk, I just didn’t have friends who were into that. And I wasn’t really not into it, but I wasn’t really into it either. I guess I was indifferent towards the whole thing. I didn’t care that people got drunk, and I didn’t care that I didn’t. But now that someone has offered to buy me something and wants me to drink it at his party, I’m sort of feeling a little excited. I don’t have to get drunk if I don’t want to. But the option is there, and it’s making me a little nervous. The way I would have been before I felt like I was changing into a new person. That’s gotta mean something, doesn’t it? Maybe I was just having a couple of off days.
Having someone tell you that you’ve been in someone’s nightmare can do that to a person.
I miss you.
Send.
I wish you could tell me what’s going on. Tell me who to trust. How am I supposed to know what the truth is? What if this place Chance has been telling me about isn’t actually good? What if he’s lying to me? What if Zac isn’t evil? What if he doesn’t even have anything to do with this whole dream thing at all? What if Zac’s just a normal guy?
Send.
What if Zac’s just a normal guy?
I make a note to look at that mark on my collar bone before school the next morning, and the redness seems to be getting worse. It looks like I couldn’t stop scratching at this one spot and it’s all irritated. I lean over the bathroom counter and take a closer look, running my index finger over it. There’s something bumpy there. It’s like a line of raised skin going in a figure eight or something. I press harder along the bumpy outline, trying to feel the full shape of it, since I can’t see it through all the redness. What would make a mark like that? Maybe I caught it on something sharp and didn’t realize. I don’t know, maybe there was something in my bed and I rubbed against it while I was sleeping. I put some Polysporin and a Band-Aid over it, but the redness still comes out either side. I pull it off and throw it in the garbage, before looking for a bigger bandage. There’s a big one with four different tab things on it, I think for going around your thumb, but it covers it up pretty well.
I don’t see Chance on the way to school, and he isn’t in English, either. I try not to think anything of it, and head on down to my next class so I can sit next to Zac. He’s sitting at his desk looking all perfect and gorgeous, so I sit next to him and smile.
“Hey there,” he says.
“Hey Zac.”
He stares at me for a minute, his smile not even faltering, and then opens his notebook to a blank page.
“You excited for tonight?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Again, I don’t know anyone at this school except for you and Chance, so.”
“Well Chance won’t be there, so technically you will only know me.”
“Right. Well, I don’t know. I guess it’ll be fun.”
“Of course it’ll be fun.” He smiles again and I melt just a bit in my chair.
I make it to Zac’s a lot easier than I thought I would, and I walk through the front door without knocking after I see two other people doing it. The music is loud and the bass is shaking my brain, but I continue my way into the house anyway, my ear drums ready to explode. I slip out of my shoes and leave them next to the pile by the door with all the others. I walk down the hallway to the kitchen, where at least 15 teenagers are hanging around a beer keg. They’re all laughing and shouting, and patting each other’s backs. I want to say hi, but I don’t recognize any of them, so I turn around and go back to the hallway. The wood floor is really dark, but I can see that some people haven’t bothered to take their shoes off, and bits of dirt and sand are trailing their way through the halls. I turn the corner and head up the stairs, my feet padding on the soft runner. I make it to the top and hear a couple people talking, and think that I recognize Zac’s voice. He’s with a girl, that’s for sure, so I don’t want to walk into the room and interrupt them or catch them doing anything. I sort of stand outside the door and try to peek in through the little bit that’s open. He’s sitting on his bed with a girl, but I can’t see who; her back is turned to the door. She has long curly hair and is wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Zac shifts a little bit and then looks over at the door, and I know I’ve been caught.
“Becca?” He gets up and walks over to the door, opens it. “You came!”
“Yeah.”
“Becca, this is Shannon. She’s in grade 11, but she’s really cool.”
“Hi Shannon,” I say with a bit of a smile.
She gives me a cool head nod. “Hey.” She gets up and gives Zac a friendly hug. “I’m going to go see how my sister’s doing,” she says to him. “Thanks for listening.”
“Hey, any time.”
She smiles and nods at me one more time before she walks past me and leaves the room.
“I’m glad you made it,” he says to me.
“Yeah, me too.”
“You want a drink?”
“Sure.”
He grabs my hand and leads me down the stairs. My heart starts to thump really hard and my mouth gets really dry. Be cool, Becca. Be cool. I keep a hold of his hand as we make our way to the kitchen, but I try to make sure that my grip is a nice, soft, cool grasp. Nothing too needy. He tucks his hand behind his back so that I can walk behind him and still be holding his hand, as we push through a crowd of people. We stop just before entering the kitchen, and he lets go of my hand as he turns around, looking for someone.
“Where’s Jason!?” he shouts.
“Robitaille, my man!” some guy, I’m assuming Jason, says. He’s walking towards us from the living room.
“Take your damn shoes off! I swear all this dirt is from you!”
“But my shoes got stolen at your last party!”
“Then wear crappy shoes next time!”
Jason smirks and takes a sip from his beer cup, before going back to the living room.
“I’m going to kill him,” Zac says to me, grabbing my hand again.
“At least it isn’t mud or anything,” I reply, trying to make the situation a little better. I think maybe he didn’t hear me over the music, but then he gives a little nod.
“Yeah.” Zac sighs and leads me into the kitchen. We stop in front of the counter that has the sink in it, which is filled with ice.
“I got you lemon vodka and Sprite,” he says into my ear.
“Ok,” I shout back, trying to be heard over the stereo and the chattering of everyone around us.
He leans in a little closer, taking his hand out of mine, and moving it to the small of my back. He holds me close to his body as he talks into my ear again, and I can feel every part of my body sparking to life.
“I hope you like it.”
I can smell the beer on his breath, but I don’t move away. I like being this close to him.
I watch as he scoops up some ice into a brightly coloured glass that’s about the size of my face, and then pours the vodka into it. It looks like he’s putting a lot in, but that’s ok, I’ll just drink it slowly. Then he fills the rest of the glass up with the Sprite, and tops it off with a hot pink straw. I take a sip and am amazed at how much it just tastes like Spite. I can’t even taste any alcohol!
“Wow!” I shout. “That’s good!”
He smiles and leads me out of the kitchen to the living room, where there are a few people dancing, but mostly it’s pretty empty.
“So how do you like your new school so far?” he asks as he sits down next to me on the couch.
I take another sip of my drink. “It’s ok.”
“It’ll get better. There’s so much awesome stuff that the grade 12s get to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like Prom. And we get to organize the school prank.”
“There’s a school prank?”
He laughs. “Yeah, every year, the grade 12s prank the teachers and no one ever gets in trouble for it because pretty much everyone is responsible. Plus it’s always the last day before exams, so they can’t do anything anyway. The teachers are usually pretty good about it, though.”
“What did they do last year?”
“They painted all the grass in the football field bright pink, and moved the principal’s car right in the middle of the field.”
“That sounds sort of lame.”
“Yeah, it was ok. We have to think of something awesome this year.” He smiles at me. Don’t his cheeks ever get sore? “How’s your drink?”
“Really good.” I take another sip and then set the cup down on the side table. “Didn’t you say you were going to introduce me to some cool people?”
“Oh yeah, I did. I just thought it would be fun to hang out with you for a bit. I think you’re pretty cool.”
“Thanks. You’re pretty cool, too.”
He puts his arm around me and reaches across me with his other hand to get my drink. He looks inside the cup and then takes a sip. “You don’t want to leave your drink unattended. There are some pretty lame guys around who like to slip a little something into girls’ drinks when they aren’t looking.”
“Really?”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen to you, though.” He takes another sip of my drink and then hands it to me. “Just a tip. I mean I’m not friends with anyone who would do that, but a lot of people end up coming to these parties, so you never know.”
“Thanks.” I take it from him and take a few swallows through the straw. I set the cup between my knees and keep a hold of it with both my hands. Zac scoots a little closer to me and whispers in my ear, giving me goosebumps.
“You look really good tonight, Becca.”
I smile, but he doesn’t see it, because his eyes are closed and his face is leaning into mine. Oh my god, he’s going to kiss me. He hardly even knows me, why is going to kiss me? But people kiss all the times at parties, don’t they? And plus he’s hot, so why not? Because I’ll be bad at it, that’s why! I can’t kiss a hot guy and be bad at it! He’ll judge me forever! Oh, too late, he’s kissing me. He’s kissing me! His lips are warm and soft, and they move around mine so slowly and gently. It feels really nice. He has one arm around my back and his other hand is gently tucked behind my ear, playing with my hair a little bit. I don’t know what do with my hands, plus I’m holding my cup still, so I just keep them where they are. But shouldn’t I move at least one hand? Where do I put it? I slowly take a shaking hand off my drink and move it to his leg. Is that a good spot? He opens his mouth a bit, so I do too, and I’m afraid for his tongue to touch mine, but when it does, it’s like everything just falls into place. I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I’m doing it, and all I can hear is the music surrounding us. There’s nothing else.
He finally pulls away and rests his forehead against mine, his fingers tangled in my hair.
“You’re a really good kisser,” he whispers.
“Really?”
He nods and kisses me again, pulling me under. He kisses me a little harder this time and I really want to set my cup down and put it somewhere. As if he’s reading my mind, he grabs the cup from between my legs and puts it somewhere, probably on the floor, and pushes me back on the couch. He’s lying on top of me now, with one of his hands on my hip. I have my hands on his back, and he’s kissing me, touching me. He finally starts to slide his hand up under my shirt, but I grab onto it and force it back down to my hip.
“Sorry,” he says, not even taking his mouth off mine.
I don’t say anything back; I just continue to kiss him. He doesn’t move his hands off my hip again, and when he does, it’s just to run his fingers through my hair. Oh my gosh, he’s perfect. He wanted to feel me up, and when I said no without even actually saying the word no, he apologized and didn’t try again! He was content with just kissing. How could he be evil? I’m not even sure how long we kiss for, but when we finally stop, my head feels a little dizzy. Maybe the vodka is catching up with me. I sit up on the couch and notice that my cup had fallen over and its contents are all over the floor.
“Oh no, my drink!” I pick my cup up right away but Zac takes it from me.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you a new one.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“No, no, you just sit tight.” He flashes me another one of his beautiful smiles and heads off to the kitchen.
I sit there a little awkwardly as people around me dance and make out. I don’t know what song is playing, but I like it, and I bob my head a little to the beat. The girl from upstairs walks by and smiles at me. I smile back, and then she turns around and sits next to me.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Shannon, right?” I ask.
“Yeah, and you’re Becca. You’re new here, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. My sister’s in your grade. I’m mostly just friends with everyone here because she’s friends with everyone.”
“Well it seems like Zac thinks you’re cool.”
“Yeah, he used to date my sister, and I’m just helping him through their breakup.”
“Oh.” Their breakup, eh? So I’m his rebound. “When did they break up?” I ask.
“The beginning of the summer. They weren’t dating for very long, but he really liked her. He’s tried getting over her with a few other girls and he always has to tell me about it. I don’t really mind, and it helps him, so whatever.” Ok, so not so much a rebound. She leans in a little closer to me and lowers her voice. “A little secret between you and me? When we’re done talking about it, we both pretend that I was the one who needed to get it off my chest.”
“Ah.” I don’t really know what to say. “That’s… Cute?”
“Yeah, it is. He doesn’t really want to show how insecure he is. But he trusts me. Oops.” She smiles and I think she’s told me that on purpose. Maybe to make me like him more, but I’m not sure. “I think he really likes you, though,” she starts up again. “You might be the one to break him of her spell.” She winks at me and gets up just as Zac comes back with a new drink for me, and some paper towel to clean up the mess.
We drink on the couch and Zac points to everyone who walks by, telling me their names and what they’re known for at the school. Some of them are in student council, some of them are in drama, a few of them are in stage band, but most of them play rugby or soccer. But actually, a lot of the people at the party do at least two of the activities he mentions. That Jason guy plays rugby and the saxophone in stage band. Shannon plays soccer and I think that’s pretty cool. Her sister isn’t much of an extra-curriculars girl, but Zac doesn’t talk much about her. He kisses me again after a little while, and I grab onto his hair and run my fingers through it as he runs his hands up my back. I never thought that kissing someone would be this much fun.
“Do you want to go up to my room?” he whispers into my mouth.
“Oh, um, no, not really.” I pull away from him a bit and can feel my face getting hot.
“We don’t have to do anything.” He grazes his thumb along my cheek and I drown in his ocean blue eyes. “I just really like you and I want to get to know you better. It’s quieter up there.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“No. I promise we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“If you try anything on me, I’ll punch you.” I try to say it lightly, like I’m joking. I don’t want to sound like a prude, but I also don’t want him to think I’ll have sex with him. I agree that it’ll be better in the privacy of his room; I just don’t want him assuming anything.
He smirks and takes my hand, leading me up the stairs.
He closes his door and we sit on his bed.
I want to kiss him again, but I’m nervous now that we’re in the privacy of his bedroom, with the door closed.
“Hey, what’s your tattoo of?” I manage to ask through my nerves.
“Oh, this one?” He raises his shirt sleeve up closer to his shoulder and angles his arm so that I can see the black figure eight on the back of it. But it’s a sideways figure eight, so I guess it’s an infinity symbol. It’s really cool. I stare into it, almost as if it’s pulling me into some other world and I can’t look away. It’s all messy with pieces of lines coming off it everywhere, like someone drew the symbol over and over and over and over again with a permanent marker and couldn’t keep the lines quite in the same spot. But it looks like it was done on purpose; it doesn’t look bad or anything. It actually looks really cool, and really badass. I feel like I’m falling a little bit as I lean in closer to it, examining the dark ink. The lines on the outside where it looks like it was drawn over and over again make me feel like I’m spinning a little bit, but on the inside curves, where the lines seemed to have met up every time, it’s dark, and empty. I’m falling and I feel like my head is hollow, like the inside of the symbol. Like I could get lost in all that dark nothingness, and never be able to break free.
“Yeah, it’s an infinity,” he says, snapping me back. “Sort of like a part of me will live forever.”
I just nod and half smile.
“So tell me a bit about yourself,” he says. Seriously? Ok.
“Um, there isn’t much to tell.” I awkwardly put my hands in my lap. “I grew up in a few different parts of Toronto… When I was younger I spent my summers at Blue Jays games and Wonderland with my family, and I don’t really have any friends…”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“Brother. Had… a brother.”
“Had?” He runs his hand slowly up my leg and stops at my thigh, squeezes it slightly.
“Yeah,” I shrug. “He died when I was in grade seven. We moved to try and get past it, but we didn’t go far, so it wasn’t really that different. My parents just got divorced this summer, so that’s why I moved here.”
“Why did they get divorced?”
“Because of my brother. Death tears families apart. They should have gotten divorced years ago, but I think they stayed together for me.”
“I’m really sorry about that. That sucks.”
“Yeah. But it was a long time ago. I’m ok most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you ever have one of those times when you’re not ok, you can come to me. For anything. We don’t even have to do anything, we can just sit, or talk, or kiss, or watch a movie, or whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Zac.”
“Anytime.”
I bite my bottom lip. “We could… Um… We could kiss now.” I almost say it like a question, but I don’t mean to. I don’t want to sound unsure of myself.
“Ok.” He smiles and brings his hand up to cup the back of my head. “No funny business, though,” he says into my mouth.
A scream makes me gasp and I push Zac off me. As soon as I sit up, he’s gone, and I look around to see that I’m not even in his room. I’m on the top of a building and I can feel a burning heat coming up from beneath me. I hear rushing water, loud, like a waterfall, but I don’t see any water around. I’m on the top of a building, where would water be coming from? But how did I get on top of a building? I race to the edge and look over, almost throwing up down the side. I’m at least 20 stories up, and there are huge flames coming out of the windows. That’s what the water sound is. It isn’t water; it’s a raging fire. The heat is coming through the floor really fast now, and it’s starting to burn my shins through my pants. I run to middle of the building out of reflex, but I really don’t know what to do. I hear another scream and I run back to the edge, and see a girl hanging out of a window. Oh my god a girl is trapped!
“Hold on!” I yell down. “I’ll call 911!” I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone but the battery is dead. Shit. What do I do? “I’m going to look for some rope!”
“Hurry!” she yells.
I don’t know what to do. Even if I could help her onto the roof, we don’t want to be on top of a burning building, we want to be far away from it. Why hasn’t anyone else called the fire department yet? Where are the fire trucks? I look around frantically for something to use, but there’s nothing but stupid pebbles up here. My heart is racing and my fingers are shaking and I can feel tears starting to surface, but I push them back.
“Becca!” I hear.
I jump a bit and look back to see who’s calling me. Chance is on the other side of the building, and he’s running towards me. I don’t even realize I’ve fallen to the ground until he kneels down next to me. Why is everything messing with my head so much right now? He grabs onto my arm and pulls me to my feet in one easy motion.
“Are you ok?” he asks, out of breath.
“I… Uh…. I guess…”
“Come on, I’ll get you out of here.”
He drags me across the building, his hand still firmly gripped on my arm, and doesn’t slow when we start getting closer to the edge.
“Uh, Chance, the edge… Chance!”
He keeps running and I want to stop, but a big part of me is telling me to keep going, and right before we reach the edge, the building disappears from beneath our feet, and we’re in a sea of white. It doesn’t even feel like we’re standing on anything until we slow down. Our steps echo around us, and Chance finally lets go of my arm.
“Where are we?” I ask, looking around me, trying to find a wall, or a curve in the floor.
“We’re in transition.”
“What’s that?”
“The time between a dream and getting back to Rem.”
“Excuse me?”
Chance stops and smiles at me. I stop walking too, and look at him, but before I can even say anything, a forest of silver trees appears behind him. Silver trees. They’re shiny, and sparkling, and the leaves seem to glow as bits of glitter fall off them and onto the silver ground below. He holds out his hand and I grab onto it, letting him take me through this strange land. We walk for a few minutes until we get to a clearing in the trees, and walk along a wide, yellow bricked road, like from The Wizard of Oz. I half expect to see Lollipop kids show up, but they don’t.
“Chance, can you tell me what’s going on?”
“We’re in Rem.”
“What happened with that building? How did I get there? Is that girl ok?”
“She’s fine, it was just a nightmare.”
“How was I in someone’s nightmare?”
“Because you don’t know how to control it, remember?”
“What? No, I don’t remember!”
“I tried to tell you this the other day, and you said it was too much. I told you it was dangerous for you to not understand. This is why it’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“The first two times it happened, you weren’t fully in someone’s nightmare. You just half experienced them. But tonight, you actually left the real world and entered the dream world. You were in this girl’s head. At school, the first two times it happened, you were just seeing what the dreamer was seeing. You were still in the school, screaming about something that no one else could see.”
“What do you mean no one else could see it? I thought you said you saw it!”
“I did,” Chance says. “After I figured out what was happening. I knew you were experiencing a nightmare, and I wanted to be there for you. So I sort of experienced it too.”
“How?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never done that before.”
I shake my head. “Wait. This doesn’t make sense. I just got pulled in to some random girl’s nightmare? Like, poof, left Zac’s room, and went into a nightmare?”
“Yes.” He says it like he’s been trying to explain it forever and I’m finally catching on. Maybe he has been.
“How?”
“No one knows. It’s just something that happens when someone starts becoming an Aura. They get pulled into the world against their will. Obviously, as you can see, in very inconvenient ways.”
“So yeah, I get that it’s inconvenient,” I look down at my shoeless feet, and Chance smirks when I meet his gaze again. “But why is it dangerous?”
“Becca, when you’re in someone’s nightmare, you’re physically in their head.”
“So that sounds weird, but how is it dangerous? Like besides the fact that I could have stepped on something sharp just now.”
“When a person is dreaming, they’re in their bed, asleep. Right?”
I nod.
“Well when you’re in someone else’s dream, you aren’t in two places at once. It isn’t your ‘subconscious’,” he makes air quotes with his fingers, “that’s in a person’s dream. It’s you. You aren’t at home in bed like the dreamer, you aren’t out at some party, you’re in the nightmare. Physically.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You aren’t anywhere except for in the dream. If you’re in a dream with a burning building, you’re in a burning building. If a dreamer gets hurt in their dream, it’s not real. They’re fine when they wake up. But if you get hurt in someone else’s dream, you get hurt for real.”