Dream Weaver (Dream Weaver #1) (32 page)

             
I remembered my Christmas gathering a few days ago. Just a few people from work came; Ivy, Jesse, Collin and his wife, Blake and his girl, and a few others. Jesse got plowed.

             
Sparks of fire flashed at my throat.

             
I reached for my neck, but it was bare; I didn’t have a necklace that sparkled like that. My charm bracelet dangled at my wrist, the metal warm against my skin, like in my dream, just released from my father’s fingers. I caressed the precious white-gold heart. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS…Mom and Dad. Officer Molly brought it to me after they arrested Jesse’s brother.

             
While he was drunk and drooling over my sweet sixteen picture, Jesse remembered seeing his brother, Rico, with a charm bracelet; the same charm bracelet I wore in the picture. In his inebriated condition, he couldn’t put the pieces of information together. Once he was sober and put it all together, he hadn’t hesitated to lead the police straight to his brother.

             
Apparently, they weren’t close, Jesse and Rico. Jesse was mortified and infuriated over what his brother had done to me. The rape dredged up a long-buried dark memory for Jesse. I saw it in his eyes that night, and other times since. Something very bad happened in Jesse’s past, a past that formed him into the loving, gentle, happy man he’d become despite whatever darkness haunted him; and formed his brother into a hard, bitter, violent man that found pleasure in usurping women.

             
Jesse’s silence since his brother’s arrest only augmented my pain. Except for a quick phone call to apologize—as if it was his fault—I’d heard nothing from him. I told him it wasn’t his fault, but he was too humiliated to say anything more, and refused to be consoled or forgiven. I hoped someday he would remember we were friends. I hoped he would understand I wasn’t the kind of person who would hold his brother’s crimes against him. I guess I understood how Jesse felt, though. I knew we were closer than ‘just friends’ and that he had a crush on me; nothing I took so seriously. But Jesse believed it was the fact that he had pointed me out to Rico, told him he liked me, that made Rico come after me. Which was ridiculous. Or not. But still.

             
I also remembered the nightmares, horrible night terrors that plagued every sleeping moment. They were nightmares about the crash, the rape. There were vampires and angels and demons. I supposed in ode to my choices in literature and a few ‘hellfire and brimstone’ sermons as a child. I glanced up and smiled at Bela, and Lon and my other guardian monsters as they gazed down at me with their glossy eyes. No, these weren’t the monsters. The real monsters were out there somewhere, in the real world.

              My dreams typically circled the drain with sleep, but I remembered a dream of a beautiful South Pacific beach, a dream about my dad as a young boy, beautiful dreams that chased away the paralyzing phantoms in my head.

             
Did other people live through stuff like this?
I mused.
Did they actually survive? In one piece? Sane? Or did they just find some way of escape?
Alcohol or drugs could mask the pain, but it would never go away. Not truly away. It would always be there to torment me. Perhaps death was the only true antidote to the anguish that besieged me.

             
I rubbed my wrist and closed my eyes, imagined again a shiny, razor-thin blade. Envisioned the quick, searing pain as it sliced the tender flesh; pain that was utterly insignificant in comparison to what my heart endured now. This kind of pain would ease, in time, and take with its crimson flow the memories that were a cancer to my heart.

             
I searched my heart, pondered why I hadn’t already made that cut. It would be so simple. So relatively painless. I didn’t owe anybody in this life anything, let alone my life. I had definitely taken the plunge over the precipice and into the mire. The miasmic darkness had swallowed me. Yet, apparently, I had survived. Barely, it felt. I was still breathing, my heart still beat within my breast. Spit back out from its gaping maw, back into light and life.

             
And what of Ivy? My loss
—oh let’s not be delicate—
my death—harsher yet, my suicide—would surely crush her tender heart. She so believed in the salvation of my happiness. And what about Jesse? My sweet, charming Jesse would definitely blame himself, especially now, after what his brother did. And I couldn’t bear the responsibility for the extinction of his solar smile.

             
Eddyson’s rough little paw brushed the back of my hand and shattered my morose reverie. Raucous dreams of fluttering quail, as frantic wings beat the brush in a hasty escape. Squirrels romped and taunted with the flick of a bushy tail in his intrepid puppy fantasies. What would become of my sweet little pup if I ceased to be?

             
A rumble of mirth built up deep inside my chest and migrated to my throat where it burst out as the revelation of truth erupted inside me. I found the key; I
did
want to live. Eddyson was my heart’s excuse, my anchor to this life, because deep down, I truly did not
want
to die. I just wanted a life with less pain. I wasn’t asking for a past. Not even a future. Just a few less painful memories to make surviving the present a bit more bearable.

             
I lay motionless in my warm bed, and stared at the ceiling. My eyes drifted with the swirls of texture and a rogue piece of the puzzle drifted into place. I remembered conjuring dramatic scenes when I was child to help me escape when my reality became too stressful. I imagined cantering down a beautiful sunset beach on a golden palomino, the wind raked my hair, the salty sea kissed my face. I endured death bravely in the arms of my lover. I conjured images more frightening than my reality, so reality didn’t seem so bad after all.

              So, that was it. It was all me. It was all about escape from the horrors that were my life; all a vivid figment of my overactive imagination. No butterfly effect magic to make me live in any possible alternative reality I could summon from my fantasies. No vampires with cruel immortality and super human powers; lamia that could suck out human life and even frailer human thoughts. No angels, no demons and maybe not even God. No, there was always God. He was never the issue. As usual, no knight in shining armor to ride in and rescue me. In my reality, there would be no knight on his brilliant white steed to rescue me at the last possible moment. No, in my reality, he would show up just moments
after
my last breath escaped my lungs and my heart came to a crashing halt. The truth was no one in this world could save me. What salvation was there for me, then?

             
It was an extremely rare moment that I was glad my parents weren’t there. I was glad they couldn’t see what a wuss I was, that they couldn’t see me as I fell to pieces instead of standing strong and confident like they taught me.

             
Yet somewhere deep inside me, unfathomably deep and dark, lay an icy cold twinge. A hint that everything was not right.

             
The phone rang, utterly shattered my contemplations. The caller ID flashed Adrian’s number. I hesitated, not sure if I had the strength for this conversation, but knew I couldn’t put him off forever. I answered, finally, with a faint, “hello.” Maybe he’d think he’d awakened me and want to call back later.

             
“Emari? It’s Adrian. How are you, honey?”

             
“Um…I’m all right, I guess.”

             
“Merry Christmas,” he said quietly, unsure of the sentiment.

             
“What? Christmas?” I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. Wasn’t Christmas still, like, a couple of days away?

             
“I know you probably don’t feel like celebrating it much, but—Celeste and I were hoping you’d come up to the house for a visit today.” He was quiet for a couple of heartbeats as he awaited my response. “Listen,” he continued when I remained silent. “I know things have been really rough on you the last…well, for a long time now. You know, part of this comes down to the decisions you make.”

             
“I know.”

             
“How are the nightmares?” Adrian slipped easily from Daddy mode to therapist mode.

             
“Well, actually, I haven’t had any for over a week.” I told him, triumph only mildly colored my voice. My world was still a jumbled mess that I couldn’t quite reconcile, but a nightmare-free week was a commendable accomplishment.

             
“Really? What do you think brought that about?”

             
“I guess I made a choice. Or a few choices,” I explained, but it was as much revelation to me as to Adrian.

             
“Oh?” So Adrian. Ask little, listen a lot.

             
“I guess—I decided not to be a victim anymore.”

             
“And?”

             
“I guess I decided that I really do want to live.”

             
Adrian exhaled as though he’d been holding his breath for a year. Or, right around nine months. “Good girl.”

             
“I did have a dream last night, though.”

             
“Oh?” I could hear the tension creep like a shadow back into his voice.

             
“I dreamed about Mom and Dad.”

             
“Uh huh?” The strain crept up a notch.

             
“I met them in Daddy’s garden. We talked. I got to tell them I love them and say good-bye. It was so real I can almost still feel it,” I said as I fingered the still-warm heart on my wrist.

             
Adrian was silent for a moment. “It sounds like a very nice dream. Did it help? To say ‘good-bye’?”

             
“Ya know, in a bizarre kind of way, I think it did. So, what time should I be there?”

             
“Three o’clock?”

             
I considered my day, so scheduled with—nothing. “Three o’clock it is.”

             
We said our good-byes and I dragged myself out of bed. The weather channel entertained me for a couple of hours and I killed time with Eddyson for another hour. Finally, I showered and prepared for the day.

              Later, once I dolled myself up, I crated Eddyson, hopped into my CX9, and drove into town to the Rovnikov’s mansion on the South Hill.

             
Celeste hired professional decorators to string thousands of twinkling white lights and precisely-placed glowing, animated animals.              

             
Adrian and Celeste had the door open before I got out of my car, and greeted me at the door with bated enthusiasm. Celeste couldn’t contain the tremors that quaked through her body as she clung to me. Even Adrian’s hug overflowed with emotion that bordered on desperation. They scanned me thoroughly from head to toe. Celeste winced as she took in my face, and both tried failingly not to let their eyes linger on my wounds as they guided me to the living room. More animatron reindeer glowed and bowed on the massive mantle over the fireplace.

             
“You know,” I teased them, “most people only use those for lawn decorations?” The couple laughed along with me and visibly relaxed.

             
Their Christmas tree stood at least eight feet tall, with only a handful of silver-wrapped gifts still tucked underneath. The Rovnikov children were sequestered away in their rooms playing with the latest, hottest, coolest creations. Undoubtedly they’d awakened their parents to open their gifts at the crack of dawn this morning.

             
Adrian made drinks for Celeste and him and offered me a soda.

             
“So how are you?” Celeste’s calmness belied her desperation for the answer. I contemplated delaying my response, but I refused to be that cruel, even in jest. Adrian sat on the arm of her chair and put a hand on her shoulder to bridle her inquisition.

             
I gave him a hard look. “I’m doing really well actually. The nightmares have stopped. I’m healing.” It took me a moment to realize I had reached to touch the scars on my face with my injured hand. Reluctantly, I presented it to them. “Although, I tripped and put my hand through the glass in one of my built-ins, but I’m more bummed about the damage to the antique glass than about myself.”

             
Adrian remained stony but Celeste grimaced. “But your hand is all right? It doesn’t need stitches or anything?” Now Celeste was turning on the mother-mode.

             
“Nope. It’s all good.” I presented my bandaged hand, again.

             
“It’s a shame about the glass. Those kinds of things are irreplaceable. You can replace the glass, but it's just not the same as the original stuff.” She understood my passion over such things, as her house brimmed with the wonderful and old.