Dreamers Often Lie (8 page)

T
he door thumped shut behind me.

Across the threshold, a short flight of stairs angled up toward the backstage door, its steps lit by the red haze of two exit signs.

I sat down in the middle of the flight and I buried my face in my arms. The ache in my head was too big for my skull. If I didn’t keep completely still, it would shatter.

Was your father dear to you?
The words echoed with the pulse in my head.
Was your father dear to you? Was your father dear to you?

How did he know just how to destroy me?

I pressed my thumbs into my temples.

Of course he knew. He was inside my head. He knew everything I knew.

He knew that when somebody dies, everybody else bands together and re-creates them. They take out the flaws, erase the bad stories, crunch the memories that don’t match into tight, dark corners. In a few days—a few hours, sometimes—all that’s left is the perfect version, and no
one can ever mention the flawed, mixed-up,
real
version again. That’s the rule.

I pushed harder.

The problem is, if you can’t talk about it anymore, how do you even know if that version was real in the first place? Maybe everyone else’s version—the wonderful, kind, funny, flawless version—is the truth. Maybe you were the only one who couldn’t see it. Maybe you were the only one who didn’t
get
to see it. Because either everyone is lying, or you, all by yourself, are wrong.

I was running out of air.

Empty stage.
I counted my breaths. In and out. One, two. Three, four. The darkness inside my arms grew quieter.

No one else knew. No one needed to know. If I was only a painting of a sorrow, I was a really good one.

Empty stage. Empty—

Somewhere nearby, a deep voice said, “M?”

My head shot up.

It was too dim to see clearly, but the glow of the exit signs outlined the shape in front of me. Maybe it was its height, or its tangled hair. Or maybe it was just its voice, which still immediately made me think
Romeo—
and then made me want to shut myself in my locker and hide for the rest of junior year. Whatever it was, I knew that the person standing there was the new kid from anatomy class.

“What?” I croaked. And I actually
croaked.
Like a phlegmy frog.

He held out a package. “M?” he repeated. “Would you like one?”

I cleared my throat. “You mean
M&M
?”

“Well, I was only offering one. An M. Singular. But if you want more, go ahead.”

He was still extending the package. Keeping one eye on his outline, I reached inside. The crinkled paper edges felt real. The little round chocolates in my hand felt real. I squinted down at my palm. In the ruddy light, all of them looked black.

“They’re just M&M’S,” said the voice. “I haven’t laced the bag with anything insidious, I swear.”

“No. I didn’t think you were going to roofie me with a bag of chocolates.”
I just thought you were a hallucinated Shakespearean character.
And now I’d brought date-rape drugs into the conversation. Hopefully the darkness and the red light would hide my burning face. “I’m just trying to see what colors they are.”

His silhouette nodded. “I have a specific M&M-eating order myself. That’s why I can never get them at movie theaters.”

“Too dark,” I agreed.
Just talk. You can do this. Just talk, like a normal person.
“What’s your order?”

“Red first, green last.”

“Ah. I’m
brown
first, green last.”

He nodded again. “Everybody saves green for last.”

“This one tastes brown. But I suppose all chocolate tastes brown in the dark.”

He gave a little laugh—more of a breath, really, but I assumed it was a laugh.

The sound made my skin flush again. What was wrong with me?

We were quiet for a second. I realized my hands were shaking. I clenched them together. The chocolate shell of the candy splintered and melted on my tongue.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

That voice. I could hardly believe I hadn’t created it with my mind, making it exactly what I wanted to hear. But he was standing there, waiting. Listening.

“No,” I said. “Actually, it feels like my skull’s going to explode. Which might be an improvement, because then at least the aching would be over.” I stopped. Way too late. “But please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“I won’t.”

“The headache’s not even the real problem.” Why was I telling him this? Because he couldn’t see my face anyway? Because even the fake memory of him beside me in the snow made me want to keep him here?

His silhouette leaned against the stair rail. One long leg bent to brace itself on the edge of a step. “What
is
the real problem?”

“What just happened onstage is the problem. I’ve been
resting and recovering and waiting, and
still . . .”
I flung out my hands, and one uneaten M&M clicked away into the shadows. “If I screw this up—this play, this rehearsal—Mr. Hall will give my part away. Everything I’ve been working for will be over.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“What?” I said skeptically. “Why not?”

“Because you’re really good.”

I snorted. “How do you know?”

“Because I watched your scene.” His silhouette turned slightly, folding its arms, and now I could see the long, angular lines of his profile. His features were hard and delicate at the same time, like a portrait done in black ink with a fine-point pen. “I was over on stage right, by the ropes.”

“Why were you backstage?”

“The counselors here
strenuously
recommended that I join an extracurricular activity. They knew I’d done other plays, so”—he gave a long, lazy shrug—“stage crew it is.” His head tilted, and I could tell he was looking down at me. “I’ve been part of enough school productions to know what lousy performances look like. And yours was not lousy.”

“Well.” I twisted sideways, remembering—too late—to brush my hair over the scar. “Thanks.”

Rob pushed himself away from the railing. He sat down on the step beside me, just far enough away that his sleeve didn’t touch mine.

“Check it out.” He bowed his head.

Even in the semidarkness, I could see a bumpy, two-inch scar buried in the roots of his hair.

“Impressive,” I said. “What happened?”

“I was a twelve-year-old idiot. I borrowed a neighbor’s skateboard without asking—”

“So you stole it.”

“I stole it
temporarily
. Which is really just unsupervised borrowing.”

“Right. Unsupervised borrowing. Which is really just stealing.”

“Exactly.” He straightened so the reddish light fell onto his face, and I could see that he was grinning. “This was when we were living in Denver. I’d never skateboarded before, but I decided that my very first attempt should be down this long, steep, highly trafficked city street.”

“All kinds of good decision-making happening here.”

Now he let out a laugh. “Good decision-making is my trademark. Anyway, I managed to stay upright for a while, which is kind of miraculous. I was probably going about forty miles an hour by the time a car shot out in front of me.”

“Forty miles an hour? On a skateboard?”

“Yeah. The record for a skateboarder going downhill is over eighty miles an hour.”

I started to smile back. “You just happen to know this?”

“I just happen to know all kinds of useless stuff.” He leaned back on one elbow. “The hippo’s closest relative is the dolphin.”

“
What?
” I laughed. “Wait. Stop. We’re getting sidetracked. You were going downhill on a skateboard . . .”

“Yeah. So, this car streaked out, I threw myself backward, hit my head, split my scalp open, and sustained a moderate concussion.”

“Sounds painful.”

“That’s the weird thing. I don’t remember it hurting. I don’t remember going to the hospital, getting stitches, any of that. I don’t remember anything after that red car. That’s really all I remember—the feeling of not being able to remember.”

“I know,” I said. “I can’t even remember going on that skiing trip. I can’t remember hitting a tree, or hurting my head, or getting to the hospital . . . It’s like somebody else stole my body and screwed it up and then gave it back to me. I’m sorry—they ‘borrowed’ my body without supervision.”

He laughed again and looked at me closely, smiling. Then he sat up straight again. “I was back to normal in a few days, but I still remember how that sucked. Not being able to trust my own brain.”

“Exactly,” I said softly. “That’s the worst.”

It was like he knew what I was thinking. But he wasn’t inside my head. This was real. This was actually, physically happening. I had the sudden urge to reach out and touch his arm, just for proof.

I touched my own scar instead. The ache in my skull
had boiled down to a simmer, but it was still there, ready to flare up with any fresh fuel.

“Just so you know,” I said, after a beat, “I’m not usually such a freak. I mean, I don’t always stumble around accusing strangers of being characters from Shakespeare.”

There was enough light on his face to see his widening smile. “It made for a more memorable first day than usual.”

“‘Than usual’? How many first days have you had?”

“I think this is my tenth school. Well—thirteenth, if you count expulsions.”

“Expulsions? With an
s
at the end?”

“Like I said: good decision-making. And we’ve moved around a lot.”

I leaned back on the step behind us. The simmer had nearly stilled. “I’ve lived in the same city, in the same
house,
for my entire life.”

His eyebrows went up. “Wow.”

“Not
wow
. Yawn. Where else have you lived?”

He took a breath, and I could see him running the list in his head. “Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Nashville, but that was really brief . . . Tacoma . . .” He paused. “And Boston and Atlanta. I think that’s it.”

“God. I’m jealous. Which was your favorite?”

“Probably Seattle.” He met my eyes. “But Minneapolis seems interesting so far.”

I straightened up, pulling my gaze away. “It’s Rob, right?”

“Right.”

“See? I knew it wasn’t Romeo.” I patted the hair over my scar. “Not one hundred percent insane.”

“And you’re Jaye Stuart.”

“You’re correct.”

He put out one hand with exaggerated formality. To take it, I had to turn toward him again. I watched my own fingers move toward his, my cold palm pressing against his larger, warmer one. His fingers closed around mine. Slightly rough. Familiar. “Pleased to meet you, Jaye Stuart.”

“Pleased to meet you, Rob . . . Martin?”

“Mason.”

“I was close.”

He didn’t let go of my hand. His voice seemed to murmur straight into my ear. “‘And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss . . .’”

I jerked. “What?”

“What?”

I put my hands behind my back, against the gritty chill of the stairs. “Did you say something else?”

“Something besides my last name?”

“Like . . . a quote. Something about hands . . .”

Rob frowned slightly. “Maybe you heard somebody onstage.”

Onstage.

Oh my god.
Onstage.

I straightened up. “Oh, no. I probably missed my—”

The stage door above us slammed open. Multiple sets of feet pounded down the staircase.

“Jaye?”

“Jaye!”

“Here she is!” Hannah grabbed me by one arm and yanked me to my feet.

Ayesha grabbed the other arm. “Geez, Jaye, you can’t just disappear like that.” She hauled me up the steps, toward the stage door. “Everyone thought you’d wandered out into the snow or something.”

“What, like a dying wolf?”

Ayesha ignored me.

As the door swung shut behind us, I glanced over my shoulder. Rob had gotten to his feet too. He was watching us, one hand on the railing, but the red dimness washed away whatever I might have seen on his face.

“Found her!” Hannah blared, leading me onto the stage.

“Well,
good
.” Mr. Hall’s voice echoed through the house. “And only ten minutes wasted. Jaye, everything all right?”

“Yes. Mr. Hall, I’m sorry. I just lost—”

“Never mind.” His tone was brisk. “Are you able to continue?”

“Yes. I’m fine. I’m able.”

“Then let’s just move on. We’ll start from the top of scene two: Titania enters with her train.”

I stepped back into the wings. A knot of fairies was waiting impatiently. A few of them shot me angry looks as I sidled into my place.

“Okay,” Ayesha signaled us.
“Go.”

I tried to brush away the embarrassment. Titania wouldn’t be embarrassed. She would be graceful and regal and strong. I sailed out into the light, the fairies skipping and tittering around me.

“Come, now a roundel and a fairy song. Then, for the third part of a minute, hence . . .” The words were there without me having to search for them, pulling one another like electric lights on a string. “Sing me now asleep; then to your offices and let me rest.”

I sank down on the platform that was supposed to look like a mossy riverbank. Little wire-stemmed flowers sproinged around me as I lay back and shut my eyes.