Authors: Sarah Dessen

Dreamland (31 page)

BOOK: Dreamland

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“I hope you don't mind,” Boo said, walking over and putting her arm around my waist. “But I knew how sad you were to miss the exhibition. And these picturesâthey deserve to be seen, Caitlin. They're wonderful.”

I turned around, looking back at the living room, where my pictures lined the walls, each one framed, each one perfect. All my faces, all my objects. All of my world, laid out for everyone to see.

I turned back to my family, standing together, watching me as their own faces stared back at them. And I closed my eyes, just for a second, and felt myself swimming, harder, pulling myself up to the surface so close above.

Caitlin!
they'd yelled at me as I ran across the gym at the first pep rally, before everything began.

Caitlin,
Rogerson had said when we met at the car wash, that cold night under the stars.

Caitlin,
Corinna had giggled to me a thousand times as we sat on her couch, watching game shows.

Caitlin,
my mother had whispered that night on the sidewalk, cradling me under the streetlight.

Caitlin,
I'd said aloud as I placed the last piece of my picture together, recognizing the face I saw there.

They were the voices I'd heard all year as I fell deeper, tangled with mermaids at the cool bottom of the ocean. But it was my own voice, or close to it, that I heard next.

“Caitlin?”

I was still swimming up, higher and higher, pulled by the sound. But I wouldn't drown. I could already see the sky, iridescent and just beyond the water above me. And farther on, much farther, was dreamland. But for now, I wanted only to stay between them, floating on all that blue at last.

“Caitlin?”

I opened my eyes just as my mother moved aside, one hand covering her mouth, and my sister Cass stepped forward. I would have known that face anywhere.

“Caitlin,” she said again, and she stepped toward me, her eyes already moving to find my scar and claim it. I didn't know what to say to her just yet, but I knew I had a story to tell now, that was mine, hers, and ours. But for that one instant, I concentrated on reaching the surface, feeling the water break across my face as I burst through it into the air to finally breathe on my own.

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