Immortal Light: Wide Awake (20 page)

I will deny everything.

Lucy stared at the paper for so
long that the words burned themselves into her retinas and she fell
into her desk chair reaching for an explanation. Was he trying to
tell her something? If he was trying to tell her that her dream was
actually real, but he would deny its existence in reality for some
reason, then she felt herself being okay with that. But, that
couldn’t have been the case. He knew nothing of the dreams and she
would be a fool to even approach him about it. If he didn’t
corroborate the existence of the grove, then she would feel
humiliated.

“
But if he did
…
”
she said
aloud.

She thought about the
possibility of her dreams actually being real.
Wishing there was a way to somehow confront Benjamin about
the dreams, she walked back over to her bed and looked at the clock
on her nightstand. It read 12:05 AM. It would wait until
morning.

***

“
You going to be okay here this
early?” James Higgins’ voice was low and gravelly, as he hadn’t yet
had his first cup of coffee for the day.

“
Yeah, I’ll be fine. I think the
library’s open.”

The morning sun had just barely begun to rise
by the time Lucy got out of her father’s truck. He had to be at
work for a 6:45 meeting.

“
Okay, that’s good. You’ll have
extra time to study,” he said as Lucy put on her
backpack.

She smiled weakly as she reached for the truck
door to close it.

“
Lucy, this is for your own good.
It won’t last forever, but it will last.”

Lucy nodded.

“
Be good, sweetheart, I love
you.”

“
Love you, too,” she responded,
despondently, as she shut the door.

The last thing Lucy wanted to do was sit in a
chair and study in the library, so when she was certain her father
was out of sight, she looked for somewhere else to go.

Walking through the quad, all she
could think about was her last encounter with Benjamin in the
grove. It was as though she had experienced a day between days, as
real as the dream felt—as real as they always felt. It was hard not
to not think about Benjamin. Since the last few visits with him,
the link she felt was stronger, and all she thought about was being
with him, despite the fact that she was still in a relationship
with Mark.

She let herself wander the campus
because there wasn’t any particular place she could think to go; it
was simply the stillness of the morning and the peace of the
outdoors that helped her focus on her thoughts. The cemetery was
just on the other side of the parking lot, so she followed the
chain link fence until she found an opening. The grass was wet, but
dead, having suffered the torment of summer. Every grave marker
looked decades old, if not centuries, because the coastal air had a
way of making things deteriorate faster than usual.

Lucy had so many memories of the
cemetery that, unlike other cemeteries, it didn’t frighten her to
be there. There was something about having the high school so close
that gave her the sense of having a sanctuary from anything that
might decide to come back from the dead.

Looking at her watch, she saw that it was
still twenty minutes to seven. She had a good twenty-five minutes
before Kat would even think about being at school and nearly an
hour before classes even started, so she decided to kill time by
walking a serpentine path up and down every aisle, reading the
names on the markers. She had read the names a hundred times in her
life.

At the far corner of the cemetery, just on the
fence line, was a large tree whose branches hung down like a
canopy. The eastern sun was blinding as she headed toward it. She
found a spot on the ground that had miraculously avoided being
drenched in morning dew, so she sat down and unpacked her
bag.

In no time, she found what she was
looking for: her spiral notebook with her own drawing of the
rainforest grove. The sight of it surprised even her at first
because it was so perfect. She had drawn it after only one visit,
but there it was in all of its accuracy: the trees and the ground
cover. Even the golden cardboard backing of the notebook lent
itself to being the sunlight that drenched the woods.

Lucy closed her eyes and leaned against the
tree and wished to go back there. She wanted to be with Benjamin,
and she wanted to talk with him. He seemed to be the only person
she could really talk to.

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get back
and she knew that the real Benjamin at school wasn’t the same.
There was just something about him in the grove that made him more
approachable and didn’t make her feel self-conscious. The real
Benjamin was different. He hung out with the wrong crowd and the
mere sight of him drove her into a stupor.

“
I hope you didn’t run away and
only get this far.”

Lucy jumped at the sound of the
familiar voice, a voice she certainly didn’t expect to hear so soon
in the day.

Benjamin chuckled at her
reaction. “I’m sorry, I saw you sitting there …
”

“
No, it’s okay,
I was just … thinking.
”

“
Oh, then I’ll leave you to your
thoughts.” He turned to walk away.

“
No!” She practically yelled at
him. She felt her reaction might have been a little too aggressive,
but she thought it might be the only way to keep him from leaving.
If she couldn’t have the perfect Benjamin, she would settle for the
next best thing.

He stopped and turned, his expression one of
startled concern.

“
I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean …
”
She looked at her watch again; 6:46.
“
What are you doing here so
early?
”

“
I was just going to go to the
library.” He looked down at her perch under the tree. “You want to
come with me?”

She was surprisingly thrilled with
the invitation and started packing her backpack as quickly as
possible. “Yeah, I’d love too.” She was being too eager again, so
she tried to real it back a bit. “I mean, sure, I’ll at least walk
with you.”

“
Great. Let me get that for you.”
He reached his arm over the chain-link fence, gesturing to her
backpack full of books.

“
Oh, no, it’s okay; it’s really
heavy.”

“
Well, I did some push-ups this
morning, and I’m actually dying to know if I can carry the world’s
heaviest bag.” His smile seemed so honest and sincere that for a
moment he was the perfect resemblance of his dream self.

Lucy smiled and hefted her bag over to him
placing it in his grasp.

His face became analytical
as he weighed it by bouncing it up and down. “Well, it’s going to
be close, but I think I might be able to …
”
In one swift, effortless motion he
hoisted the pack over the fence and flung it over his
shoulder.
“
Yes, I
did it. I
’
m so
glad you were here as my witness.
”

The two shared a light-hearted laugh as Lucy
rounded the end of the fence to join him.

They walked side by side in
silence for the first dozen paces or so. The silence was not as
awkward as Lucy might have expected because she still felt that
they were like old friends. She wanted so badly for the real
Benjamin to be the dream Benjamin.

“
I read your
note,” Lucy said, hoping to somehow prod the conversation in a
direction that might lead to the grove or
haven
, as his dream version called
it.

Benjamin looked down at her. “Well, at least
it didn’t find its premature fate in the shallow depths of the
recycle bin,” he said, winking.

He seemed to have so much confidence and charm
that Lucy felt ashamed of her actions.

“
Yeah, sorry, I
was just … I don
’
t know.
”
Her voice was laced with shame again.

“
You don’t need to be sorry. It’s
just a piece of paper. But, out of curiosity, what did you
think?”

“
Well, I found it confusing and a
little bit unfair.”

Benjamin feigned indignation. “Unfair! How was
it unfair?”

“
Well, it just said you would deny
everything. That’s not something about you that’s interesting. It
just means you’re a good liar, or you have no sense of
accountability or something.”

Benjamin gasped and put his hand
on his chest as though he had been shot. “Gah! I’m truly, deeply
hurt.” Looking perfectly scandalized when Lucy reacted to him, he
smiled at her and made sure she knew he was only
kidding.

“
Would you stop that?”

“
Stop what?”

“
Making me feel bad.”

“
I’m sorry, you’re right. But you
did just call me a liar.” His permanent smile was
unwavering.

His charm encircled Lucy like a smoke screen
and it was hard to be upset with him.

“
Then tell me, what will you deny?
What does that even mean?”

“
Well, it means that if you think
you’ve got me figured out, I’ll just deny it, until you have the
whole picture. You see, I’m not just going to come out and tell you
everything about me without knowing anything about you. So, how
about we start a trade? Yesterday was my day, and today will be
yours.”

It wasn’t nearly what she had hoped to get out
of him, but what she was hoping for was too farfetched. The thought
of having daily contact with Benjamin, however, was quite appealing
to Lucy, so she agreed to play along.

“
Okay, but we have to have rules,”
Lucy said.

“
I absolutely agree. What’s rule
number one?”

“
You can’t ask anything more than
what’s given. If this is going to be a game, then we need to use
strategy.”

“
Agreed.” He actually looked a
little giddy at her suggestion, as though he would have proposed
the same rule if she hadn’t.

“
Rule number two: Let’s just keep
this between us.” She hoped that her tone of secrecy came across
not as deceit, but rather as a simple little secret.

“
Hmm, so I can’t tell anybody?”
Benjamin said with a churlish grin.

Lucy looked up with eyes
slightly wide, trying to hide her panic stricken insides. “Well, I
mean … it
’
s just
that … we both have … you know … and it would just be sort of
…
”

“
I’m just teasing. I absolutely
agree with you. It’s just between us.” He clamped his mouth shut,
drew a zipper across his lips, mimed it locked, and threw away the
invisible key.

Lucy relaxed again. Every part of her wanted
to just grab him and hold him close. She felt as though that would
actually be possible and he would be perfectly in accord, but she
knew she had to resist her attraction to him.

Having concluded the ground rules
of their game and finally arriving at the library, the two found a
table and sat across from each other. Lucy once again unpacked her
bag and opened her English textbook. Benjamin sat perfectly upright
in his chair and drew a book from his shoulder bag. It was a
paperback with well-worn pages and looked to be a hundred years
old.

“
What are you reading?” Lucy
asked, reaching for anything that would engage him in
conversation

He looked at the cover of
his book, then held it up so she could see. The letters of the
title and author were well worn, and she could just make out
The Count of Monte Cristo
, by Alexandre Dumas.

“
Have you ever read it?” he asked
curiously.

“
I have, actually,” she said with
a smile, pleased to be able to answer in the
affirmative.

“
Is that a fact?”

“
Yeah, well, freshman year my mom
wanted me to start reading the kind of stuff a high-schooler should
read and not the adolescent stuff I was reading. That was the first
book she handed me.” Lucy could feel herself rambling, but she
wasn’t exactly sure how she should play her taste in
literature.

“
I’m impressed. Not many teenagers
would read this for fun.”

“
Well, it wasn’t exactly fun. I
had to read it with a dictionary the first time.”

Benjamin laughed supportively. “That, I can
truly sympathize with.”

The two shared a meaningful gaze from across
the table, and for a brief moment she saw something she had never
seen in Benjamin Raven’s eyes; she saw sadness. A feeling came over
her that she had a difficult time deciphering. She wanted to hold
him, but not for selfish reasons. In a split second, her entire
desire to be with him changed to that of an almost nurturing
instinct; she wanted to comfort him, though she had no idea
why.