Immortal Light: Wide Awake (8 page)

During a moment when Laura and Benjamin were
engrossed in a discussion about the greatest movies of all time,
Lucy’s thoughts moved back to her dreams. It was him, she was sure
of it. Benjamin was the man in the dreams. She could feel it. For
no rational reason, she knew it was him.

As her thoughts engulfed her, she reached for
a small potted flower on the window sill. From the looks of the
brown leaves and withering petals the poor plant was probably
already too far gone to be revived with water. As she pondered the
strangeness of her dreams, she stroked a single dead
leaf.

At the end of the table, Benjamin
watched her out of the corner of his eye. He observed Lucy’s
fingers on the leaf, gently stroking its ribbed surface, and was
only mildly surprised when he saw the dead brown leaf begin to
transform as Lucy’s thumb and forefinger caressed it. What had been
brown was slowly and unmistakably turning green again. Lucy didn’t
notice anything, as she was immersed in her thoughts.

“
Okay, sweetie, I think it’s time
we caught up with your father,” Laura said, bringing Lucy out of
her trance.

Unaware of her magic trick, Lucy stood and
took her mother’s outstretched elbow. Together they walked toward
the door.

Benjamin turned back to look at
the flower with a pleasantly surprised look on his face. The petals
were still withered and dying, but the leaves and the stem were a
vibrant green, the color of botanical life. Slowly, Benjamin looked
to see that no one was paying him any attention. He then reached
over to the small flower, cupped his hand over the dead blossom for
a moment, then placed it back on the window sill and followed Lucy
and Laura out the door.

As the waitress began to clear the
table, she looked up toward the window and smiled as she admired
the bright yellow flower that sat tall and thriving in the light
beaming in the window. She was surprised because a quick glance at
the rest of the dining area confirmed that every other flower is
the room was either dead or dying.

Chapter
4

Lucy pulled into Marshfield
High on the first day of school and circled the lot, hoping to see
something that signaled the presence of Benjamin. He never told her
what he drove, so she was looking for a black Camaro.
Her cursory scan of the lot was fruitless. There
was no sign of the car that would stick out like a sore thumb in a
pack of decade-old vehicles that had lost their sheen at the hands
of teenage drivers, and no sign of a new student at
all.

Having parked her car in a hurry,
she climbed the stairs to campus. Heading past the front door of
the office, she froze when she saw Benjamin inside, standing at the
desk. As she gazed in at him, a pleasant tingling feeling ran the
length of her extremities, and she turned to go inside and greet
him. It was then that she saw her arch nemesis, Samantha Morris, on
his right arm, practically groping him, lips flapping at the speed
of sound, and hanging on him like a trained monkey. Benjamin seemed
completely enthralled by what she had to say and, to Lucy’s
digestive horror, they shared a laugh.

Grabbing the handle of the office door, she
was prepared to save Benjamin from a fate worse than death when she
realized that she had absolutely no claim on him. Benjamin in no
way belonged to her. He was only someone she had met at the
library. Her mother bought him lunch, but she couldn’t think of one
good reason why he belonged to her. In his mind, she was probably
little more to him than Samantha.

Lucy released the handle and
looked at the two of them talking and laughing. As she did,
Benjamin looked up and met her eyes. He waved to her through the
door, and she managed to raise her hand and slide it through the
air enough to make a coy wave back. Samantha’s attention was
immediately transferred to Lucy as well. She clutched Benjamin’s
arm even tighter and waved enthusiastically. Lucy smiled weakly and
turned around to head back outside.

Sitting on the bench under
the oak tree in the quad, Kat was sporting a pair of short shorts,
which were technically against the dress code, and a
Pirates Cross Country
T-shirt. Her long black hair was whipping around in the cool
coastal wind.

“
Hey, there you are,” she called
to Lucy.

Lucy tried not to look dejected as she
approached.

“
Can you believe we’re already
back here? I mean, it feels like we just left this place,” Kat said
cheerfully, hopping to her feet.

“
Yeah, I know. It’s
weird.”

“
Are you okay, Lucy?” Kat
questioned observantly.

“
Yeah, I’m fine.”

“
You sure? We can cut first period
if you want to talk.”

“
On the first day? No, I’m
okay.”

“
Did you have another dream last
night?” The concern was obvious in her voice.

“
No, it’s not
that. It’s just—
”
she stopped short.

“
It’s what?” Kat asked, leaning
down to look into Lucy’s eyes.

“
It’s …
it
’
s nothing.
I
’
ll see you at
lunch.” Lucy picked up her backpack and looked Kat in the eyes.
“It’s nothing, just beginning of the year blues I
guess.”

“
You know where to find me, Luce.”
Kat held up her cell phone.

Lucy flashed a smile, hugged her best friend,
and walked back toward to her first class.

The classroom was nearly empty
when Lucy walked into her English class. She had her choice of any
seat she wanted, so she sat down at a desk on the far wall next to
the windows. She pulled out a notebook and immediately began
doodling on the brand-new recycled cardboard cover. Her dreams were
at the forefront of her mind, so she drew a tree like the ones she
had seen in the rainforest. She drew with detail a tall,
gnarled-looking trunk whose branches spread wide, covered with
long, slender, arrowhead-like leaves. Having drawn numerous
branches and bunches of leaves, she moved her pencil to the side
and examined her creation.

“
Huh; not too shabby,” she said
out loud.

It was definitely one of the trees in her
dream. She picked up her pencil again and started drawing another
tree. This one was shorter and had a smaller trunk. It was more
bushy than the last.

“
I think you’re onto something,
Luce,” she murmured to herself, completely surprised at her ability
to remember what she had seen.

Lucy added more foliage to her drawing and
drew until the loud tone of the school bell startled her. Looking
up, she saw the aging Mrs. Roth call the class to attention. With
one last glance at her work, she turned the notebook over so the
drawing was face down on the desk.

As Mrs. Roth explained the
requirements for the class and droned on about dress codes and
technology rules, Lucy felt something hit her hand. She looked down
and saw that it was a neatly folded piece of paper with her name on
it. She didn’t know where it had come from and she didn’t want to
draw attention to herself by looking around the room.

Written on the paper, in very neat cursive
handwriting, was a simple note:

I didn’t know you were an
artist.

Lucy refolded the note and glanced
to the side of her. There was no one in the desk next to hers and
she was certain that no one in front of her had deposited the note,
which left only the people behind her. Cautiously she turned her
head around, hoping to avoid attracting Mrs. Roth’s attention.
Behind her, she saw a boy named Nick Paulson that she had known
since the third grade. She held up the note to him with an
inquisitive face, and he shook his head pointing his thumb to the
person seated immediately behind him. To her surprise, she saw
Benjamin softly grinning at her. The note was from him.

I’m not, I just doodle really well.

She reached back and handed the paper to Nick,
who sort of glared at her with a face that seemed to suggest that
passing notes and using him as the courier was absurd. Lucy managed
a pleading smile, and Nick dropped the note on Benjamin’s
desk.

Giving him enough time to read and
respond, Lucy turned around in anticipation of another note. That’s
when she saw Samantha sitting right next to Benjamin. She was
texting at light speed under her desk, not noticing anything that
was going on around her.

Lucy spun back around, overcome with jealousy
and anger. She fumed for just a moment when the piece of paper hit
her hands again. She clutched her fist tightly before picking it up
and opening it.

Do you like the
rainforest?

Lucy flipped the notebook over and
looked at her picture. Though she had been in many rainy Oregon
forests, she had never been in an actual rainforest. From what she
had seen in school, she could buy that what she had drawn was an
acceptable image of a rainforest. When it hit her that her dream
had taken place in a rainforest, she looked immediately back at
Benjamin, who smirked and nodded as if to confirm her realization.
Knowing he was only confirming that it was a rainforest, she
connected her dream to its setting. She quickly jotted down an
ambiguous response to pacify his curiosity.

I didn’t really mean to draw a
rainforest. It just sort of turned out that way.

She folded the paper back up and reached back
to hand it to Nick. His head was down on his desk, so she tapped
him on the head. He shook it repeatedly. She tapped him a little
harder and saw Samantha’s head pop up from her cell phone and look
directly at her. Lucy recoiled and faced forward again. Just as she
was about to turn around and lob the paper at Benjamin, the bell
rang and the class of the living dead jumped to its collective feet
and headed for the door like cattle from the pen. Having avoided
the rush, Lucy turned to see Benjamin being hauled away like a
bewildered child out the door. Samantha was certainly eager to show
him around.

Outside in the hallway, Lucy could almost feel
the cacophonous vibrations caused by Samantha’s voice.

“
This is Liv and Sydney and
Megan,” she started out.

The introduction of the entourage
was underway. Lucy visualized the faces of the who’s who of
Marshfield High School.

“…
and this is
Maddi and Devin, and over here is …
”

Lucy shut it all out as best she could. She
had started gathering her things when she heard a familiar voice
from the doorway.

“
Hey, Lucy.”

It was Mark. She nearly dropped her backpack
when she looked up and he was leaning inside the doorway looking
directly at her.

“
Oh, hey, Mark,” she said
ambivalently. “What’re you doing here?”

What the hell kind of
question is that?
she immediately thought
to herself.

“
I go to school here,” he
responded with a toothy smile.

Lucy laughed nervously. “No,
yeah, right. I meant what are you doing … in here right now? Do you
have Mrs. Roth next period?
”

“
No, I was
just—
”

“
C’mon, man; let’s go.” He was
interrupted by Seth, one of the many boys Lucy and Kat had grown up
with.

“
Hey, I’ll see you around,” Mark
said to Lucy with a wave, as he was all but pulled out of the
doorway.

“
Oh my gosh,” Lucy said under her
breath. She immediately whipped out her phone.

Lucy
:
mark JUST said hi to
me
.

The response was almost instant.

Kat
:
SEE!!!! i told u he liked
u

Lucy smiled to herself, closed her eyes, and
took a deep breath of what felt like a new year.

“
Ms. Higgins, you know the rules.
Not in my classroom,” Mrs. Roth’s firm voice boomed across the
room.

Lucy shuddered in surprise and slapped her
phone shut. “Oh, sorry, Mrs. Roth. I’ll put it away.”

She stowed the phone in her pocket and headed
outside. Despite the elation she felt at Mark’s salutation, she
couldn’t help thinking about Benjamin as she walked through the
door. She wanted him to be there, but she didn’t want what was
attached to him to be there.

***

“
Can you believe how ripped Dave
got over the summer?” It was only lunch time and Kat had already
made a full assessment of all the boys in the school.

“
I guess football is good for
something,” Lucy replied flatly as she scanned the large
cafeteria.

“
Hey, I’m a fan of anything that
produces bigger muscles,” Kat replied.

As they walked to get in line at the pizza
bar, Lucy craned her neck to see over the tops of the teaming
crowds, looking left and right.