Life Is but a Dream (11 page)

—
Because they’re sleepwalkers?
—

—
Yeah exactly! And they don’t even realize it
— he says. —
That’s all I meant by saying they’d be better off dead. I’d rather be dead than terrified of everything. It’s like these people who hear about some flu outbreak on the other side of the world and start wearing surgical masks. They overreact to everything. But don’t dare try pointing that out to them.
—

—
Sometimes I think it’s better not to tell anyone
— I say, thinking about all the times I’ve sat silently facing Dr. Richards. —
They never understand.
—

—
You can say that again
— Alec says, plucking dandelions from the lawn. He twists the stems around his finger and watches his skin turn a shade of green that matches his eyes. —
First I got expelled. Then they wanted to send me to some detention center, but I was sent here instead. I didn’t really care where they sent me as long I was out of that school.
—

—
Maybe it was fate
— I say with a smile. For the first time since he’s joined me, I reach over and let my hand rest on his leg.

—
Yeah, fate or my dad
— he says. —
He was the one who pushed for me to get sent to the hospital even though he knows I don’t belong here. He used his connections and convinced them that I just needed a little therapy. He’s so full of it though. He used to be some kind of activist for the environment before he sold out with the rest of his generation.
—

A flash of faraway anger colors his eyes for a split second like an electrical storm way out over the ocean that I watch safely from the sand. It’s nothing like the static though. It’s something real that has always been inside of him and there’s something protective about it—something that makes me feel safe.

Alec picks another dandelion from the lawn to murder beautifully in his hands. He twists the stem violently in his fingers until it snaps like frayed rope. —
Sometimes when I meet people, I tell them my parents died in a plane crash, just because it sort of feels that way. It’s a more interesting story than the truth, which is that I’m invisible to my parents
— he says. —
Or at least the reality of my life is invisible. Sometimes I wonder why they can’t see things that are so obvious to me.
—

—
That’s the noise
— I say, and Alec tilts his head. I’ve never told him about the noise before and he’s curious. —
Once it gets inside people, it makes it so they can’t see the way things really are.
—

—
Noise?
— Alec mumbles, considering the sound of the word as he twists another stem so tightly around his finger that the tip under his nail turns white. Then he finally looks up at me and our eyes meet. —
That’s a good way of putting it.
—

—
Yeah? Nobody else thinks so
— I say, looking down into my lap.

The flower end of the dandelion disappears in Alec’s fist.

It bleeds yellow and turns his palm the color of his hair.

—
Doesn’t it ever make you angry?
— he asks. —
Everybody always telling you that you’re wrong about everything? Sometimes it makes me so mad that I just want to blow my brains out, you know?
—

I blink and see a gun flash beside his head like a lightbulb exploding.

—
No. I don’t ever think that way
— I tell him, holding his hand so tight that he’ll have to agree with me.

—
How can you not?
—

—
Because
,
I know they’re wrong. I’ve seen what’s going to happen … I know I’m going someplace that’s worth waiting for.
—

—
Like one of your dreams, you mean?
—

—
Yep
— I say as a gust of wind blows by us. My whole body glows when it touches me. I can’t quite see it the way I used to, but I sense it all around me—a world different from this world. I reach up and push aside the hair hanging in my eyes. The sky doesn’t change color when I look up at it, but it wants to. —
It’s close too. It’s not too far away. Then it’ll be perfect.
—

—
Is that really what you see when you think about the future?
— he asks.

—
Sure
— I say. —
I see it for both of us.
—

Alec lies back again and closes his eyes. He holds out his arm as an invitation for me to use it as a pillow. I lean back, lie flat on the grass, and close my eyes too. The sky is so bright on my eyelids, it’s easy to imagine the world has been erased.

—
Tell me about it?
— he asks. I can feel him roll onto his side. He rests his head in his palm, brushes my hair with his other hand. —
Everything about it.
—

I lay perfectly still with my arms folded across my chest the way I used to when I was little and Kayliegh and I would lie in front of gravestones and pretend we were angels. Alec pets me like a lullaby. The wind coming over the mountains is warm. My dreams return to me then. I can see it all so clearly. —
It’s beautiful.
—

—
Am I there?
—

—
Of course you’re there
— I say. —
We’ve known each other forever there. Sometimes I think it’s where we came from. Like maybe you and I got lost and now we’re just trying to find our way back.
—

—
Yeah? How do we do that?
—

—
We walk through the sun
— I tell him.

—
Like wait for it to sit right on top of the ocean … then just walk out into waves?
— he says.

It’s a good way of picturing it and I nod enthusiastically.

—
Yeah … just like that
— I say. —
And once we’re on the other side, all of this won’t be real anymore. It’ll disappear and then it’ll just be us. Forever. In a place that changes with however we wish it to be.
—

—
You really think so, huh?
—

—
I know so
— I say. —
As long we’re together, I know it will come true.
—

—
Don’t worry about that. I’m not going anywhere without you.
— He says it like a promise that will last long after the sun dips down just below the taller trees on the tallest hills. The nurses will come then and take us away, but it doesn’t matter. They can take us to different wings of the hospital but they can’t really separate us. Not anymore. We are connected in a dream—that can’t be broken.

—
I’m glad I was sent here after all
— Alec says.

—
Why?
—

—
Because you’re here
— he says.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

—
We just want what’s best for you.
— My mom keeps repeating the same phrase over and over. She’s like the spinning rainbow when the computer freezes. —
We just want what’s best for you, that’s all.
—

I’m sitting on the bed as she goes through my closet, pulling tops off of hangers, jeans from the floor, piling all of them in the same travel bag I’ve used for every car trip we’ve taken in the past four years. Knowing that they are taking me away to a mental hospital, the pink canvas fabric seems too cheerful—the koala bear keychain that dangles from the zipper even more so.

—
You know that, don’t you? You know we just want what’s best for you?
— she asks, grabbing the first books she can reach from the shelf near my desk and tossing them on top of the clothes. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to her that half of them I’ve already read and the other half are schoolbooks that I won’t need where I’m going. —
We just want to help you.
—

I don’t bother to tell her how I don’t need any help because I’ve stopped trying to make them understand.

My dad’s role is to pop his head in the door and tell us both —
It’s time we should be leaving
.— My mom sobs on cue and he crosses my room sympathetically. I watch as he puts his arm around her and kisses her on the forehead the way I’ve seen fathers do in a hundred different movies. They’ve rehearsed their parts so well.

As we pull out of the driveway, I can almost convince myself we are going on one of our road trips. I am in the same seat, with the same view of my parents. My mom’s hair is pulled into the familiar brown ponytail so that I can roll down the window and her hair won’t get tangled whipping her in the face at sixty miles per hour. I have my sleeve in my mouth and my head tilted back to see the rainbows streaking through the clouds as we drive.

—
It’s a trip. Just a trip like going to see dolphins or the Grand Canyon
— I mutter. I pet the birthmark on my left hand until my skin gets pink and sore. It reminds me of the wimp tests that boys I know used to play in grade school by rubbing pencil erasers over their arms until the skin peeled away like a sunburn. The first to cry out failed.

The drive is three hours and eleven minutes from our driveway to the Wellness Center. The radio is on but nobody sings. We stop only once to eat. My dad orders food for me that I leave in the bag without touching.

When we arrive at the hospital, it’s early evening. The sky is light purple and my mom’s eyes are red and swollen. We drive through a heavy gate with a guard who says he’s expecting us. Our car’s headlights turn the building into a haunted house with lightning in the windows. A seven-foot-high stone wall surrounds the hospital like a cemetery and I wonder if this is where I’m being sent to die.

I ask my mom —A
m I going to be buried here
?—

—
No, sweetheart
— she says. —
You’re here to get better
.—

*   *   *

—
Hello, Sabrina.
—

I blink my eyes a few times, staring at my reflection in the window. My eyelashes flutter—my eyes are blue butterflies with black wings.

The size of everything gets confused in the glass.

My face appears as large as Dr. Richards when she enters the room. When she sits down, she appears to be sitting in the dark jungle of my hair. The doll in my hands is invisible because I hold it below the level of the window.

I turn around and everything returns to its normal size.

—
How are you feeling today?
— she asks.

I feel much better. I haven’t taken my medicine in two days.

—
More like myself
— I tell her.

—
That’s good to hear
— she says, leaning back a little in her chair.

I know everything she is going to do before she does it. I know she is going to lean forward and place her right hand on her left knee. I know she’s going to raise her eyebrows and smile at me with her eyes. We have spent forty hours and sixteen minutes in this room together since I first came here. That’s plenty of time to memorize every one of her habits. And I’m just as sure she has memorized mine. She knows when something is different and I have to be careful about how I answer things.

This is the same room where my parents and I first met with her. My mom’s makeup had run and given her raccoon eyes. My dad was tired from driving and kept grinding his teeth. He paced. My mom and I sat in the kind of overstuffed chairs found in the waiting rooms of every doctor’s office—comfortable-looking yet nobody is ever too comfortable in them. They did all of the talking then. Dr. Richards asked them how I was feeling. —
Okay
— my mom answered uncertainly. —
The car ride was difficult. It’s a long drive.
—

She placed her hand on my knee, trying to get a response or to reassure me, or both maybe. I ignored her. My mom didn’t seem to notice, but Dr. Richards saw. She watched me the entire time she spoke. —
I realize we’re pretty far from Burbank, but I think it’s for the best that you brought her here. I truly think she’ll respond in an environment like ours
— she said. I remember thinking it was some sort of trick.

It’s strange. I haven’t thought about any of this in weeks.

Dr. Richards opens her notebook and looks over our previous conversations. I watch her now with newly suspicious eyes. When she looks up at me, she has the smile of a reptile.

—
The other day you were telling me that you didn’t like the way the prescriptions made you feel
— she says. —
Has that passed?
—

—
Sort of
— I lie.

—
Good. That’s good
— she says. —
I can tell you, it’s made a huge difference.
—

—
How so? I mean, how can you tell?
—

Dr. Richards closes the notebook in her lap and puts it aside. She only does this when she wants it to feel like we’re chatting. The way friends would, instead of a doctor and a patient.

I put the doll back in its place with the others and sit in the chair opposite her. This always pleases her the same way people are pleased when a puppy gives them a paw and behaves.

—
Can you tell me what day it is today?
—

—
Sure
— I answer. —
It’s Tuesday.
—

—
Do you think you would’ve been able to answer that question when you first arrived here?
— she asks.

She knows the answer so there is no need for me to say it. I just shake my head because she knows time moved differently for me outside of the Wellness Center. The world is too fast there. I couldn’t keep track of things like days. My parents told her all about that.

—
You see, the lapses in time you experienced have improved
—she explains. —
Don’t you feel like it has improved?
—

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I guess so
— I say. —
But that doesn’t prove anything. It’s harder to keep track out there. It’s so busy and there’s so much more going on.
—

—
Maybe so
— she says. —
But you’re also communicating more clearly than before. You’re making friends here. You’re able to make yourself understood. All of this is the benefit of what we have accomplished in the time you’ve been here. Sometimes, the transition can be stressful. I think that’s what you’ve been feeling lately.
—