Dreamers Often Lie (10 page)

“Thanks for the ride,” I called over my shoulder.

“Good night, Stuart.” Pierce grinned at me through his open window. “See you tomorrow.” Keeping his eyes on me, he backed down the driveway and peeled away into the thickening dark.

I paused on the porch for a minute, taking a few cold, deep breaths. Once my heart rate felt halfway back to normal, I reached out and opened the door.

Sadie was curled up in the living room armchair. She looked up from her computer as I crashed into the room.

A coy smile spread across her face. “Have a nice ride home?”

I plunked down on the couch. It gave a saggy squeak. “No.”

“No? What happened?”

“I acted like an idiot.” I tipped sideways until my face was buried in a heap of pillows. “I sounded like someone who’s just pretending they can speak English.
Huh? Oh. Yes. Sure.
”

The cushions bounced as Sadie sat down beside me. “What were you two talking about that overwhelmed your powers of speech?”

“Pierce . . .” I turned my face sideways on the slippery pillow. “. . . I think he just asked me out. Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“He said, ‘Do you want to hang out or go to a movie or something?’”

“You lucky
brat!
” Sadie shrieked, bouncing onto her knees. “Do you know how many senior girls are going to want to skin you and wear your face?”

“Well, they’ll have a handy place to start peeling.” I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t really know if he meant it as a
date
thing, or as a
just friends
thing, or as an
I pity you, you grotesque weirdo
thing, or—” I sat up, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Oh god. Mom isn’t here, is she? Is she overhearing this?”

“I made her go to yoga class. She was getting that long-haul-trucker glaze.” Sadie leaned closer, sweeping the hair back from my face with her cool, apple-scented fingers. “You know, you aren’t acting like a girl who’s just been asked out by the most gorgeous
senior
in our entire school.”

My throat tightened. I could feel my face crumpling. For years, I’d tried to learn to cry like Katharine Hepburn: big, barely restrained tears shimmering like diamonds on my lower eyelids, mouth tilting down in a vulnerable but elegant line. I’d practiced in the mirror until I could make my eyes well up and give my mouth that little downward curl—and still, when it came to
actual
crying, I knew I looked less like Hepburn and more like a wet paper bag.

“Sadie,” I sobbed. “Today was awful. I made an ass of myself over and over. In front of Mr. Hall, in front of this new kid. In front of everyone at rehearsal. Ever since I got home, I’ve been waiting to feel like
me
again. I keep telling myself it has to get better. The next day, or the next hour, or the next few minutes have to get better. But it doesn’t.”

“What are you talking about?” Sadie frowned. “What happened that was so bad?”

“You can’t tell Mom this, okay?” I wiped my cuff across my cheek. “Ever since the hospital, I’ve been having these dreams. Sometimes it’s like I’m stuck inside them, and they’re so real that I don’t even try to wake up, and sometimes I
know
I’m already awake, but pieces of the dreams—people from the dreams—are still there.” I snuffled into the pillow. “I
know
they aren’t really there. But I can’t make them go away. And they’re going to ruin everything.”

Sadie’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Blue Jaye, lots of people see and hear things after a head injury. Medications can make you hallucinate too. That, on top of a concussion . . . It would be weird if you
weren’t
a little messed up.”

I wound an unraveling thread from my cuff around my fingertip. “Maybe.”

There was a beat.

“So . . . who did you see?” Sadie’s voice was very soft. “Did you see Dad?”

I froze. I could feel the locked door between us inching open, icy air from the other side blowing in.

I shook my head, looking down.

Sadie’s voice turned crisp again. “Well, if this is a symptom of the injury or a side effect of the drugs, either way, it has to get better with time. Right?” She gave my shoulder a brisk pat, and I knew the door was safely shut. “I mean, you just got out of the hospital a few days ago. You probably still have Jell-O in your veins.”

I pulled the unraveling thread tighter. “Probably.”

“Did you tell the doctors or nurses about this stuff?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Jaye! You should have
told
them.”

“But I needed to get back to normal. I had to get back to the play, and school, and I couldn’t keep watching Mom walk into that hospital room trying to look like she wasn’t going to fall apart if somebody breathed on her too hard . . .”

Sadie wrapped her arm around me. For a minute, I sagged against her shoulder, snuffling, while she patted my messy hair.

“Don’t tell Mom,” I said at last, into her collar.

Sadie sighed. “I won’t. But
you
have to tell her if it gets worse.”

“I will.”

“You swear?”

“I swear, damn it.”

This was an old Dad joke. It was as close to opening the door as we could comfortably get.

Sadie and I smiled at each other for a second. Then she reached for her computer, and I got up and climbed the stairs to my room.

I sank down on the bed and checked my phone.

So glad UR back!
Hannah had texted at 2:06 p.m.

Pierce Caplan?
said one from Tom.
Yr full of surprises.

The first text from Nikki read:
Call me.

The second one, sent five minutes later, read:
CALL ME NOW.

Nikki picked up her phone on the first ring. “Are you alone?”

“Yes. I’m alone.”

“Pierce isn’t there?”

“No. That’s what
alone
means. He dropped me off twenty minutes ago.”

I heard Nikki let out a breath. “What
was
that? Him insisting on driving you home?”

“I don’t know. I think he was trying to be nice.”

“Nice?
Pierce
Caplan?”

I got up and shuffled across the room toward one of my collages. A photo of Tom and Nikki and me in our costumes from
Snow White
was hanging askew. All three of us were dwarves. I pushed it back into place. “I know he’s not, like, a friend or anything, but we used to be close. Best-friend close.”

“You know what he and Josh Hedlund and Bryson Rayder and those guys did to Anders, don’t you? Leaving the specimens from dissection in his locker? Sending him those creepy messages?”

I closed my bedroom door and leaned back against it. “I don’t think Pierce was part of that.”

“Well, Josh definitely was. He got suspended for it. And he’s, like, Pierce’s right-hand man.”

“Are you saying Pierce
commanded
him to do it or something?”

“No, I’m just saying that Pierce’s current ‘best friend’ is someone like
that.
”

The ache twisted behind my forehead, making one eyelid twitch. “You don’t know him like I do. Or
did,
anyway.”

“I guess not. Because he doesn’t talk to people like me.”

“I wish you’d give him the benefit of the doubt. I think he’s trying to change, trying to do new things. Like the play. To be a little more open-minded and friendly to everybody. I think the stuff with—you know—everything that happened . . . I think it really screwed him up.”

Nikki was quiet for a beat. “That’s generous of you,” she said. There was another exhaled breath. In the background, I heard a blast of her mother’s Christian folk music, followed by the loud slam of a door. Nikki was shutting herself in her own bedroom. The music got quieter. “I can try. It’s just . . . I’ve seen what he’s like when he loses his temper.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t I tell you about this? I suppose not. It’s not like seeing Pierce Caplan throw a fit had any bearing on our lives
last
year.”

“Nikki,
what?
”

“Okay. Last spring, after some track meet or something, where I guess the team had come in fourth and he was totally furious with everyone, he had this
meltdown
in the parking lot. I was at school late, doing layout for the magazine, and I came out into the lot and saw him smashing his car with a trophy.”

I ran my hand across my pulsing forehead. “The BMW?”

“It was scary. He just kept hitting it over and over. He smashed the rear window. He smashed the lights. He just kept hitting it and hitting it until the trophy was in pieces, and then he got in and drove away, with me and a couple of his track friends staring after him.”

“You’re sure it was Pierce?”

Nikki gave a little snort. “It was him. Plus, I heard from Josh that he’d already punched a couple of the guys on the team who he thought were slacking off or something. But none of them reported him, so the school never did anything.”

“I never heard that.”

“Well, I
did.
”

Silence lengthened between us. There was no point in arguing with Nikki. I hadn’t been there; I hadn’t seen
whatever she’d seen. But she didn’t know all the things I’d seen, either. All the good things. Even if they’d happened a long time ago.

“My . . . um . . . my family really loved him.” I forced the words out. “They thought he was just the greatest guy.”

I heard Nikki let out another long breath. “Sorry, Jaye. I’ll try to be nicer. Like I said.”

“Thank you. And you know
you’re
my very favorite person, right? Way above Pierce Caplan?”

She laughed. “Good night, fairy queen. ‘May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’”

“That’s the wrong show.”

“I know. You’re not the only person who can quote
Hamlet
. See you tomorrow.”

After she hung up, I stood in the darkness for a while, keeping still, letting the ache rumble inside my head until it had worn every other thought away.

T
he bile-sweet smell of cider vinegar saturated the anatomy room. The class had clustered in the lab, where Mr. Ellison shuffled between the high black tables, arranging a set of dissection pans. I huddled in a corner, staring down at the cuffs of some torn black jeans that I couldn’t remember putting on. I couldn’t remember brushing my hair or my teeth that morning, either. I couldn’t remember smearing deodorant under my arms, or packing my book bag, or how I’d gotten to school. I rubbed one eyelid, and my finger came back blackened. At least I’d remembered eyeliner.

The second bell rang, its buzz exploding through my skull. I jerked away from the wall before the sound and the smell and the headache could combine and make me throw up my breakfast all over the anatomy room floor. If I’d even eaten any.

“Today we embark on our dissection unit,” Mr. Ellison announced. “I know you’re all raring to go. But remember, scalpels are not toys. Pins are not toys. Your frogs and their parts are not toys. This is science class, not a slasher film.”

While Mr. Ellison droned on, I glanced around the room. The new kid wasn’t there. I checked each table again, just to be sure. No tall, blue-eyed guys with black hair.

Something inside me sagged.

Was I actually disappointed?

Why was I looking for him in the first place? We’d shared a few M&M’S, he’d touched my hand, and my brain had started spinning a web that connected him to some dreams and a sad old play. If any of that had actually happened.

My stomach tightened. It couldn’t all have been a hallucination. Other people had talked to him. Looked at him. Mr. Ellison had called on him.

But in the backstage stairwell, it was only me.

“If anyone needs to step out of the lab for a moment, they may,” Mr. Ellison was saying. “But I’ve been teaching this unit for twenty-one years, and I haven’t had a student faint over a frog yet. Fetal pigs, on the other hand . . .” This was supposed to be a joke, but no one smiled, Mr. Ellison included. “All right,” he finished. “Go to your stations.”

Head down, I edged toward my spot at table twelve.

My partner, Emma Kraus, snapped on a pair of latex gloves. I caught myself starting to imitate her shoulders-back, chest-out posture, then went back to my usual slouch.

In front of us, our frog lay on its back in the tarry pan, its little froggy arms and humanoid legs splayed out. Its belly looked like a cold fried egg.

“I’ve never seen a frog this size in the wild,” said Emma.

“Me neither.” I looked at its long, pale toes. “They’re probably only found on the frog farms that raise them to ship them off to high school anatomy classes.”

“Focus,” warned Mr. Ellison, strolling through the aisle between us. “Put your gloves on. Take out your scalpels.”

“Want me to start?” Emma offered briskly.

I stared at the frog’s delicate yellow underside. “It seems kind of mean, doesn’t it? That it died just for us to do this, and then we won’t even touch it with our bare hands.” I brushed one fingertip over its belly. The skin slid with my touch like a silk water balloon.

Emma gave a skeptical sigh. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll cut.”

She pulled the scalpel through the skin, and I pinned it gently to the tar at the bottom of the pan. The vinegary smell grew stronger.

“Start identifying the organs,” said Mr. Ellison. “You should be able to see the lungs, the heart, the liver . . .”

Something gray and grizzled brushed my cheek.

I turned. Three old women craned over my shoulder. Dirt clung to their matted hair. Smoke seemed to rise from their ragged black clothes. “Stomach, pancreas, small intestine,” they incanted, but it was Mr. Ellison’s voice coming from their mouths. “Eye of newt and toe of frog . . .”

I jerked. My hand hit the edge of the pan, and Emma’s scalpel slashed out of line, straight through the frog’s stomach. Emma gasped.

“Sorry.” I could barely hear myself over the watery thunder in my head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The three witches were gone. Mr. Ellison moved closer.

“Careful there, Miss Kraus. You’re not giving the frog a gastric bypass.” He sauntered on to the next table. “Interesting. This one’s liver is substantially enlarged . . .”

“I’m so sorry,” I told Emma again. “My hand just slipped.”

“It’s fine,” she said tightly. “Just hold it still so I can make the next cut.”

I clenched the sides of the cool metal pan with both hands.
Six and a half more hours until rehearsal
.
Try to act like a sane person until then. Just pretend.

Across the room, the intercom buzzed.

“Mr. Ellison?” said an amplified voice. “Would you please send Jaye Stuart to Mrs. Silverberg’s office?”

I froze. Had anyone else heard
this
voice?

Several pairs of eyes flicked toward me. Mr. Ellison gave me a drowsy blink. “All right, Miss Stuart. You’ll just have to catch up on what you’ve missed tomorrow.”

I reached for my book bag. “Sorry, Emma,” I said one more time, although she actually looked relieved to see me go.

Once I was out of the anatomy room, I let my face slip. Nausea and panic bubbled inside me. For a second, I was tempted to go to the nurse’s office instead of the counselor’s, to put on my best quietly tragic sick face—my toned-down
Camille
face—and let her make the decision to send me home.

No. Rehearsal. Six hours and twenty-five minutes to go.

I stacked the bones of my spine into a column, like we did in warm-ups. Each vertebra sliding into place. Skull balanced on top, lightly, like it was hanging from a string. Then I headed toward the second floor.

The counselors’ offices were lined up in a row. Name plates glinted on the battered wooden doors. Before I could stretch out the final few steps, the third door in Counselor’s Row flew open.

“Jaye!” Mrs. Silverberg beamed out at me. “Good to see you! Come on inside!”

I flattened my face into a pleasant blank and squeezed past her into the room.

Mrs. Silverberg’s office was a small blue box. The walls were coated with inspirational posters of stock nature photos and Zen sayings. A dark wood desk and three upholstered armchairs took up most of the floor space. I settled myself on one puffy seat.

“So!” said Mrs. Silverberg, plunking down on the other side of her desk and clasping her ring-glittery hands. “You’ve finished one full day and come back for more!”

I widened my smile slightly. “Yep. I’m back.”

“That’s fantastic!” From her tone, you would have thought we were discussing plans for a surprise party. “And how has it been going?”

“Fine.” I made my smile even wider. “I mean, I’ve got a lot to catch up on, but everyone’s been really understanding.”

“And you’re feeling good about coming back so quickly?”

I flexed the corners of my mouth, trying to keep the smile from going tight. “Yes. I’m really, really glad to be back.”

Mrs. Silverberg nodded. “That’s nice to hear. Well, if you
do
feel that you need some additional time or help, just let us know. Some of your teachers are concerned that your regular schedule might be pushing you too hard.”

Who’s concerned? Mr. Hall?
I corked the questions.
No fear on your face. Keep your voice calm.
“No, I’m fine. I wanted to get back to my regular schedule.”

“Of course.” Mrs. Silverberg braced her chin on one glittery fist. “We just want you to know that if you need a little leeway—extra assistance, or extended deadlines, or a break from certain activities—the staff here would understand. And we’re all one hundred percent committed to helping you graduate on time.”

I scanned Mrs. Silverberg’s features. Everything was sparkly and steady. “That’s nice. Thanks.”

“Well—that covers the academic front.” She leaned forward. “And how are you doing emotionally? The accident must have been a lot to deal with.”

She paused. I kept my face attentive, my smile pleasant. I didn’t answer.

“And then coming back here, to all the stresses and
responsibilities of high school . . .” Mrs. Silverberg trailed off, waiting for me to pick up the cue.

If she was watching closely, she might have seen my nostrils flare. I needed to work on my breathing. “It’s been a little overwhelming. Like you said.” I looked down at a framed photo on her desk to keep her from looking straight into my eyes. In the picture, three dripping children stood in front of a sun-splotched swimming pool. “But I think wanting to come back here, to rehearsals and classes and my friends, is what keeps me motivated. It’s what helped me recover so quickly.”

“Are rehearsals going well?”

I caught a flinch just in time. Had Mr. Hall talked to the counselors? Had he told Mrs. Silverberg that he was worried about me? Was that why I was sitting on this squishy chair in this little blue room right now?

Mrs. Silverberg’s smile gave no clues.

“Pretty well.”
Hopeful. Light.
“I mean, I
think
they are. I’m a little behind, but I love the play. I love my role. I want to do my best. I don’t want to let this stupid thing hold me back.” I patted my forehead. The scent of vinegar shot up my nose, and I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t washed my hands since touching the pickled frog.

“And I’m sure it won’t. Not with an attitude like that.” Mrs. Silverberg’s smile softened like melting butter. “Your father would be so proud of you.”

The words were a kick in the lungs.
Wrong,
I wanted to
shout. He wouldn’t have been
so proud
of my commitment to some wordy old play. He would have been nonplussed, at the very best. Nonplussed and disappointed. Nonplussed/disappointed/bored. I sat, paralyzed, for a second, fighting the fury back before it could explode through me.

Then I put on my graciously humble face. My Vivien-Leigh-accepting-an-Oscar face. “Thank you,” I murmured. Below the edge of the desk, out of Mrs. Silverberg’s sight, I wiped my froggy fingers on the upholstered chair. “That’s nice to hear.”

Mrs. Silverberg sent me back into the hallway with a sloppily scrawled pass. I stood there on the scuffed tiles for a few seconds, trying to imagine going back to anatomy class, the sliced-open frog on the tabletop, the witches whispering in my ear, and felt the hallway begin to smear around me. The walls wavered. The floor dribbled like pancake batter. I reached out for something solid, and felt my hand lock around the corner of a plastic desktop.

“Everybody with me?” said a voice.

Mr. Costa turned away from the board and let his gaze sweep the algebra classroom. His nearsighted brown eyes traveled from face to face, landing at last on mine. He waited for a nod.

I managed a tiny head twitch.

Mr. Costa turned back to the board, and I looked down at my desk, trying not to hyperventilate. There was my notebook. There was my pencil from American Players
Theater. How had they gotten here? How had
I
gotten here? How had I gotten through the last six hours?

I squeezed my eyes shut. Still, sealed inside my eyelids, I could feel the room rocking from side to side.
Less than an hour until rehearsal. Almost there.

“So, if we add 2b squared, c to the fourth, and 5b squared c to the third . . .” Mr. Costa’s voice marched on.

You’re all right. No one noticed anything. Empty stage. Empty stage.

Cautiously, I lifted my eyelids.

Mr. Costa’s jowly face had narrowed. His forehead was higher. His hair was longer. A gold hoop dangled from one ear.

“2b, anyone?” His now-blue eyes met mine. “‘To be, or . . .’”

The kid in the desk in front of mine turned around. He wasn’t a red-haired junior anymore. He was Hamlet in a Pink Floyd T-shirt.

“Are you following any of this?” he whispered, holding up a skull covered with pencil-scrawled integers.

I shot out of my desk. Everyone around me looked up.

“Um—Mr. Costa?” I croaked. “Can I be excused?”

Mr. Costa’s brown eyes settled on me. He gave an understanding little nod before tapping the board and pulling everyone’s attention back. “So, how can we simplify this?”

I grabbed my books and tore out of the classroom.

In the nearest bathroom, I took out my phone and stared
at the date and time until the digits began to swim. At least I’d only lost a few hours this time, not days. Still, the thought that my body had been wandering around without my mind was frightening. Violating. Like something had been stolen right out of my pocket.

I soaked a brown paper towel in cold water and pressed it against my forehead. Its fibers were rough on the raw skin. The stalls were empty, so I stood there for a few minutes, leaning against the sink and blinking into the water-specked mirror. My eyes were bloodshot. My skin looked like wax.

When the rocking feeling had settled slightly, I rinsed my mouth with a handful of rusty water and staggered back into the hall.

There was no way I could go back to algebra class. I’d already come dangerously close to blurting something bonkers and giving myself away. Better to have them all think I was hurting than know that I was crazy.

Without being sure where I was headed, I hurried off in the opposite direction.