Life Is but a Dream (6 page)

—
Never
— he says. —
Not that I want to go either, their trips are so boring. It’s not exactly family vacation time. It’s always about work. Their careers have always been more important. I don’t know why they ever had me in the first place. Probably thought it was just one of those things they were supposed to do. I think that’s why most people have kids actually. They’re just following this path that everybody is supposed to follow. College. Career. Marriage. Kids. Death. But if you point that out to them … well, you end up in a place like this. Know what I mean?
—

I think about all of the people sitting in their cars as traffic stands still on the freeway. I think about all of the fathers like mine back in Burbank, mowing their lawns every Saturday and hating every second of it. I think about the girls I was friends with in elementary school and junior high and how they now spend so much of their energy hating so many of the things we loved back then because they are afraid of liking something that makes them different. All of them are so hypnotized by the spinning of the world that they don’t realize they are simply dizzy.

—
It’s like they’re all sleepwalking
— I say.

Alec glances at the sky, letting his mind wander through the idea before he nods. —
Yes
.
It is like they’re asleep and I’m always trying to wake them up. I guess that’s my problem. I can’t keep my mouth shut. So suddenly I’m the one with problems. I’m the one who needs help. It makes no sense.
—

As Alec is talking, I see the nurses exit the building. A troop of them sent to gather us up like children picking flowers in a garden. I wish there was more time. I wish Alec and I could stay out here forever and talk because now I want to tell him about my dreams. I want to tell him all the things I don’t want to tell Dr. Richards. I know he’ll understand.

—
Sabrina? Alec?
— Nurse Abrams says, strolling across the lawn toward us. —
It’s time to go inside now
.—

We both stand up and brush the grass from our clothes. Nurse Abrams watches us to make sure we head in the right direction because it’s getting harder and harder to separate us anymore. Once we head back inside, she turns around and moves away to fetch the next patient. That’s when Alec takes hold of my hand. His fingerprints press against mine for a brief moment before our fingers lock together. As we walk silently back to a schedule of meetings and activities and meals, I glance down at our arms swinging in rhythm and notice how careful he is not to cover Fred with his thumb.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Where the bus drops me off from school, the road is a straight line. A tightrope walker could practice her balance by walking the double yellow stripes that run from one horizon to the next—a neon audience of air-conditioned strip malls looking on. Everything is so busy and loud on the main road. On my street, most of it disappears. There are only houses huddled in the shade of trees planted so many years ago that they’ve grown taller than the roofs and drop stray leaves and acorns over the shingles.

There are thirty-five houses between mine and the bus stop. There are more on the other side of the street because on that side there are cul-de-sacs and turnoffs onto more tree-lined roads identical to mine. I don’t count the houses there. I never walk on that side.

It takes me fifteen minutes to walk home if I go slowly—five if I run from a rare rainstorm. The junior high bus stop was closer because the bus would actually turn into our development. The school board figures that by high school we should be able to walk a little farther. By the end of freshman year last spring, I had gotten used to it. I just felt bad for the kids who lived even farther, like Lillian Wagner—she lives seventy-two houses away from the bus stop.

I used to walk home with Lillian sometimes. We weren’t really friends—just on the walk home. We had two classes together, so there was always something to chat about. She started softball in the spring though, and of course that meant she stayed after school and took the late bus home and probably got picked up by her dad. I didn’t walk with anybody then. Not really. I sort of trailed along with Thomas and his friends. But I never talked too much. Most of the time I just listened, rolling my eyes at their rude comments and dodging their dirty suggestions about what I might do in my bedroom once I got home and what they were definitely going to do in their bedrooms when they got home.

Sometimes Thomas would get me alone—strolling several paces behind his friends. He’d always want to know about Kayliegh, because this was before they hooked up and became a couple. I only ever told him what she’d carefully instructed me to tell him, so our conversations were brief. Most of the walk I would just feel him staring at my knees or ankles, anywhere there was bare skin.

Thomas’s house is twelve houses closer than mine, so I always walked the last part by myself. I loved to walk that last part with my head back watching for the changing sky and streaking rainbows.

In those minutes alone, I would set in my mind what I’d pretend to be for the next two hours before my mom got home. I would lay on my bed with the window open to the breeze, getting lost in a daydream as the afternoon surrendered into evening. My homework would sit in piles on the desk in my room or still zipped up in my backpack. I couldn’t bring myself to even glance at it. All I wanted to do was lie perfectly still and drift away.

I could be anything in those hours. I just had to concentrate—think through the details before I started. If I did, I’d travel off to wherever I wanted as soon as I closed my eyes. I could be the last person on an earth lost to desert sand. I could be a fairy flying into lonely rooms at night where candles burned. I could warm my butterfly wings near the flame. Sometimes I imagined myself being pregnant—my body still thin and small except my belly, which became more swollen each time I filled my lungs. I never pictured a baby inside of me. Instead, my womb was filled with a tiny ocean teeming with all kinds of new life-forms waiting to find a way out. Whenever that was my dream, I never flushed the toilet after I peed—just in case.

Outside my window, the sky would flash with a short burst of something like lightning exploding in the sky. Only it wasn’t lightning because the sun would still be yellow and shining. What I saw was bigger—everywhere at once and nowhere at all. It didn’t look like lightning does, cracking the sky like broken glass. It was more like a swarm of invisible insects devouring the scenery, like static disrupting the picture on a television. That’s how I gave a name to it.

Nobody else ever saw it. I could tell by the way they never flinched or stared. Everyone else went about whatever they were doing like children playing in a field, not knowing the danger of an approaching thunderstorm.

That doesn’t make me crazy though. I just have a gift. I can see how the world is falling apart around us. Just because they don’t see it, they say I’m wrong. But nobody can know that for sure. I think I’m lucky to see what I see.

I slowly become aware of Dr. Gysion’s attention resting solely on me from across the circle of kids. Dr. Gysion is pretty easygoing about that. He lets you space out every now and then during group session. But occasionally he’ll single somebody out just to make sure you stay somewhat involved.

—
I’m sorry
— I say. —
I wasn’t exactly paying attention.
— Even though that’s allowed, I still feel my cheeks flush and my hands get sweaty the same way I would in school if a teacher asked me something I couldn’t answer. It’s a conditioned reaction learned early in elementary school. Like raising your hand or potty training. But this isn’t at all like school and Dr. Gysion isn’t a teacher.

—
No worries
— he says with a laugh. It’s easy to feel relaxed with him. His voice is really warm. It doesn’t hurt that he’s handsome either and closer to our age than the other doctors. —
It happens to all of us from time to time.
—

A chorus of muffled laughter squeaks from around the room. Our circle is symbolic. It means everything that is said inside can’t be repeated. It makes everyone a little more comfortable about sharing.

I look over at Dr. Gysion, uncertain of what I’m supposed to do next. —
So … what did you ask me?
—

—
Just if there was anything you feel now that you didn’t feel when you first arrived at the hospital
— he says. It’s a question he’s asked before. Pretty much at the end of every week, he asks someone that question. There’s a list of standard answers ranging from
bored
to
better
. Dr. Gysion accepts these one-word answers. It’s another reason why I like him more than Dr. Richards. He doesn’t make you explain anything if you don’t want to. He’s happy if we just express ourselves in front of kids our own age. One word lets everyone know the sound of your voice.

My answer is always the same.

—
Safe
.—

Dr. Gysion smiles because it pleases him to hear me say that. It’s the truth. I do feel safe here. As long as I’m inside the walls of the hospital, the static can’t ever find me.

*   *   *

Alec has group at the same time as me but in a room down the hall. He’s still in that room when I reach the door. Just him. The other kids in his group have already scattered and the door has closed behind them.

I bite on my bottom lip and glance through the window. I see the back of Alec’s head. The doctor that leads his session is facing the door and I duck away before she sees me. —
I wonder what they’re talking about
— I say.

Amanda chews on the ends of her hair and shrugs.

I lean over and look again. I can almost hear Alec’s voice even though the rooms are soundproof. Then he suddenly turns around and I see his face colored with anger. His hair is so blond and bright it turns his skin into fire. I’m almost scared, but then he sees me. He smiles and the anger fades.

Coming through the door, he glances over his shoulder and says —
What a waste of time
— loud enough for the doctor to hear. Behind him I can see the doctor begin to say something but the door slams shut on her words. Alec takes my hand and we spin away.

—
What happened?
— I ask.

—
Nothing
— he says. —
She was giving me a hard time because I said our group sessions were retarded. She kept focusing on that word, retarded, and not the big picture. So, I was just explaining how I don’t see the point of group. Nobody ever says anything but her. When anyone does, it’s mostly only half true. Anyone can see that. So basically, group is nothing more than another doctor talking at us for an hour.
—

Amanda shuffles her feet and frowns. —
That’s not always true
— she says because she likes group. She’s told me so. —
It helps us.
—

—
Not me, it doesn’t
— Alec says fast as electricity, and it frightens Amanda.

—
I think I’m going to go
— she says.

—
Okay
— I say because I can’t stop her or change her mind. —
I’ll see you later?
—

Amanda nods silently and quickly disappears.

—
Did I do something wrong?
— Alec asks. —
I didn’t mean to chase her off.
—

—
Our group doctor is nice, that’s all
— I tell him. —
She just likes him.
—

—
Mine’s this total hippie that thinks we should all hug and heal and be happy as long as we’re together
— Alec says. —
I told her she could have fun with that, but I wanted no part of it.
—

I laugh at the way he mimics his doctor because he’s right. Sometimes they are like that—like kindergarten teachers. —
What did she say?
—

—
She said I was having a hard time adjusting and I told her that’s because I wasn’t trying. She didn’t exactly like that. So much for being honest, I guess. You know, I’m starting to hate this place more than school.
—

—
It’s nothing like my school
— I say. —
People are nicer here.
—

At my school everyone started to avoid me like I was contagious. There were all kinds of rumors about me. Most of them came from Skylar Atkins. She’s hated me since fourth grade when I accidentally ruined her diorama of the Redwood Forest when the bus turned too fast. I’ve always been afraid of her. She reminds me of a witch who eats children in fairy tales. Her shadow always seems to be cackling even if she is standing still.

Skylar liked to whisper things behind my back and whenever she caught me looking she’d ask what my problem was. —
What makes you so special?
— she would growl. There were a lot of things that made me special but I never wanted to explain.

None of that matters anymore as I squeeze Alec’s hand tighter.

—
You know why they sent me here?
— Alec asks, and I shake my head. —
They said I couldn’t relate to others and it was causing me to become emotionally cut off. Give me a break. Like I’d even want to connect with those kids. The girls are all future plastic surgery candidates with borderline eating disorders. The guys are midlife-crisis-cases-in-waiting, already busy picking out the overpriced car they’re going to buy to feel better about themselves because these people only care about money and things. They’re all so superficial that it’s sickening. But that’s the way we’re supposed to be. If we’re not good little consumers, then we must be mental.
—

—
My dad says sort of the same thing
— I say, and Alec looks surprised.

—
Really?
—

I nod. —
He thinks a lot of the stuff the kids at my school have is unnecessary. He says it’s not healthy to make who you are about what you have.
—

—
That’s the complete opposite of my dad
— Alec says. —
He totally buys into that crap. I think he’s worried that because I won’t, I’m going to turn into some kind of terrorist or something. Not that he’s worried for me … just that it would destroy his image. I guess he figures locking me up in here will straighten me out. I think his wet dream is that I come out of here begging him to buy me a Porsche.
—