Life Is But a Dream Read online

  Is all our life, then, but a dream

  Seen faintly in the golden gleam …

  —Lewis Carroll

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication & Copyright

  Something is wrong with the sky. Thinner and nearly see-through, the sky is like a worn bedsheet tacked loosely over the sun, which blazes brightly on the other side. I stop for a second to watch and the other kids hurry past.

  I breathe in and the blue fades out. I exhale swirling colors that streak across the clouds like rainbows on soapy water. I reach upward with my free hand. The evening sunlight touches my skin like golden water and I feel safe—almost like heaven is falling from the sky to protect me. It should be confusing but somehow it all makes sense to me. It makes sense the way a dream makes sense. The only difference is, I’m awake.

  I see the cars out on the freeway. Their lights blink like shooting stars. I start to walk toward them when a cold hand touches my shoulder. The air rushes out of me in a gasp. My heart flutters against my ribs and for an instant, I cease to exist.

  —Sabrina? Aren’t you coming?— Kayliegh says. She looks beautiful in her slim black dress—the skirt shorter than any my mom would ever let me wear. Her hair is pulled up so only a few strands hang down around her ears. The hair spray must have glitter in it or something because the blond strands sparkle when the sunlight hits them just right.

  —I was just …— I start to say, but I don’t know how to finish. Instead, I point to the sky. There are faces in the clouds and I wave. They flutter like angels for a second before evaporating. Kayliegh doesn’t see them. She laughs and locks elbows with mine, pulling me along with her.

  The ground shifts under my feet as I walk. Concrete turns to sand and my toes sink in. The world is trying to swallow me, but Kayliegh keeps me from sinking. She keeps me moving forward. Our friends are ahead of us. They head into the lobby of the hotel, excited for the Freshman Dance to begin and the school year to end.

  The banner over the entrance greets us with the theme our class has chosen. It reads Live Forever in bright neon letters. We walk under it and I sense the world crumbling behind us. Everything that once was there fades and now there is only what’s ahead—the dizzy sound of music like a gathering storm. For a brief moment I’m in between where there is nothing.

  As soon as we step inside, the music washes over me. The throbbing from the speakers weakens my legs. I feel unsteady and hold tighter to Kayliegh. It’s mostly dark except for the spinning lights cutting through the crowd like swords. The music is so loud the glasses of soda scattered around the tables vibrate and everyone is screaming to be heard over it.

  The conversations all blend together. They get lost in the music and form a cloud that hangs over me. It’s trying to tell me something. It screams with a thundering voice as it calls out my name. Sabrina is the sound hiding behind everything and I feel myself slipping away. It terrifies me.

  —Not now— I whisper. —Not here.—

  I close my eyes, press my fingers against my temples, and try to massage away the drifting feeling that threatens to overtake me. When I open my eyes again, the lights appear as flashes of lightning in a storm.

  —You okay?— Kayliegh asks.

  —Fine— I lie to her. —Just excited.—

  —Me too— she shouts, and rushes into the crowd.

  The music is a magnet pulling bodies together. Kayliegh is pulled into the middle of the room, swollen with people. She disappears and the noise grows louder. It’s too much to fight it and I let it pass through me. Like falling backward into a swimming pool, trusting the arms of the water to hold me, I give in—wondering if I’m going to disappear, too.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  I’ve always been different from other kids my age—from everyone, really. Special is one way to put it. The word is attached to me like a shadow. It’s a halo hovering over me as I sit in class or walk through the halls at school. My parents always said that I was special too. Special in a good way, like I was delicate or rare—not special like something’s wrong with me. Not before. Not like now.

  Maybe everyone has an adjective attached to them—one they don’t get to choose. A second name that other people know them by.

  My dad is successful.

  My mom is bright.

  The man who works at the gas station convenience store is young and missing teeth. He smiles sideways and winks at me in the summer when I come in wearing flip-flops and a bathing suit under a towel. He is creepy.

  Thomas Merker lives down the street from me. Since sixth grade, all the kids I know say he’s cool. Sometimes he’s also funny. He’s lucky to have two words that anyone would want even if I don’t believe they really belong to him.

  Special has always been my word. It’s not so much anymore—at least not in the same way. Now everybody thinks I’m sick. That’s why I was sent here to the Wellness Center whose name is like my adjective. It means something other than how it sounds. Wellness Center is just a nicer way of saying loony bin.

  I’m here because I’m special. I see things others don’t see.

  I see the sky change colors when I wave my hand. I smear sunlight like finger paints and trace the clouds, giving them a soft glow of rainbows. I see dim halos hiding inside the most imperfect stones and I collect them. I keep them in my pocket, in my palm until all the sharp edges are worn down. Once they’re smooth they glow through my fingers.

  I feel things differently too.

  The wind doesn’t just touch against me, but blows through me—through my bones and through my soul like the fiery wave from an atomic blast.

  My mom used to say I had an overactive imagination. —You don’t really see those things, Sabrina— she would tell me. —It’s just how you picture them. There’s a difference.—

  My response was always the same. I would tell her —I see what I see. I don’t know how there could be a difference.—

  I see the sky wrinkled like faded paper. The sunlight is ink spilling all the way to its edges. I see the swirling lines left behind in the path of birds as they dip and dive. I see the branches of trees dance a ballet in the background.

  Kayliegh loves all of the things I see—or she did anyway. —You have a gift— she would say before asking me to draw her a picture. I’m good at that—at drawing the things I see. Once, Kayliegh thought they were beautiful. But she stopped asking for my drawings a long time ago.

  It feels like forever since we were close, but maybe it doesn’t seem so long to her. Time is always out of order for me. My memories are like a shuffled deck of cards, each one coming up at random. Every time one of her is dealt, it hurts a little.

  I remember the last time we had fun together as clear as today. We were sitting on her front lawn after school, staring at the reflection of our bare feet in the shiny rims of her older brother’s car. He had just washed it even though there were water restrictions due to the never-ending drought. Kayliegh kept reminding him about it. N
ot so much that she cared, more just to see him get bothered. —Screw that, there’s always a drought— her brother Eric said with the hose on full force. —It’s okay for me to go halfway down 101 and pay some car wash to do it, but I can’t do it myself? That’s a load of crap.—

  He stomped around with angry steps. We laughed, because without his shirt on, he moved like a skinny gorilla. Kayliegh pointed at the hair around his nipples and made me look even though I didn’t like to. I thought they looked like pink spiders and Kayliegh made me say it out loud until we both cracked up so bad that her brother turned the hose on us. Then we sat there smiling with water spray on our arms, glittering in the golden sun of a southern California drought.

  That was all before.

  Kayliegh doesn’t want to know what I see anymore. —Sabrina, that stuff is kind of kiddish— she told me last summer. —I mean, it was fine before, but come on … we’re almost fifteen, going on sixteen. We’re too old for pretend.— Everyone else seemed to agree with her too.

  Last year when my grades started to slip and my teachers complained that I didn’t pay attention, my parents got angry. —You’re a better student than this!— my mom shouted until her face turned red. —Your grades are important, Sabrina. College is only a few years away.—

  —How you do this year is crucial— my dad said. —College is going to be here before you know it. It’s time to grow up and stop daydreaming all of the time.—

  When I was little, they encouraged me to use my imagination. They bought me posters of unicorns and fairies. Everything I had, from my little girl makeup to my glittery pink sneakers, was bathed in make-believe and came from a place where every girl could become a princess. I guess I never knew I was supposed to stop believing. The other girls were able to turn off their dreams in junior high. Puberty flicked a switch inside of them and dreams were replaced by hormones and college prep courses and varsity sports while I continued to look for fairies in the woods behind my house.

  For a while it wasn’t such a big deal. I was labeled immature, but that was fine with me. Then kids at school started to say there was something off about me. I was too much of a dreamer for them. They began saying I was mental.

  —I don’t care— I told my parents. —I like the world in my dreams. It’s a happier place than here.—

  Everyone else in the world is missing so much and they don’t even know it. They’re in such a rush that they blaze past all of the secrets there are to see. If they just paid attention, I’m sure they’d see what I do. They’d understand how the subtle changes in the sky can slow time. Or how the sound of ghosts is trapped in old records, whispering confessions about things they’ve learned since being carried off to heaven. Nobody else hears anything.

  They are blinded by distractions. But I can tune out all of the noise that fills the world like so much screaming in the sky. I know how to stand still even when the Earth spins faster and faster than it ever did before. The rest of them try to keep up with the rhythm until it makes them dizzy. And with dizzy eyes, they stare at me and say I’m crazy.

  Sometimes I like being alone in the truth.

  Sometimes, though, I just feel lonely.

  It’s lonely here in the hospital, but things move slower here. It’s not as loud and rushed. I don’t feel so confused.

  Here, I can walk for hours along the paths that carve up the grounds around the large brick buildings. Not red brick—gray bricks that make it feel like an old church or a boarding school like the ones in black-and-white movies set in England. I like that about it. The buildings feel out of time and I feel that way too.

  From three in the afternoon until six in the afternoon, I’m allowed to shuffle barefoot over the lawn and through the gardens within the surrounding walls of the hospital. Sometimes I keep my head down, looking for stones with a hidden glow. When I find one, I pick it up and put it in the pocket of my sweatshirt because the nurses don’t like me to collect them.

  Other times, like today, I prefer to stay in one place, staring up at the sky and waiting for it to change. Here, it doesn’t change as much as it used to. I still need to watch, though. I need to make sure those perfect moments don’t go away forever.

  * * *

  There’s a boy in the common room who I haven’t seen in here before. He stays apart from everyone else the way all new patients do. His body sinks so low that he becomes part of the cushions. He’s almost flat, fading into the furniture like a small beetle trying for invisibility. His hair ruins the illusion though. It’s so bright and clear, as if part of the world has been bleached out of existence.

  I don’t notice people most of the time. They pass by in a blur and it’s rare when anyone stands out—especially here in the hospital where the nurses are all in uniform and all of the patients try so hard not to be seen. None of them have strong outlines to bring them into focus the way he does.

  A soft glow surrounds this boy, whoever he is. It makes me want to memorize the shape of his face and collect it like all the little stones I keep in my pocket.

  I’ve been sitting silently and staring at him since he came in. That’s allowed in the common room. This is the room where all of us are free to play games, read, or do nothing at all while we sit and stare. It’s a kind of indoor recess. Sometimes I draw, but not recently. Nothing quite looks right anymore. Everything stays the same color from one minute to the next and the scenery is as steady as a photograph. Dr. Richards says that’s part of getting better. She says I’m better when things are plain and not worth putting on paper for saving or sharing. She’s a doctor, so I guess she’s right. But I’m glad the boy isn’t so dull as everything else around me. I’m glad that I have something interesting to watch.

  He’s watching me too.

  Every minute or so, he lifts his head. His eyes search the room with a strange light. His eyes have the green glow of a radiated cat under a full moon. Darting here and there and into every corner, they search. But they always settle in the same place. They always end up on me.

  He smiles every time.

  Strangers make me shy. Usually their smiles make me turn away, but he isn’t like other strangers. He’s a familiar stranger. I’ve seen him before in a dream. I believe sometimes my dreams are of memories from the future. Sometimes they are about places I will go someday or people who I’m going to know but don’t know yet.

  It drives my parents crazy whenever I try to explain this idea to them.

  —Sabrina, dreams are just that … they’re dreams— my dad always says. —You can’t believe what a dream tells you.— He believes dreams are only your brain scattering your thoughts while you’re asleep. But mine aren’t like that. Mine stay around even when I’m awake. They are everywhere around me, shadows that I see out of the corners of my eyes. Sometimes they are more than shadows. Sometimes they are real enough for me to see and hear, even touch. Those dreams aren’t dreams at all but windows into other places. Those special dreams exist in the small places where two worlds rub up against each other.

  The longer I stare at the boy from across the room, the more I remember that we’ve met.

  When I close my eyes I see him dressed only in the sunshine. The clouds above him are in the shape of stick-figure ballerinas with rabbit ears made out of paper. They dance in the sky, high above us as we sit on a tire swing, swaying back and forth. Our thumbs are looped together around the frayed rope suspending us both above the ground. I can remember the way his fingers feel on my wrist and the sound of his voice even though we’ve never spoken.

  When he looks at me, I wonder if he sees it too.

  Is it possible the dream was his to begin with? Maybe I just wandered into it? Dreams can work like that. As long as we’re the same, they can—as long as he’s special like me.

  I get caught in another one of his glances, another smile, and this time I smile back. When he stands up, the light catches his eyes. They shine brighter than the sun when you stare directly into it.

  My blu
e eyes are shimmering stones just below the surface of clear water when I stare at him. Once his eyes and mine meet, the two colors make a halo around us the way clouds can sometimes make a ring around a bright moon.

  There is a split second before he speaks when his mouth rests open in the shape of a pink oval. I see not only words waiting to come out but also the entire story of his life wanting to be woven together with mine. As he exhales, I hold my breath.

  —Hi— he says, saying that one word as if he’s said the same thing to me every morning of every day he’s ever lived. —I’m Alec.—

  I know he’s waiting for me to talk and it makes me smile. He can’t see it though. I’ve brought my hand up to my mouth and placed the sleeve of my sweatshirt neatly between my lips. Then, slowly, the purple fabric falls from my mouth and I tell him —I’m Sabrina.—

  He makes a quick movement. Flicks the ends of his hair before he speaks again. —I’ve sort of noticed you staring at me. Thought I’d come over and make sure you weren’t a psycho or anything.—

  My eyes grow bigger and I shake my head nervously.

  —Sorry. Bad joke— he says.

  —Oh— I say, letting my breath out quickly. —I guess … I didn’t get it, that’s all.—

  —Forget it. It was dumb— he says, tilting his head up toward the ceiling. —It’s just that I was watching and you don’t seem like the others. You don’t seem crazy. That’s all I was trying to say.—

  —I’m not— I say. —At least … I don’t think I am anyway.—

  —Yeah, I don’t think you are either— Alec says.

  —How can you tell?— I ask him.

  —Because you actually understand the words coming out of my mouth. Most of the kids here … it’s like they’re from another planet. I’ve tried talking to some of them, but I don’t get very far.— He raises his eyebrows and looks from side to side as he says it, but none of the kids nearby return his glance.

  —Oh … yeah— I say softly, sadly. I know the ones he’s talking about. Ones like the girl at the table next to me with heavy circles under her eyes like she’s been awake for days. Her mouth is always moving. Talking to someone who isn’t there. There are a lot of kids like her here. They scare me a little. That’s why most of the time I try not to talk to anybody.