by Amanda Abram
“Well, then, see? I’m the reason you had that dream,” she said. “You must have stored away what I said somewhere deep inside your brain, and last night, your brain finally let it back out. That’s all.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t change how badly the dream unnerved me.”
Lauren pulled into her usual parking space and then turned to me. “Cassie, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
“What you always do, which is overthink and overanalyze. Sometimes, a dream is just a dream. And if you just let it go, tonight you’ll be back to dreaming about going to Chemistry class in a Sephora and all will be right with the world.”
I sighed. “I hope you’re right.”
“I usually am.”
We climbed out of her car and made our way toward the building. Once we were inside and parted ways, I made it halfway down the hallway before I decided to go find Dylan. I was going to follow Lauren’s advice and just let it go. The sooner I did that, the sooner the memory would fade away like all my other forgotten dreams.
Spinning on my heel, I turned around to head in the direction of Dylan’s locker, and immediately bumped into somebody in the process.
And of course, it just had to be Elijah.
At first, he didn’t know it was me and began apologizing.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t watching where I was—” And then his eyes landed on my face and he stopped.
“Elijah.” I forced a small smile onto my face, hoping it would come across as sincere.
“Sorry,” he muttered again, and without saying anything else, he brushed past me to continue down the hall.
“Elijah, wait,” I called out after him. I knew I was supposed to be giving him some time and space to come around, but I somehow felt like time wasn’t on my side. At least, not after the dream I’d had.
He stopped, but he didn’t turn around.
I stepped in front of him. “Can we talk?”
His expression remained passive as he asked, “About what?”
I could already tell this was a mistake. I should have just walked away, but I couldn’t. “I’m pretty sure you know what I want to talk about.”
“Yeah, I do know. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
I sighed. “Please. Give me a chance to explain—”
“I don’t need an explanation.”
“Okay, then at least give me a chance to apologize.” When he didn’t protest, I pulled him aside, away from the crowd of kids walking down the hallway and continued. “Look, I’m sorry you found out the way you did. That wasn’t how we wanted it to happen. Dylan and I were trying to figure out the right way to tell you.”
Elijah sneered at that. “Trust me, there was no ‘right way’ to tell me about it.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “And I get why you’re upset, but I think the three of us should sit down and have a civil conversation about everything.”
“I can’t be civil. Not right now.”
“Why not?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m serious.” As much as I knew I shouldn’t be sounding annoyed, I couldn’t help it. Because I was annoyed. Lauren wasn’t the reason I had that dream last night; Elijah was. “Look, I know you’re mad at Dylan, but turning his friends against him? That’s low, Elijah.”
Elijah shook his head. “I’m not turning anyone against him. The guys are making that decision all on their own.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, believe it. What Dylan did is wrong. You don’t betray your best friend—or any friend—like that.”
“He didn’t betray you.”
“You’re my ex-girlfriend, which automatically makes you off-limits to him. But what was worse was the fact he knew I was still in love with you, but he went after you anyway.” He paused for a moment as he held my gaze. “Let me ask you: If Jake broke up with Lauren and you knew she was still in love with him and wanted to get back together with him, would you—as her best friend—pursue him for yourself?”
I should have known he would throw out a scenario like that. Pursing my lips, I replied, “No. I wouldn’t.”
“And why wouldn’t you?”
“Because I don’t have feelings for Jake.”
“But assuming you did have feelings for him,” he said. “Assuming you had fallen for him, would you still pursue him, knowing how much it would devastate Lauren? Or would you just ignore those feelings and move on?”
Instead of answering, I crossed my arms tightly over my chest and tapped my foot against the floor. How dare he make that comparison? There was no comparison. Unless Lauren cheated on Jake and that’s why he’d broken up with her.
“I know which decision you would make,” he said quietly. “You’d make the one that wouldn’t hurt your best friend. Dylan didn’t make that decision. That’s on him, not me.” He took a step back. “I’m done talking.”
And with that, he walked away.
As expected, that conversation had accomplished nothing. Obviously, Elijah wasn’t going to be forgiving Dylan anytime soon.
Slowly, I continued toward Dylan’s locker. When I got there, he was nowhere to be seen. But Nick was, about ten lockers down, and before I even knew what I was doing, I was stalking over to him and tapping him hard on the shoulder.
“Hi, Nick,” I said loudly into his ear.
Startled, he jumped slightly and turned his head to see who was talking to him. When he saw it was me, he tensed up and returned his attention back to his locker.
“Oh. Hi, Cassie. What’s up?” The tone of his voice as he asked that question indicated he didn’t really want an answer. But he was going to get one anyway.
“I don’t know, Nick. You tell me.”
He shrugged and before leaning forward and hiding his face behind his locker door. “What are you talking about?”
“Cut the crap, Nicholas. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
With a heavy sigh, Nick shut his locker door and threw his hands in hair. “Cassie, I really don’t want to get involved in this whole love triangle thing you’ve got going on—”
“Too bad,” I said through clenched teeth. “You already involved yourself when you and your friends decided to freeze Dylan out.”
The slightest bit of remorse flashed across his face at that, but he quickly recovered. “Look, Dylan broke two very important rules among friends. He can’t do that without some sort of backlash.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, first of all, those rules are dumb. And secondly, Dylan didn’t break those rules with you or the other guys, just Elijah, so you have no reason to be shutting him out.”
“Yeah, but if he can break those rules with Elijah, who is to say he won’t break them with us too someday? Besides, we need to side with Elijah on this. He’s the victim.”
“Oh, right, I forgot,” I scoffed. “Because the guy who cheats on his girlfriend is always the victim.”
“Hey, Elijah cheated on you, not Dylan. You have every right to hurt Elijah, but Dylan doesn’t. And what he did was wrong.”
“What he did?” I echoed, balling my fists at my sides. “You want to know what Dylan did? After I caught Elijah kissing Hannah that night at the party, Dylan followed me all the way home just to make sure I was okay. He took me to his gym so I could get all my aggression out so I wouldn’t want to hurt Elijah. And, when you and your friends chose to pretend like I didn’t even exist anymore, Dylan was the only one who would still talk to me. And you want to know why? Because he’s a good friend.”
Nick looked uncomfortable as he glanced around the hallway. He probably wanted to make sure Elijah wasn’t spying on us nearby. “Yeah, I know he is a good friend. The guys know it too. But right now, our loyalty needs to be with Elijah. At least until he gets over this. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”
I closed my eyes briefly and shook my head. “Okay, then what can be done to help Elijah get
over this?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. We haven’t exactly talked about it.”
“Well, can you talk to him, then?” I asked him, adding a bit of desperation to my voice for good measure. “Can you find out how we can fix this?”
For a split second, I thought I’d almost had him. I thought maybe I had brought him over to my side. But as soon as he spoke, all hope was crushed.
“I’m sorry, Cassie, but I can’t help you.”
I let out a breath and took a step back. He may have said he couldn’t help me, but what he really meant to say was that he wouldn’t. Whatever. I didn’t need his help anyway.
“Fine,” I said. “Thanks for nothing, Nick.”
I turned to leave but stopped when he spoke again.
“Wait.”
I spun back around to face him, and he took a step closer.
“Look, I don’t know what you can do to fix things between Elijah and Dylan, but I do know one thing: as long as you and Dylan are still together, there’s no saving that friendship.”
My heart sank in my chest. That wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear him say.
“So, if your end goal is for them to become best friends again…” He paused for a moment before finishing that thought. “…you might want to reconsider your relationship status, if you know what I mean.”
With a small, sympathetic smile, he gave my shoulder a single pat before taking off down the hall.
I did know what he meant; I didn’t need Nick, of all people, to explain to me what I already knew.
I guess I’d just been hoping there was another way. One that didn’t involve me getting my heart broken all over again.
“Hey, you.”
The sudden sound of Dylan’s voice startled me, and I froze. Had he just seen me talking to Nick?
“Hey,” I said nonchalantly, spinning around to greet him.
The initial sight of him was almost jarring and I was overcome with a wave of emotion. The last time I saw him—in my dream—he had been upset with me and walked out of my life for good. So, to see him standing in front of me now with the biggest, most sincere smile on his face felt strange to me.
“Is everything all right?”
Everything was not all right, but I nodded anyway. “Yeah, everything is good.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, his eyebrows pulling together in concern. “Because you look upset.”
I wasn’t surprised, considering how upset I felt. “I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I quickly assured him.
“I didn’t think it was,” he said, looking slightly amused. “Cass, are you sure everything is okay?”
“Mmhmm.” I nodded forcefully.
“Is everything okay with Lauren?”
I blinked up at him in confusion. “Yeah, why do you ask?”
“Because you said she needed to talk to you about something important this morning.”
“Oh. Right.” I had already forgotten about that little white lie. “It wasn’t as important as I thought it was going to be. She’s okay. I’m okay. We’re all okay.”
“Okay.” He chuckled softly as he reached for my hand.
I pretended not to notice as I quickly brought my hand up and ran it through my hair before he could grab it.
“So, I’m thinking of going to homeroom early,” I said, taking a step back. “My head is killing me.”
Dylan frowned. “Do you need an Aspirin? We can go get you one from the nurse.”
“No, I’ll be fine. I took a couple before I left the house this morning; still waiting for them to kick in. I just need to sit down and rest for a bit.”
The more I lied to him, the worse I felt. Especially the more concerned he looked. But I couldn’t be around Dylan right now. The soundbites of what he’d said in my dream were playing in a continuous loop inside my head. It was too distracting.
“I’ll walk with you,” he said, taking a step forward.
I took a step back. “No, that’s okay. You haven’t even gone to your locker yet, and I don’t want you to be late for homeroom. But I’ll see you at lunch later, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, but I—”
“Bye,” I said, quickly turning and walking away before he could finish.
Obviously, he would question my odd behavior later, but by then, maybe I would have calmed down. I had the rest of the morning to get a grip and forget all about that stupid dream, and about my conversations with Elijah and Nick. I just needed some time to think. By lunchtime, I’d be back to my normal self and I could just blame everything on my lack of sleep.
Except, I couldn’t forget about any of it. During first period, I just kept replaying the dream in my head.
Dylan blamed me for everything.
He resented me.
During second period, I kept thinking about my conversation with Elijah.
He thought Dylan had betrayed him.
He thought Dylan had intentionally hurt him.
And then, during third period, my conversation with Nick was what really sent me spiraling into a state of anxiety.
Dylan’s friendship with Elijah would never recover if Dylan and I were together.
I was the reason their friendship was over.
Dream Dylan was right. If I hadn’t foolishly confessed my feelings to him, none of this would be happening right now. Dylan and Elijah would still be best friends. Dylan would have eventually gotten over me and maybe started dating Claire. And I would have eventually gotten over Dylan and just enjoyed being single for a while.
Why did I have to go and ruin everything? How could I have been so selfish?
Lauren’s voice suddenly popped into my head: “You’re doing it again, Cassie! You’re overthinking and overanalyzing! Stop it!”
But I couldn’t stop it. The overwhelming feeling of guilt gnawed at my stomach all day. For the most part, I tried to hide it. At lunchtime, I plastered a smile onto my face and made small talk with Dylan and Lauren and luckily neither one seemed suspicious of my behavior. During Life Economics, we weren’t given the opportunity to pair up, which I was extremely thankful for since it meant I didn’t have to keep putting on the act of being okay.
By the time the last bell rang, I was an emotional wreck. I had spent all day going over everything in my head. Overthinking. Overanalyzing. And no matter how many times I tried to assure myself that everything was going to work out okay in the end, I knew deep down that wasn’t the case.
Deep down, I knew what I had to do: the only thing I could do to make everything right again.
“So, I’ve spent all day thinking of things we can do together during break,” Dylan said, tossing a couple of books into his locker. He had told me to meet him there at the end of the day since he was giving me a ride home and then staying to have a mini Baker’s Dozen marathon with Caitlyn. “There’s this winter carnival that starts next weekend, and…”
His voice slowly faded out as something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye: Elijah approaching Nick at his locker. He muttered something to him before they both glared over at me and Dylan.
Elijah’s eyes met mine and held my gaze as he scowled and said something else to Nick. I was no good at lip reading, but I swore I could make out bits and pieces such as, “can’t believe them” and, “dead to me”
Just ignore them, I told myself. I quickly looked away and back at Dylan, who was still talking and completely oblivious to Elijah’s presence only a few lockers down. He looked happy and excited as he spoke, telling me all about the plans he had come up with for us. Plans he wouldn’t have had to make in the first place had he not been uninvited on the ski trip.
He should have still been able to go on that ski trip. It was all he could talk about for a month after he and Elijah had planned it. He had never been skiing before. Neither had Elijah. It was something they were both going to experience for th
e first time together. He’d been so stoked for that trip.
And it was just another thing I was taking away from him.
First, it was his best friend.
Then it was all his other friends.
Now it was the ski trip.
What would be next?
“Cass.”
I blinked as Dylan waved his hand in front of my face. “Huh?”
He furrowed his brow as his eyes scanned my face. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“I mean you’ve been acting kind of strange all day. You seem distant. Like, I don’t know, you’ve got something on your mind.” He paused. “What’s wrong?”
“What? Nothing’s wrong,” I replied.
“Come on, Cass, I can tell something is bothering you.”
“Nothing is bothering me.”
“You’re lying.” He placed another book in his locker. “Look, when my parents had their big blowout fight, you knew right away that something was wrong. I didn’t want to talk about it, but you forced me to. And I was glad you did; I felt a lot better afterward. So, now it’s my turn to force you to talk.”
If he had known what was really weighing on my mind, he probably wouldn’t have been pressing me to talk about it.
Placing his hand along the side of my face, he leaned down and gave me a soft, lingering kiss on the lips. “Talk to me, Briggs.”
I held my breath as my gaze flickered over Dylan’s shoulder to Elijah.
I expected him to look angry. I expected him to be glaring daggers over at us as he plotted his revenge with Nick. Instead, he looked sad. His eyes were glued to Dylan, not me, and I could finally see it, all over his face: the betrayal he felt. He wasn’t upset about losing me. This wasn’t about me at all.
He was upset about losing his best friend. The best friend he believed had wronged him.
I watched as Elijah said something to Nick and then they both took off down the hallway. I must have watched for a little too long, because Dylan glanced over his shoulder to see what had distracted me.
When he saw Elijah’s retreating form, he groaned. “He wasn’t by any chance just watching us, was he?”
