Like a victim in a horror movie, I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. Building my courage, I leaned to the side, turning to look, but he was always gone.
At my side, Chad grumbled, "What's with you?"
"Just trying to figure out why Maddix is reaming out Cheyenne," I admitted.
He frowned, glaring down at them. "Probably because she stole his essay topic."
"But she's doing a paper on sleep disorders and waking hallucinations," I said. "Isn't Maddix doing something on sanitariums? Like pre-World War II psych?"
"Yeah, but he’s focusing on a local place. It turns out a patient claimed to see ghosts. Cheyenne wants to argue something about him subconsciously deducing what he knew about the doctors and everybody from a dream-state. He was pretty famous - Theodore Thompson..." Chad paused as if waiting for a response, but the name wasn't familiar at all.
"I have no idea who you're talking about."
Tom piped in, "Me either."
"He only knows 'cause he's doing his project on him too," Alexander said, and Chad punched him in the arm. "Ow! What? That's the truth."
"Yeah, and I don't want Maddix knowing. Thompson's just one guy. I'm looking into the practice of institutionalizing queer children and how it led to acquired psychoses. They go in healthy and end up getting their heads fucked up - sometimes literally. Like Thompson - went in a ridiculously intelligent, brutally honest kid and two years - two years into it, he's seeing ghosts," Chad explained, never looking away from Maddix as if discussing the topic would draw the other's ire onto him. "Anyway - it's what Maddix gets for ranting during his part of the group presentations."
"Seems like you're all coming at it from different sides. Why would Professor Haggard have a problem with it?" I wondered aloud, but Chad only shrugged.
As if he felt the weight of our gaze on him, Maddix suddenly snapped his glower in our direction; we all startled, but the professor barreled down the stairs beside us, waving his briefcase.
"Sorry, I'm late - had a bit of a coffee catastrophe. For anyone who enjoys whole milk in their coffee, avoid the cart closest to William Jones Hall. Absolute disaster. Had to run across campus," he complained as he held his usual large brew aloft. "If I'm under caffeinated, blame them."
Chapter Ten
"Do I have a tumor?"
Gray's eyes narrowed. "How would I know?"
We sat side by side on the bed where he had cared for me. He leaned against the wall. His legs stretched out before him, hanging off the bed at the ankles while I had my knees against my chest. The bed seemed strangely large. A gap stretched between us though I could knock my foot against his thigh.
"Then how did you show up in my classroom - and that time in the library," I murmured, running a hand through my hair.
He licked his bottom lip. The slight movement drew my eye, and panic fluttered in my stomach. Maybe I should submit myself to Cheyenne. She could take data, studying first hand someone losing touch with reality - seeing waking dreams.
God, I had to be losing my mind to consider going to Cheyenne for anything.
"What are you saying?" Gray whispered. His hand shifted - a half-aborted gesture to rest in comfortable companionship on my knee, but perhaps the desperation in my gaze kept him from closing the gap. "Maybe you should go see one of the doctors."
"Yeah - probably."
I wanted to close the distance between us. To knot my hands in his soft, smooth hair. Tangle them there as I pulled his pale face close to mine. Press kisses against his bitten pink lips. He had pushed me away before, but a tenderness ached between us when I was sick. If this was my dream, was it so terrible to push? To make another move? Nobody was around. No heels in the hall or sweet smelling fragrances rising from the kitchen. Only the two of us. Side by side, together in this strange place.
Inhaling slowly, I reached out. My hand fell over his own. We sat like that. Side by side with my hand on top of his own for several minutes before he shifted, turning his hand over to entwine our fingers. In my chest, my heart raced. I wanted to pull him closer, but this - just his touch was enough. I stretched out my legs, shifting to tap our knees together briefly.
Gray stayed by my side. His eyes stared blankly ahead, but a pink dusted his cheeks, and when his gaze shifted to me - it quickly fled again as the blush deepened.
I had never had the chance to endure such innocent affection. Though I had kissed a girl before - more than once to keep the rumors at bay, I hadn't ever held hands. Never sat close and thrilled in the distance being breached with something as chaste as our fingers entwined. In that instant, it seemed as if I could be content for the rest of time with just the soft warmth of his skin against my mine. I wanted this moment to never end.
"Where are we?" I asked when no other words but almost sycophantic praise leapt to my mind.
I couldn't call him sweet. Whisper how beautiful he looked. How I wanted to kiss him. Tell him there was no sight more beautiful in the world - no touch as sweet - nothing in all the world but him and me in the unknown stretched between. Not knowing had never been less daunting.
Gray hummed, and as if he wished to drive me mad, he leaned, resting his head against my shoulder. "Crabbles Manor."
The name itched in my mind. Familiar. Maybe he had mentioned it before. I rested my cheek against the top of his head. "Do you like it here?"
I could feel him shrug against me, and like a warning, he squeezed my hand, but Gray remained against me - his cheek against my shoulder - his hand within mine, so I let that topic fade. Silence gave me enough. Companionable and warm - I didn't fear myself at his side. He knew what I was - who I was in a way no one else in the world knew. Each new memory with him erased a bit of self-loathing from me, and whether he was real or a figment of my imagination, it didn't seem to matter. If he made me better, I couldn’t be going insane, right?
Chapter Eleven
Suddenly, I chased sleep like a dog after a rabbit. Any moments I could sneak away, I did. I found the corners in the library where no one went. The abandoned lecture halls, study rooms set aside for the graduate students in the library, anything and everywhere became my nap place, so I could spend time with Gray.
We didn't do anything particularly exciting. Curled up in my room in Crables Manor, we talked about books and baseball. The strangest bits of facts and ridiculousness became our background chatter. An utterly dull soundtrack to cover for the way my heart raced, drumming in my chest as his fingers entwined in mine.
Sometimes, I couldn't help but toe the line. "Do you ever realize we never eat?"
Gray blinked, lifting his head from the pillow beside me to stare down at me. "What do you mean?"
"When was the last time you ate?" I asked.
"This morning," he replied, laying back down beside me. As he wiggled closer, he grumbled, "Just because you go out to eat every day doesn't mean they let the rest of us."
The 'us' always bothered me. Who else was here? I hadn't seen the Governess before though I had heard the click of her heels. Scents from the kitchen suggested a cook - but I couldn't remember what Gray called her. There were other doors. Bedrooms, I guessed, which were locked. No sounds suggested anyone had them. I hadn't passed them in the hall when I wandered - before I got sick. Before this strange possibility bloomed between us, I had explored the manor. Nobody else was here.
"Do you want to come with me? To lunch?"
Leaning his head against me, I could feel him smile into my shoulder. Electricity sparked wherever he touched. Sharp and sudden and overwhelming at first before turning into a strange dull heat. A warm reassurance that he was here. Somehow - he was with me. Impossible and beautiful and I wanted to roll over and wrap my arms around him. Keep him with me. Find a way to drag him back to Harvard. Or maybe find a way to sleep forever. Whatever would keep me at his side.
And I couldn't help the want, but I had enough experience with self-loathing to recognize a dangerous thought when it circled around my head like a shark. B
ut I couldn't stop it. I wanted to be with him. I just had to find out how to keep him permanently. Make sense out of the recklessness which threatened to pull me under.
"I don't think the doctors will let me," he said, his hand squeezing mine. Another topic not to press. Another boundary found.
"But if I'm accompanying you..." I offered, pressing just a little - just a bit more.
Gray’s hand tightened around mine. Trembling, he whispered - low and quiet, "Where would we go?"
His voice was so quiet - delicate and shy and the anxiety there - the hope almost killed me. I would have done anything for him in that moment. Climbed Everest. Killed a bear. Started a war. Helen could heart her heart out. I might not have had a thousand ships, but if he'd asked me to sack Troy, I would've torn it down in a heartbeat. Achilles would’ve understood.
"I could take you around Harvard. Show you my classes. Maybe introduce you to my friends?" I offered, starting small. Starting where most people wouldn't be scared away. "We could find a place to eat along the way. There's so many restaurants in Boston." He listened, remaining quiet, so I kept speaking. "I could take you to Fenway."
That caught his attention. His eyes sparkled as he smiled up at me. "Fenway? Are you sure? Isn't it expensive."
"I have some money," I told him.
The seats would be cheap. Nosebleeds, but I could get us two at least once. I'd work myself to the bone if I had to - taking notes or tutoring or in the back of a kitchen somewhere scrubbing dishes. Anything if it kept him smiling like that.
He hummed against my shoulder, sleepily curling up against me, but I dared not close my eyes for fear that I'd wake back up where I'd left myself. I held onto the feeling of him. The heat of his breath against my shoulder as he murmured, "That sounds lovely."
And then I snapped awake, falling out of the chair and onto the floor as Chad cackled. He stood over me with his hands in his hoodie pockets and a bag tossed over one shoulder. The jerk had dark circles under his eyes. Likely, he had only woken me out of jealousy that he hadn't been getting enough sleep, but as he stole my chair, kicking his feet over one of the arms, any pity I had evaporated.
"What the heck man?" I demanded, brushing off my pants.
He shrugged. "I wondered where you went between classes. This is awesome. Does nobody come back here?"
"Yeah - which is why I was sleeping!"
Where did Gray think I went when I woke up suddenly? Where did he think I went at all? I rarely got to say goodbye. I tried. When everything went fuzzy, I attempted to tell him goodbye. To walk out of the room or something as if I should start hiding I vanished randomly, but what if I didn't? What if I wasn't actually in my own body? Had I ever seen my own reflection in the dream? What if I became someone else? Someone who hurt him? Or didn't understand why they woke up randomly cuddling with another man?
"Sleep in your dorm room." Despite that, he jumped up and dug into his backpack. "Even better, take this."
He tossed a book at my head. I barely managed to catch it in time. "What the heck?"
"You need to check that out. When you return it - make sure Tom checks it out next. It's not allowed to be reserved, but we can take it out," he explained, zipping back up his backpack. "But only for a week each. I need it for my project, and I don't want Cheyenne or Maddix to get it."
"You're kidding me," I grumbled. But sure enough: The Sanitariums of 1900s Boston by Michael O'Reilly. Ridiculous. But the sooner I gave in, the sooner I could get away and get back to sleep. "Fine. Come on."
Chad smirked, following close behind as I headed to the front desk. When we got close, he took the book and did a quick return before passing it over for me to take it out. I carried it just beyond the library doors before handing it over, and the text disappeared into his backpack once more.
"Thanks."
"Yeah, whatever," I grumbled, adjusting my own bag as I headed toward my dorm hall.
Ruining any hope I had to get away from him, Chad fell into step beside me. "A group of us is going to go on a local murder tour. Are you coming?"
"Why would I want to come? It sounds morbid."
Why would I waste hours I could spend with Gray walking around Boston with a group of stupid college students? I lost time in classes and doing work and eating to avoid drawing negative attention. The balance wrecked me. Sensible enough to keep doing what I had to do. Desperate enough to hate myself about it.
However, Chad narrowed his eyes. The glare reminded me of our last longer interaction, and Tom wasn't around to save me this time, so when Chad pushed, saying, "You've got to hang out with friends, man. If you aren't relaxing, you're going to burn out."
I had no choice but to say: "Yeah, I guess you're right."
Ridiculous. The idiot had bags under his eyes. He looked exhausted, but I was the one who was going to burn out? I had two lives going - one in the waking world and one in the sleeping, and in both, I was well-rested. It was the best. Practically magical, but at least this trip meant I didn't have to deal with Chad bothering me about hanging out elsewhere. I still didn't know why he thought we were friends. Alexander, I got. That idiot was like a dog. Everybody was a friend, but Chad stuck around me for no reason.
Or maybe for a really not great reason. I hated people who hung around because they wanted to see someone screw up. People who treated others like walking, talking car crashes waiting to happen. I knew I was a wreck. I had issues - hidden and threatening to pop out when I least wanted them to do so, but I didn't need people like Chad pretending they cared while bubbling from excitement to see me burn.
Whatever. He ditched me part way back to our dorm, and I opened the door to another big middle finger from the universe. Tom sat at his desk, legs bouncing up and down as he studied. Even if I wanted to sleep, my body was so well rested, I couldn't nap unless I was almost completely undisturbed. I fell into my chair, tugging out my work. If I could get further ahead, I could sleep more later. Time didn't pass the same for Gray. I could do it. Find a way to make it work.
I just needed time.
Chapter Twelve
Halloween loomed. Drawing closer like a hangman's rope. A few hours on a single night, yet the idea of giving up any time at all to anything that wasn't with Gray left me raging. Frustrated. Clawing against my own rationality. No good excuse came. Everything would draw more attention. Offering only a short respite if it didn't simply drive my roommate and the rest to bother me into submission.
A week before then, I sat in class - drumming my pen against my notebook, watching the coils shake and the twitch of the guy in front of me. Nobody else heard the noise. Not with me in the far back corner of the room. They all wanted to pass. Their eyes trained to a lesson on basic grammar. I'd read the chapter before, and if it hadn't been for the pop quiz which the professor put at the end of the class every other week, I wouldn't have bothered coming except to hand in my homework.
My skin itched. The longer the professor droned on, the worse it became. I probably could nod off. This wasn't a main course. Just my mandatory English component. It would be fine. One class where I fell asleep. It wasn't like I snored. I hadn't made any friends in this section yet. Professor Nawotka had an old school every man for himself approach to education, so he probably wouldn't even care if I slept. Any dip in my grade would be my own fault.
That thinking led to disaster. First, it was one class. Napping a bit. Just a quick visit. Just to see him. Then it would grow. Sprinklings of a class here and there until I stopped going at all to any of them. My grades would drop to barely passing - just enough work to keep enrolled, and then - when I got the first letter warning about my scholarships - I would throw up my hands entirely and do everything I could to never wake up. I already noticed my eating and drinking habits changed. My stomach used to growl in protest as I skipped lunch for a nap, but now - now the emptiness inside waved a white flag. This was a slippery slope, and I could see myself tumbling toward the edge - wide and deep and endless. Once I pas
sed the event horizon, I wouldn't be able to escape. The gravity - the desperation to spend every moment with Gray would consume me.
Maybe life was better that way. Better spent dreaming. Spent unconscious. My parents couldn't hate me if I slipped into an unexplained coma.
Shit. I ground my teeth, clenching my fists as I struggled - pulled between my survival instincts and my addiction. I had never cared about anything but getting away from home as much as I obsessed about Gray. Even thinking about not spending the break between my classes with him had me panicking. My chest tightened. The air in my lungs locked down -refusing to move as I stared straight ahead. Trembling. Helpless. How had this happened? He wasn't even real. He wasn't even real.
But he was. Nothing in my life left me aching like Gray did. When awake - attending school, I walked around half-dead. Emotionally distant and exhausted - terrified someone might catch me in my lies. Might realize and out me. I hadn't even spoken to my parents more than once since I packed my suitcases and took a bus to Boston. Dad couldn't afford to take off work, and we only had the one car.
Gray left me desperate. Electricity surged through my body - like taking a breath after holding it too long. Waking up after falling in a dream. A sudden kick and jolt. When I had I last felt that way? Nobody ever made me want to the point of desperation. To dangerous obsession.
No. That's a lie. I had wanted. Before I realized how dangerous wanting could be. Secret and held back in my throat. Then he had loved somebody else, and what was I supposed to do? Join in the torment? He had thrown the person he loved on the fire because he wanted to isolate them. Keep them to himself. Selfish - greedy - destroying any beauty I had seen in him. Leaving me hating myself for what I was - for who I had risked my life to love.
Everyone around me rose. Standing and shuffling - shoving away their notebooks as I sat frozen. A scream caught in my throat.
All That We Say or Seem Page 5
