The Dreamhouse

by Thorn, Nicole

  “Hello.” She smiled. “Can I help you, honey?”

  I smiled back. “Yeah, I’m here for Bennett. We have a date.”

  The woman startled me with a laugh. She ended on a flat out snicker as she held the door open. “I had no clue Bennett was dating anyone.”

  I bit my lip, already uncomfortable. “It’s not really a date…”

  A man walked up behind her, seeming to not see me. He pecked her on the cheek and said goodbye on his way out the door. He paused when he saw me. “Oh, didn’t even notice you.”

  I held my hand out to shake his. “Layla Hall. Nice to meet you.”

  He shook my hand. “Parker Posey. You too. Are you selling something? I’ll take cookies if you have them.” He laughed.

  “Um, nope,” I said, smiling again.

  “She’s here for Bennett,” the woman I decided had to be his mother said. “They have a date.”

  His father laughed like his mother did. “Damn. The boy did good. Almost makes up for him falling flat on his face all throughout high school.”

  Really? Why the hell was that funny? And why was I some kind of score?

  The woman swatted at her husband’s shoulder. “Knock that off. Go before you’re late.”

  The man smiled at his wife again. “If you insist. Layla”—the man turned to me, and I hated that he shared Bennett’s chocolate-colored eyes—“I hope you have fun with my son. Good luck.” He walked away, and headed to the van.

  Bennett came barreling over to the door, and I had to hold back a giggle at how cute the panic in his eyes was, like he thought I would take off before he got here. He stood on the porch, panting.

  “Morning, honey,” I said before I kissed his cheek. “How did you sleep?”

  “Fine,” he muttered.

  “Bennett,” his mother said. “Why didn’t you tell us you met a girl?”

  The boy beside me shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. “I… we just met.”

  His mother arched a dark eyebrow. “How? You never leave this house. I’m surprised your skin isn’t translucent by now.”

  Okay, I was done now. “We met when our mail got swapped. I live really close by, and your son was a sweetie and brought it to me. Now, I’m really sorry, but I have to take him away for a bit. I’ll bring him back in one piece.”

  I took him by the hand and led him to my Bug. Bennett was silent as he got into the car and closed the door. To try and combat the awkwardness, I turned on some music. I was still getting used to having it back, and Riley had given me the albums that Wilson introduced her to. It was rather difficult, starting from scratch with music. Thankfully Wilson had great taste. Or all music was good to me because I went almost a decade without it.

  “Where are we going?” Bennett asked after another ten minutes.

  I smiled, and took a quick glance at him. “A surprise, my dear. Worry not. We’ll be there soon.”

  I drove us to a little diner that my parents took me to a few weeks ago. I had a whole plan in mind, and I carefully dodged all of Bennett’s questions as I took him inside. We walked up to the counter, and I picked up the order I put in before I left the house.

  “Are we not eating here?” Bennett asked as I paid.

  I waggled my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t go that simple, darling.” I took the bag of food and started walking back to the car with my friend.

  The next stop was a park that Riley took her brother to with Wilson and his little brother. It was huge, and there was a big open field that I planned a picnic in. Once we got there, I loaded all the food into the basket I bought for this occasion, and I gathered up all the things I brought to go with it.

  I closed my trunk, and Bennett said, “Are we picnicking?” He smiled wide, hands in his pockets.

  “We are,” I confirmed, nodding.

  “It’s a bit chilly.”

  I shrugged. “I think a day in the sun would be nice for us, and it’s the only day for a week where the sky is supposed to be clear. If it gets to be too much, we can eat in the car.”

  The snow still covered the ground in a light blanket, but it would melt by the end of the day. It was in the forties at the moment. I had a sweater with me, and I slipped it on before we started walking.

  I laid down the thick blanket that I brought to keep us from getting wet, and I put the basket on it before we sat down. I dug out the two thermoses I filled with hot cocoa before I left home. It had been practically boiling when I left the house, so it was drinkable now.

  Bennett held his in his hands, thawing his fingers. “Snow picnics… you do this often?”

  I unscrewed the cap of my drink and took a sip, letting the heat travel through my body. “Haven’t gotten the chance. But I like being outside.”

  He smiled, and laughed lightly. “Even when the weather is bad?”

  I didn’t understand. “Bad? How can weather be bad? It is what it is.”

  Bennett squinted at nothing, setting his thermos down. “This is kind of bad weather. It’s cold and wet and hard to drive in.”

  But it was something real and beautiful. So much of my life was spent without seasons. It all looked like magic to me. I got to see the leaves change and the snow fall. I didn’t mind the bite of the wind because it was so much better than the artificial things I was used to.

  I handed Bennett the container with his breakfast in it, pancakes and all the yummy fixings. It was a breakfast of the gods, truly. At least Bennett appeared to be pleased with it. He dug in like he hadn’t eaten in days.

  “Soo,” I said, poking at my eggs. “Your parents are…” I trailed off.

  Bennett stared at his food and shoved a mouthful in, making me wait for his reply. “It was probably a real shock for them to see me with another person.”

  My nose wrinkled. “Yeah, they made that clear. I think your dad is under the impression that we’re dating.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  I felt my forehead wrinkle for a second or two. “It’s fine. I don’t care.”

  Bennett’s eyes hesitantly met mine. “You don’t?”

  I smiled at him, and patted his back. “Nah, it’s not a big deal. Who cares what your parents think.”

  Bennett went back to picking a pancake apart. He put another bite in his mouth and chewed. “They’re not very… We don’t get along much.”

  That much had been obvious. I had a short fuse, sure, but I thought any normal person would have thought they were a little rude. Maybe it was an off-morning. Though… Bennett was so sad. At best, he had parents that ignored him. At worst…

  I sat a little closer to Bennett, hoping the proximity could be a comfort to him. Our knees touched, and he glanced at me every thirty seconds like clockwork. It felt like he wanted to say something, but he never opened his mouth. So I guess it was up to me to do that.

  The boy was so shaky, and I started to think that was just his personality. Quiet and nervous at all times. I knew why Adalyn was like that, but why was Bennett?

  “What have you been up to lately?” I asked, trying to make conversation. “What do you do with your time?”

  He squared his shoulders, and his nose twitched before he brushed it with his knuckles. “Umm, not a lot. I spend most of my time working on my stories. Wasting my days.”

  I frowned at him. “Why do you think that it’s a waste?”

  “My parents. I don’t work, and they say that I need to be more realistic with my career choice. They’re not wrong.” Bennett shrugged it off like the smothering of his dreams was nothing.

  “Don’t you really like doing it?”

  “I guess.”

  Okay, let’s try something new. “What do you like about it?”

  His throat worked as he swallowed, and he picked up his drink again. “I think my favorite part is when I’m planning it out.”

  That was a start. “How do you do it?”

  Slowly but surely, my little oyster opened up for me. “I like to sit on the floor by my bed, and I have
my notebook on my lap. I do it best when it’s dark, so I wait until it’s really late. No noise at all. I get to think up problems and make solutions for them. Come up with little twists and tricks.” He smiled at the snow on the ground. “My favorite thing is when I lose control of the story. Sometimes I accidentally use things I left in previous parts, and it’s like I planned out something really clever, but it was totally random.”

  I listened to him tell me more, and I literally couldn’t stop smiling at the perfect contentment on his face. He felt more at ease now when he talked like he wasn’t struggling to speak, and he wasn’t uncomfortable by the act.

  I got to hear about characters he made and ones he was working on. He preferred to know the entirety of a character’s backstory before he used them. He told me that if he didn’t, it felt shaky.

  “How long have you been writing?” I asked.

  Bennett took a sip of his cocoa, tilting it all the way back. He was out, so I handed him mine. “Seriously, since I was fifteen. But I liked to come up with stories when I was really little. I have some awful ones written out in crayon with pictures I’d made, all shoved in a box somewhere.”

  I giggled and crossed my arms when the wind blew at me. “I would love to see those.”

  “Never,” Bennett said, eyes wide on me.

  One day.

  “I take it you wanna be an author when you grow up?” I asked with my never-fading smile. “Like book posters in stores and lotsa money so you can live in a mansion.”

  He bobbed his head. “Nah, I don’t think I’m really all that good. Certainly not enough to get something published and make anything off of it.”

  “Don’t have that attitude. Right now, there’s some weirdo girl in her room, sitting on her bed. Hair unwashed in her jammies and typing away at her laptop. If she can live her dreams, why not you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Do you know this girl?”

  “No, but I assume all writers are much like this girl in my head. She likes making sad stories about broken people, mostly to see if she can make people cry while making herself cry.”

  Bennett seemed to like that. “Well, you nailed it there. But still, I don’t know if anyone would want to read what I write.”

  “Do you want it to be read? And ignore the low self-esteem thing. Just tell me what you want.”

  The words seemed to come easy for him. “I would love it if people read what I wrote. As long as people liked it and wanted more, I would be happy. I don’t need the crazy fame or any of that.”

  That gave me an idea.

  “Obviously you should totally give me something to read.” I tried to make it sound light as if he had a choice in this. He didn’t, of course.

  Bennett looked nervous again. “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “If you read it, and you didn’t like it… that would be very upsetting.”

  I wasn’t worried at all about liking it. I liked Bennett, so how could I not like what he wrote?

  “Let me read it anyway.”

  He slightly warmed up to the idea as he picked at lint on his sweater. “I guess I could use a beta.”

  “Yay!” I clapped and gave him a kiss. “This victory tastes sweet.”

  Once we were finished eating, we moved to the backseat of my car. I put everything in the trunk while Bennett turned the heater on. I got in the car to find him making a face at his phone.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “Nothing important.”

  After I removed my boots, and sat sideways, like Bennett did. I put my feet on his lap, and he took to tapping on my legs to the beat of the song playing. He told me more about a story he was trying to work out the ending for. He asked my opinion, and I gave it to him.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asked after the conversation ended.

  I nodded.

  His eyes went to my wrists, and I suddenly wished I was home. Somewhere far from here where I could hide from my past. Master was dead and buried, but I would wear the scars he gave me for the rest of my life. You couldn’t hide from the shadows when they lived inside of you.

  “Riley,” he said. “She has a scar on her wrist like yours… and I bet that she has one on the wrist I couldn’t see.” Bennett’s fingers traveled softly up the top of my foot, and his eyes were fixed on the motion. “Does Adalyn have those scars too?”

  I nodded again because I didn’t want to lie to him.

  “You said you had four sisters. One of them is Melissa, and two of them are those girls from the shop. And there’s the one you lost. Did you lose her the day you got those scars?”

  “No,” I said, my tongue felt heavy in my mouth. “She died years after. A few months ago.”

  Bennett’s hand stilled on me. “A few months ago… Did she…?”

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “She had a gun, and we all watched her die. And it feels like it happened yesterday. I wake up every morning, and I can’t remember where I am. I think that she’s in the room next to mine, and she’s fucking gone.”

  I blinked, realizing I said far too much. It was all true. There wasn’t a single morning where I didn’t open my eyes, and think I would be back in my room at The Dollhouse. Like this was one long dream, and it was about to end.

  I moved when my head flooded with terror again. Bennett didn’t respond when I crawled onto his lap, needing something real to cling to. I tucked my legs up to my body and laid my head on his shoulder. My heart tripped in my chest as I clung onto Bennett’s shirt.

  “Layla?” he whispered. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t tell him, so I tucked my head under his chin. “I’m sorry, but can you just hold me for a little while? I know it’s weird…”

  He shook his head and hushed me. His arms came around me. “I don’t know how to say something to make you feel better, so can I let you lie on me until you’re not sad anymore?”

  I nodded. “Thank you. That’s all I want.”

  Bennett

  couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not after today. She was like an angel that fell into my life, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I met her days ago, but she was in my head so much. If she knew, she would think I was crazy. I guess I was, but I didn’t care. It hurt less to be alive when I thought about her.

  Those scars on her wrists made me afraid, and I thought it must have been how she felt when she saw me that first day. Worried that I would slip through her fingers. I saw it in her eyes, how much she wanted to save me. As if she had any power over that. This was what she did. She got calls from lost souls and tried to lead them into the light. I knew why, in theory. She had been there, and she wanted to help people. But she didn’t tell me why she’d wanted to die, and I was too scared to ask. And too scared that she might change her mind and try again.

  I lay in my bed, staring at the faded glowing stars on the ceiling as I thought about Layla. I was lying in this spot when she kissed me. Just threw herself on me and let me touch her. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that she did it because she wanted to kiss me. Just trying to save a life. Still, it was a good memory in the middle of such a horrible day. I looked into her eyes, and I saw the sun in this endless night.

  It was creepy. It felt creepy, how much I thought about her. She wanted to give me reasons to stick around, and she became one. Not to live for her, but living because I wanted so badly to know the rest of the story. What happened in her past, and what our futures looked like. I wanted to know what was to come. And for now, it was enough to keep that razorblade out of my hand.

  The attempt was poor, but I tried thinking about something not Layla-related. I had a story to finish, and I awaited an email I was sure would make me sad. Hundreds of people submitted for that contest, and I didn’t have a chance in hell. It still gave me hope, but I knew that was stupid. It was pointless to think anything would go right in my life.

  The front door opened then
slammed shut, and my body tensed. At least one of my parents was home now, and I felt it in the air like the atmosphere changed. It soaked into my bones, and I wanted to run and hide because I knew what was coming. The wind would change, and the world would feel like it was closing in.

  Things slammed, and I couldn’t tell what they were. Maybe cabinets or drawers. It was all the same. I waited in my bed for it to pass, and I crossed my fingers that it wasn’t a real temper tantrum. Maybe something was lost and needed to be found.

  My room was dark, and it might have looked like I’d gone to bed already. I could avoid any confrontation if I stayed out of the way. He always told me to stay out of the way. It was the smart thing to do. But I was reminded often that I wasn’t all that smart.

  I heard a bang before it went silent again. My stomach dropped when I heard my name being yelled. Damn. I knew I forgot something. That text I got and ignored… Layla and I started talking, and I wasn’t even thinking. Then she got upset, and it totally slipped my mind. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wanted to hit myself in the head.

  There was no choice left, so I had to leave my room and answer the call to me. I found the source in the kitchen, just where I knew it would be. I passed the tennis racket on the wall, and I stared anywhere but at the thing that hung there. Finally, I stood in the kitchen, and my mother waited for me.

  “What the hell, Bennett?” she said, hands on her hips. “I asked you to do one damn thing, and you willfully ignore me. It’s like you get off on this or something.”

  I held my hands up and tried to defuse the situation. “I’m so, so sorry. I spaced. I didn’t mean to.”

  She laughed at me, but there was nothing funny about the way she laughed. “I’m sure you forgot all about it. I mean, I texted you and told you to come home and do them, but I can understand why reading the words would make you forget.”

  “I was caught up with Layla. I’m sorry.”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed at me. “So that little whore is more important than your responsibilities here? We let you live here for free. You won’t get a job; you won’t get off your ass for anything. You’re just in your room all day, riding the gravy train, and leeching off of me and your father. But oh—” She waved her hands in the air. “God forbid I ask you to help out around the house.”