“J.J., wait! I’m sorry,” Alec called from behind me. I could hear his feet slapping against the pavement of the parking lot as he chased after me.
I didn’t stop nor did I say anything. This was all just a big shock for me. It felt like my brain was numb with this new information. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it!
“J.J.!” Suddenly, Alec appeared in front of me, walking backwards in the same direction as me. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
I wanted to say “No, duh, Sherlock,” but instead I said, “I want to go home.”
Alec took in a deep sigh. “Fine. I’ll take you home.”
He and I were silent as we crawled into the Mom Van and rode back to my house. I kept my gaze anywhere besides Alec. I didn’t even say good-bye to him before I climbed out of his vehicle and hurried up to my front door.
And I definitely did not look back before I slipped inside.
Chapter 8
The house was dark when I slipped inside, locking the door behind me. There was no sound, so I figured Dad was asleep in his room.
I walked through the kitchen, only stopping once to watch Alec pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street before I headed to my room. I flipped on the light, kicked my door shut, and pulled my dress off over my head. I slipped out of my undergarments and quickly changed into my pajamas before shutting off the light and diving under the covers of my bed. All I wanted to do was forget about this night: forget about Lindsay dancing with Alec; forget about Lindsay dumping her juice on me; forget about Alec kissing me… I just wanted to forget about everything.
But sleep didn’t come to me.
My brain was still set on overdrive, thinking about the events that had happened tonight. Why was Lindsay so nice to Alec but so mean to me? And why would Alec kiss me? I mean, we’re best friends–err, before he kissed me, anyway. Why would he risk our relationship like that?
I groaned and tossed over to my side, pinching my eyes close. Go to sleep, J.J. Remember, the sooner you get to sleep, the sooner you can go on rides and forget about this crappy night.
But sleep still didn’t come. Instead, my brain kept showing me images from tonight like slides in a View Master. I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, willing those images to go away.
But they still didn’t go away.
Groaning in frustration, I kicked off my blanket, crawled out of bed, and shuffled out of my room in the direction of the bathroom. Inside, I opened the mirror cabinet and took out the bottle of ZzzQuil. I measured myself a dose of the dark purple liquid then threw it back, downing it in one swallow. I made a face as the medicine ran down my throat before I rinsed out the cap and recapped the bottle. I walked back to my room, and by the time I crawled back under my blanket, I was already becoming drowsy.
* * *
“Ready?”
I looked at Reve, not being more relieved to see him than I was right now. I marched past him and into the shimmering gold portal, ignoring his outstretched hand.
The sensation of soft falling rain fell over me before I was looking at my distorted reflection in the fun house mirror. I turned right and followed the path to the fairgrounds.
“Is everything alright, Jaqueline?” Reve asked telepathically. I could sense him right behind me as I hurried through the spinning thing, and down the metal steps to the paved walkway.
“No, everything is wrong,” I replied, making my way toward the Ferris wheel. Maybe if I go high enough, I could leave all my problems in the sky.
“Care to talk?”
“Not much to talk about unless you want to talk about how Lindsay Fischer is a total bitch and how my best friend just kissed me.” I couldn’t help my voice from coming out as a growl. I was just so ticked.
“Seems like you had a rough night,” Reve noted.
I wanted to say a snarky comment like “No duh, Captain Obvious,” but I held my tongue. Reve was just trying to be nice. “You could say that.”
“Hey, want me to tell you something that might make you feel a little better?” Reve asked, matching my pace.
“Yes. Please, I need to hear something good.” We got in line for the Ferris wheel, which was glowing with lightbulbs in every color of the rainbow.
“You know we don’t have to stay here, right?” Reve looked at me, his amethyst eyes watching me.
“Really?” I locked my eyes with his.
He nodded. “Yeah. If you want to go somewhere else, all you have to do is close your eyes and imagine the place you want to be. It can be anywhere; from the Great Wall of China to something totally made up.”
For some reason, that information did make me feel a little better. It meant I didn’t have to wallow in my anger while everyone else around me was having fun not worrying about a bully or your best friend since childhood kissing you, breaking your friendship bond.
“So, do you want to stick around here or is there some place else you have in mind?” Reve asked, his voice lower than before.
Inhaling a breath of deep-fried-scented air, I replied, “Somewhere else.”
“Take my hand and imagine where you want to go,” Reve instructed. He offered me his hand.
“Okay.” I carefully took his hand, wrapping my fingers lightly around his, and despite the soft breeze in the air, his hand was warm and comforting in mine. Closing my eyes, I imagined a place where Reve and I would be alone to hang out and not have to worry about happy people.
Then, I felt the sensation of soft rain brushing against my skin as I imagined that special place.
“Wow.”
At the sound of Reve’s voice in my head, I opened my eyes and saw exactly the place I had imagined. Clouds billowed around us everywhere, looking like fuzzy cotton balls. The sky was a solid midnight-blue and a large silvery-white moon sat breathtakingly in the midst of diamond-like stars, casting a silver hue around us.
“Throughout all the years I’ve been a dream, I’ve never been in a place like this,” Reve said, dropping his hand from mind. “Most people imagine the Bahamas or Paris or someplace extravagant like that.”
“Well, I’m not like most people.” I settled down on a cloud, crossing my legs together. I played with a tuff of the white cloud as Reve sat down across from me, crossing his own long legs.
“I know.” We sat in silence for a moment before he ventured, “So, want to tell me everything that made you want to come here so bad tonight?”
I didn’t know what made me do it, but I opened my mouth and spilled everything that had happened to me tonight, from the time Alec picked me up in his mom van to the moment he dropped me back off at my house. Maybe it was because I felt so comfortable around Reve. For the few days we’ve known each other, we’ve seemed to have grown closer. Like friends. Which was weird since the first time I saw him, I nearly peed my pants–if that could happen in a dream. But all the while I talked, Reve just sat there, listening and absorbing my words. He didn’t talk nor judge. It felt like a breath of fresh air.
“So you don’t know why this Lindsay girl doesn’t like you?” Reve asked once I was all finished.
I dropped the piece of cloud that I had been playing with while I spoke and looked up. “No. She just hates me. Always has, and most likely, always will.”
“Well, she just can’t hate you without a reason,” Reve said.
“Well, if there is one, then I have no idea what it is.”
“Shall we take a look?” Reve held up a hand and swung all his fingers into his palm. A tuff of cloud that sat between us swirled and took form in a shape of a small movie screen.
“What is that?” I asked. I mean, I knew it was a silk screen, but what was it for?
“We are going to find out why this Lindsay girl hates you so much,” he replied.
“We can really do that?” I scooted closer to the screen and looked into it, but saw nothing.
“Yes.”
Finally I could get some answers. Turning to look at Rev
e, I asked, “So how does this work?”
“Stare at the screen and ask it the question you wish to know answers for.”
Okay. Sounded simple enough. Shifting so I sat on my knees, I stared at the white canvas of the movie screen, silently asking it, Can you show me why Lindsay Fischer hates me?
At first, nothing happened, and doubt started to creep through me like a poisonous gas. But then colors started to blossom across the screen. Blues and greens and browns. Suddenly an image of a younger Lindsay–one who appeared to be thirteen–sat on a park bench with a boy who looked to be the same age with brown hair and brown eyes. He looked distinctly familiar, but I don’t remember from where or when. Turning back to Lindsay, I saw tears glisten in her eyes.
“So what are you saying?” Young Lindsay asked as she brushed back a strand of auburn hair. I remembered her doing that to her hair back in middle school.
“I’m saying that things aren’t working out between us,” the boy replied.
“How aren’t they?” Lindsay asked, turning to look at him. “Things are perfect between us.”
“You’re too full of yourself, Linds,” the boy replied. Suddenly, I remembered. The last person to call Lindsay “Linds” was Steven Crowley before he broke up with Lindsay and moved away a couple of months later. “Maybe if you were more like Jaqueline Morris, things would be different.”
“Jaqueline Morris?” Lindsay frowned. “Jaqueline Morris: dark hair, blue eyes, the girl who hangs out with Alec Griswald?”
Steven nodded. He and Alec had been friends, so I had been sort of in their loop, being Alec’s friend.
“Jaqueline Morris!” Young Lindsay jumped up from the bench and turned to face Steven, her back toward me, so I couldn’t see her facial expression, but I could guess that it was a very pissed-off look. “What does Jaqueline have that I don’t have?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Steven said, his voice calm but holding a hint of stress.
“Then what?! Tell me! Tell me what you like so much about Jaqueline rather than me,” Lindsay demanded, her voice rising. It caught the attention of a few people who were passing by.
“Well, for one thing, she doesn’t overreact like you’re doing right now,” Steven replied. “And she doesn’t pretend to be something that she’s not.”
“Uh!” She threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. “I can’t believe this. You would rather date a girl like Jaqueline Morris then me!”
“I never said that,” Steven said, standing up abruptly from the bench.
“Uh, yeah, you practically did.” Young Lindsay shook her head and turned away from him. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this.”
“Well, Linds, I… I have to go. My mom will kill me if I’m not home by four.” Steven took a few steps away from Lindsay, a look of discomfort on his face.
“Don’t ever call me ‘Linds’ again,” Lindsay growled, whipping her head to look at him.
Then the image on the movie screen faded into white nothingness.
“So that’s why Lindsay hates me?” I said leaning back from the silk screen. I turned to look at Reve. “Because one of her boyfriends said he’d rather date a girl like me?” The whole thing was kind of stupid. Just because Steven would have rather went out with a girl like me instead of her is no reason to act like a bitch toward me. I mean, it wasn’t something that I could have controlled.
“I guess so,” Reve replied, his voice monotone.
For a moment after that, Reve and I sat in comfortable silence. He had made the movie screen go away as I played with more strands of cloud, and with my imagination, colored the tuffs cotton candy pink and blue before turning them back to their natural white.
“So why didn’t you want to go to the dance?” Reve finally asked, breaking the silence. When I looked up at him, I saw him molding tuffs of cloud into a white horse reared back on its hind legs. When he caught me watching him, he mushed up his creation and let it fall from his hands.
“I don’t know.” I raised my shoulders and looked down at my fingernails that I had painted with a light blue nail polish called “Havana Dreams” before the dance. “I don’t like buying dresses. They never have anything that I want, and they’re always so expensive. And the gymnasium is so cheesy with the Christmas lights and the crappy DJ. No one ever really dances excepts for the weirdos or the popular girls, and when they do, all they do is jump up and down. And personally? I don’t consider that dancing.”
“If you could have had the dance however way you’d want, what would it be?”
“Hmm…” If I could have had the dance however I wanted, what would it be?
Closing my eyes, I imagined myself in a long gray-purple dress that would flutter in the slightest of breezes, my long ebony hair in cascading waves. I imagined myself in the same place as I was now with all the clouds and the giant moon, but I imagined the stars brighter so they shined like planets. And just for fun, I imagined Reve in a black suit with a matching gray-purple tie and flower for his breast pocket, instead of his violet V-neck T-shirt and dark jeans.
“Hey.”
When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t help the giggles that escaped from me. Reve looked so unnatural in his suit and tie, but at the same time, he looked incredibly gorgeous. I couldn’t control my quickened heartbeat.
“Wow, Jaqueline.” Reve’s eyes roamed over me, reminding me of my transformation. “You look… Wow.”
I looked down at myself and a piece of wavy hair fell forward. I pushed it back and focused on my dress that billowed out around me. Standing up, I got a better view of my dress and nearly smiled. It was exactly how I’d imagined it to be.
“Would you care to dance?” Reve asked, standing up.
“There’s no music,” I stated.
Reve gave me a look that said, “This is your dream. Imagine it.”
“Oh.” I blushed, feeling stupid. I closed my eyes and imagined songs composed by famous eighteenth century composers such as Bach and Mozart and Beethoven. Suddenly Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue” in D minor, sounded around us, filling up the night sky.
“Care to dance, milady?” Reve asked in a fake British accent. He bowed, swinging his arm in a quick circle before bowing his head. The whole ordeal made me giggle again.
“It would be my pleasure, kind sir,” I teased back. I lifted the sides of my dress as I did a little curtsey.
When Reve and I both stood back up, we took a step closer to one another, then another, and another until we were standing not even an inch apart. I pressed my lips together in a nervous gesture as I placed one hand in his and used the other to hold up my dress. He placed his free hand on my waist. Being this close, without the scent of deep-fried food, I could smell his scent: warm summer nights.
We were silent as we started to dance to the music, and not just the back and forth thing that Alec and I did back at the school dance, but actually dance. Like waltzing. Something that I had never thought I could do.
But it seemed like here, in the Land of Dreams, anything could happen.
“You look amazing,” Reve said, his voice low, but audible over the music.
I couldn’t help the color that crawled onto my cheeks. I looked away, hoping that I could hide my face. “Thank you.”
“So, this is how you would have it if you could have had the dance your way?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I looked back at Reve, feeling that my cheeks were cool enough not to be considered tomatoes, and looked up into his face. I could feel my heartbeat launch into overdrive as I let my eyes roam over his face; his white-blond hair that was just long enough to fall against his forehead, his amethyst-colored eyes, his ski-sloped nose, and his smooth, clean jawline. For a second, my eyes flew to his lips, and for the briefest of seconds, I wondered what it would be to kiss them.
“It’s just a dream,” Reve whispered, his voice slightly hoarse inside my head, as if he had read my mind. “You can do whatever you wish.”
Just a
dream. It wouldn’t hurt anyone. It wouldn’t have any consequences. It’s just a silly, little dream.
“Jaqueline,” he breathed, bowing his head down to mine.
I closed my eyes and leaned forward, pressing my lips gently against his. They were warm and soft and I couldn’t help but want a little more.
It was just a little dream, anyway.
Part II
“Strange, I thought, how you can
be living your dreams and your nightmares
at the very same time.”
Ransom Riggs, “Hollow City”
Chapter 9
I could barely look at Alec on Monday without replaying the kiss in my head, followed by a guilty feeling of kissing Reve. I knew the guilt was because I would rather have kissed Reve, who was a figment of my imagination, who I had met only a few days ago, instead of Alec, a real person, who had liked me for who knows how long. So that was why I avoided him as much as I could Monday morning. That was until lunch, anyway.
“J.J.!” Alec called as I made a beeline toward the front door for open campus. “Hey, wait up.”
I ignored him. I didn’t think I could handle talking to him without having a guilty feeling in my chest.
J.J., there’s no need to feel guilty. It was just a dream! Nothing happened. Not really anyway.
“J.J.” When I stepped out into the cool autumn air, Alec rushed in front of me, stopping me in my tracks. He placed his hands on my shoulders, stopping me from moving away. “We need to talk.”
I opened my mouth, ready to say something snarky when a voice interrupted me, sending chills to tiptoe up and down my spine.
“Jaqueline Marie Morris!”
I turned slowly at the sound of my whole name, and saw my mom in a bright teal dress that hugged her frame, her matching heels clicking against the pavement as she came toward me.
The Land of Dreams Page 5
