by Natalie Lund
“Tell me your dream again,” Peter said, interrupting Israel’s thoughts.
Israel did, trying to tell it as linearly as possible and with more detail, so that it was the story he’d asked for instead of the nightmarish images that hurled at him while he was asleep. Peter blinked rapidly the whole time, like he was fighting back tears.
When he was done, Peter shook his head. “That’s not how it happened,” he said.
Israel’s stomach felt like it dropped to his feet. “What do you mean?” he asked nervously.
“He wasn’t getting medicine for me. I was away at camp. For a whole month. When the accident happened, my grandparents came to pick me up.”
That couldn’t be right. The rush to get medicine was the foundation of the dream. “But maybe you were sick and he was going to mail you a prescription?” Israel sounded stupidly hopeful, yearning almost. Stop it, he told himself.
Peter shook his head. “I never got sick the whole time I was at camp. I’d remember.”
“So would I,” Israel said, more sharply than he intended. This man may have lost his father, but at least he didn’t have to relive the accident every night. He didn’t have to suffocate in his dreams, holding on to the things he loved: his wife and son. “Maybe I could talk to your mom,” he said. “She might remember why your dad was getting medicine.”
“No. Look, you better stay away from her or I really will call the police. She doesn’t like talking about him.” The man took a chip and snapped it aggressively before dropping the pieces back into the basket. “Here’s my theory: I think you came across the story from an old newspaper article or something when you were a kid, and it got, I don’t know, like, stuck inside you somehow.”
Israel tried to remember the first time he’d had the dream, but the memory was fuzzy. It was so long ago. Could it have been something he’d read? But no, that didn’t make sense. “The first time I had the nightmare was before I could even read,” Israel said, but he knew he sounded weak. There weren’t enough shreds of him left to hold up much of a defense.
“Someone told you. Had to be.” Peter brushed his hands together as though the case were closed, and a few small chip crumbs fell onto the tabletop.
“Look,” Israel said, inhaling deeply to steady himself. He had to try again—had to convince this man that it was true. “When I was little, my family tried to come up with every excuse in the book for why I could remember this. But I remember too much, too well. And the accident happened before I was born. While I was being born, actually.” It was Israel’s only ace.
“Okay,” Peter said, but Israel recognized the tone. It was an Izzy kind of okay. Peter wasn’t any closer to believing; he wanted to placate Israel.
“I can’t explain the medicine thing,” Israel said, “but I can promise you that your dad was thinking about you. Your literal names: Peter, Lara, Peter, Lara. It’s how I found you.”
“That’s another thing you got wrong,” Peter said. “My father never thought of me.” He pushed himself out of the booth.
“You’re just going to leave?”
“I don’t owe you anything, kid,” Peter said.
“You haven’t even eaten.” His voice was pleading.
“Lost my appetite. I think it’s best we don’t talk again.” He threw down a few dollars, and nodded a goodbye at Israel. As he opened the door, the bell tinkled above his head, and it felt like too jolly of a sound, because Israel knew that when the glass door swung shut, it closed on his hope, too.
“Are you going to order?” the waitress asked him. Up close, he could tell that her lipstick was bleeding into the fine lines around her mouth.
Israel managed to shake his head and stand. As he opened the door, the bell was quiet. He looked up at it, wondering if he was supposed to make anything of the silence. Maybe Peter was right. Maybe the dreams weren’t actually real. Maybe he wasn’t either.
In the car, he clicked his seat belt into place and felt a ripping sensation in his chest. His body began to rock with silent sobs, the belt tightening against his waist. He slammed his forehead again and again into the steering wheel. There were no tears, but his mouth made wet gasping sounds. What was he thinking? He couldn’t fix a life that had already been lived.Even though he could unbuckle himself and get out of the car, he was trapped—just like Randolph had been.
His phone dinged. It was Izzy.
Are you all right?
Just stop, he texted back. He was about to toss his phone onto the passenger seat, when a notification from Remembered Souls caught his eye.
If Peter wasn’t going to help him make sense of the dream or escape it, there had to be something else Israel could do. There was one last person who might be able to help.
OtherPlanes.
Israel opened a direct message and took a shot.
Hi. You don’t know me, but I’ve been following you on this group for a while. I think I need your help. Please. I can’t keep dying every night in my sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SHANE
Twenty-three days before
SHANE WAS STILL hungover when they returned to the island in the late afternoon. After dropping off Nate, he thought he saw someone—Cass?—seated on the curb by his own mailbox. Was she waiting for him or was it a mirage from all the alcohol sweating out of his body?
It was Cass, though, dressed in warm-up pants and a T-shirt with the sleeves slightly rolled. All the volleyball girls copied Cass’s effortless tuck, filling their school’s hallways with lean, bronzed arms. He had loved this, the way the world seemed to mold itself around her, taking her shape everywhere. Now it would be an endless reminder of her.
She stood when he got out of the car, flattening her hands against her thighs like she was trying to smooth her warm-ups. There were tears welling in the corners of her eyes, and his own eyes stung, as though he were her mirror.
“You weren’t at school.”
The heat made him feel like vomiting, but he knew they had to finish this conversation once and for all. He sat down on the curb where she’d been sitting. She remained standing, blocking the sun, which made him grateful. Her hair was pulled back tight like she wore it for volleyball, stretching the skin across her cheekbones.
“Nate and I went to visit Meg and Aaron,” he said.
“Yeah? You don’t look great,” she said.
“We partied a little hard.”
She lifted her chin as though the news were difficult to hear. He wondered if she could tell he’d kissed someone. “You called last night while I was asleep,” she said.
“Yeah. I mean, I don’t really remember, but I think I wanted to say sorry. For what I said in the cafeteria on Monday,” he said. “That wasn’t okay.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
He looked at her, really looked at her. But for the first time in a long time, he couldn’t read her face. “Why are you here, Cass?”
“I guess I wanted to try to apologize too and see if there’s somewhere for us to go from here.”
Just a few days ago it was the only thing he’d hoped to hear. That she still wanted him. That they could still have another chance. But now . . .
“Come on, Cass. You and I both know that we don’t have a future. You’re going to college, and now I know I’m not.”
“We could do long-distance like we talked about before.” She didn’t sound very confident.
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you really believe that? I mean, no offense, but you couldn’t even do long-distance for a weekend.”
She crossed her arms. “You act like I’ve never been around other guys before.”
“So there was something special about this one?”
“No, that’s—”
“So he wasn’t special?”
“Why are you twisting my words?
It was a mistake. But I don’t want either of us to make the mistake of doing senior year without our best friend.”
“You weren’t and aren’t my best friend, Cass. You were the love of my life. There’s a difference.” Shane closed his eyes to keep the tears in. He had to ask her now, to know the truth. “Did you know that I—” It was hard to say the words. “I struggle with reading. Did you know that?”
He reopened his eyes. Her shoulders and chin had dropped. She looked terribly old, like her face had been carved out of ancient wood. “Yeah,” she finally said.
“If you knew, why didn’t you try to help me?”
He could tell she knew she could have done something more: talked to his parents or a teacher at school. Sure, he may have hated her for it and they may have broken up then, but, also, he wouldn’t be staring into this black hole of a future.
“I tried to help you study and do homework all the time,” she said.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
She wiped her face on the edge of her T-shirt, revealing a stretch of her abdomen that he still wanted to touch more than anything. “Before this, I’ve never seen you unhappy. In all the years we’ve known each other. The happiness, the confidence, the easygoing everything’s-all-right attitude, it lulls people into thinking everything actually is all right.”
He was silent. What was there to say? Shame is heavy? It binds you?
“You have to take the mask off once in a while. Let people see deeper. And that’s something only you can do.” She took a shuddering breath. “The question you really need to be asking, Shane, is why you didn’t ask for help.”
She was right, of course, but it was all too late. It didn’t matter anymore. It was easier to blame her for his failure than to turn the mirror on himself. He stood, brushing the gravel off his pants, ready to draw the final line between them, to cleave off the piece of himself that was left.
“Cass,” he said, and took a deep breath. “It’s time for us to say goodbye.” And he meant goodbye to all five years. Goodbye to his best love. To a body he knew as well as his own. To that first kiss that peeled him from the inside out. To laughter, ringing through a new house.
Cass left without a word.
JANIE’S NOTEBOOK
THE EULOGY I WANTED TO WRITE
HOW COULD YOU?
How could you ignore me for years?
How could you hurt your mom like that?
How could you let me walk away at the party?
How could you leave after you saw how my mom leaving destroyed me?
How could you kiss me like it meant something?
How could you see magic through all the mud?
How could I?
How could I put up with years of you ignoring me?
How could I pretend like it was all okay?
How could I be too scared to say I love you?
How could I keep whatever was happening to you a secret?
How could I walk away at the party?
How could I miss everything you were telling me?
How could we?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
JANIE
Five days after
IZZY IS LEANING over the bow. Cass grips her by the life vest straps. We’re all probably thinking about the navy training accident where the older brother of a girl in our grade fell in and was struck by the boat. Did his family think he’d become a dolphin too?
I cut the motor, feeling nauseated from fear and seasickness. “There’s no way I’m moving until you sit,” I say, knowing that I sound like a parent.
As the boat drifts and loses momentum, the dolphins disappear farther away in the green depths, probably off to find a more exciting boat.
“Why did you do that?” Izzy shouts. “Speed up. We’re losing them.” Her eyes are wide in desperation, and she’s shuddering violently like she’s cold, shaking the boat with her.
“We can’t keep racing them,” Cass says, and pulls Izzy toward her. She combs her hair out of her face. The tenderness of the gesture makes me ache. It’s something my mother would have done. She was always sweeping my hair aside and tucking it behind my ears, before running her finger down my nose and touching the tip with a boop.
After she left, it took me a whole year of slamming locker doors and snapping at people who stared to feel ready to talk to my mom. By the end of that year, I still had Nate—outside of school, anyway—I’d made friends with Marisol, and I’d discovered pot. I’d begun to feel sturdier, to sleep, and to rebound with my grades and teachers at school. So I told my dad that I’d talk to her if he promised to be there the entire time.
“Janie?” she said when he handed me the phone. Hearing her voice peeled the scar tissue off, and I started to silently sob.
“Janie?” she said again. There was doubt in her voice, fear, too, like it was all a cruel joke.
“She’s there,” my dad said in the background, loudly enough for her to hear. “Just talk.”
So she did, and I listened. She told me about the rabbits who were getting to her vegetable garden, a gym she was trying, and her newly adopted cat, Beauregard.
We still haven’t seen each other in person, but we do this once a week now, her talking and me mostly listening. When she asks me questions, I stumble over the words, as though I can’t remember what order they go in. But each time she says my name, the wound hurts a little less.
“Janie.” It’s Cass’s voice now. “Hello?”
“What?” The minute the word is out I realize I snapped, and shake my head in apology. “Sorry.”
“Take us back,” she says. “Please.”
I nod. Izzy has collapsed onto one of the benches. Her hair is wild from the wind, and the life vest—the blue one intended for my mom—makes her look small. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve seen her.
“How do we get them back?” she asks. Her voice is small now too. “They figured out how to do this. There must be a way to undo it.”
I pause, thinking a moment. She clearly needs to believe this but also to accept that they’re gone. “Maybe they don’t want to come back?” It comes out like a question. Cass shoots me a look that says: not you, too.
I’m not saying I believe her, but it is nicer to think that Nate is beneath the waves than to think of him in a coffin. If there’s anything I’ve learned from growing up in my family—and from my relationship with Nate—it’s that there’s a lot we can’t see. I thought that my parents’ fights were normal, that all families had resentments simmering between them. I didn’t notice the rift until we were tumbling into it.
Izzy starts crying, her eyes squeezed tight, her mouth stretched into a dramatic, downward arch, her whole body heaving. Cass strokes Izzy’s back. I don’t understand how someone so generous and patient with Izzy can be so short with me. I’m not sure what I ever did to her. I’m not sure why I put up with it either, but somehow, it’s become a habit. Putting up with unkind things because I want something for myself—Nate’s attention and love, Cass’s kindness and adoration, Izzy’s sharpness and bravery.
I take us back to the dock. Theo spots us from the bait shop and comes out.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks as we climb out of the boat.
Izzy looks at him fiercely, setting her jaw, and I recognize the expression from my own past. She could explode, a flurry of fists and insults.
“Nate said that the ocean is magic,” I say. Cass looks irritated and Theo appears puzzled, but the statement interrupts Izzy, who swivels toward me with an energy that makes me unsure if I’m about to join her pack or be hunted myself.
“That was in Aaron’s eulogy,” she says. “But what does it mean?”
This makes me stammer because I don’t know. I liked to go to the ocean because he loved it and I wanted to be with him.
I shrug weakly, and just like that, her attention flits away. It feels like the sun going behind a cloud.
I drop Izzy off first. She doesn’t say anything to Cass or me when she gets out of the car. Simply stands and faces her house like she needs to power up before she goes in.
“Why do you think they did it?” I ask Cass as we drive away.
“I think—” She falls quiet, and I steal a glance. Her eyes are wet with tears. “I think I hurt Shane enough that he didn’t care anymore.”
It’s so honest that my truth spills out: “We were close. Nate and me. No one really knew.”
I expect her to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” she says like she believes me. “Why didn’t anyone know?”
“I don’t know,” I say, because I can’t say, He was ashamed of our friendship. I’m awkward and weird-looking and even my own mother doesn’t love me enough to stay.
“Nate could be—insecure,” she says. “He needed to be sarcastic to protect himself. It was part of his foundation almost, right alongside being popular and good at soccer.”
“And I don’t fit in with that.” I imagine my tissue pulling away from my muscles, my muscles unwrapping themselves from my skeleton, revealing bleached dry bone. It hurts to be this bare.
She’s silent again, and I know this is an acquiescence. There were times that first year where I wondered if I had it wrong, if our conditional friendship was Nate giving me a sort of grace to be a wild person at school and someone different at home. But maybe I wouldn’t have punched walls if I’d had him helping me at school in the first place.
“I know who taught them to fly—the guy whose plane they stole,” she says. “I saw the pilot’s name on Israel’s iPad.” She pauses, and I can tell she’s deciding something. “Do you want to go with me to talk to him?”
“What about Izzy?”
