Wake Page 0,21
watching. Even when people talk to me in their dreams, no one seems to remember that part. No one ever mentions it, anyway.”
“I don’t recall ever seeing you there, or talking to you…except when I’m actually dreaming about you,” he muses. “Janie,” he says abruptly. “What if I don’t want you to see it?”
Janie grabs a slice of pizza. “I’m working hard, trying to bust my way out of them—the dreams. I don’t want to be a voyeur—seriously, I can’t help it. It’s almost impossible. So far, anyway. But I’m making a little progress. Slowly.” She pauses. “If you don’t want me to see, I guess, don’t sleep in the same room as me.”
He looks up at her with a sly smile. “But I’m known for sleeping in school. It’s my shtick.”
“You can change your schedule. Or I can change mine. I’ll do whatever you want.” She looks at the uneaten pizza and sets her plate down. She is miserable.
“Whatever I want,” he says.
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid you haven’t been privy to that dream yet.”
She looks at him. He’s looking at her, and she grows warm. “Maybe I’d rather experience that firsthand,” she says lightly.
“Mmmm.” He takes a sip of his soda. “But before this goes offtrack…What the hell is wrong with you?”
She’s silent. Not looking at him.
“And,” he says, “Jesus. It just occurred to me why you freaked when I pretended I wasn’t me. You must be a freaking mess, Hannagan.” He tugs her arm, and she falls back on the couch toward him. He kisses the top of her head. “I can’t begin to tell you how bad I felt about that.”
“It’s cool,” she says. “Sorry about the flagrant foul,” she adds.
“S’all right. I was wearing a cup.” He twirls a strand of her hair with his finger. “So, when do you sleep, like, normally?”
Janie smiles ruefully. “Normally, I sleep fine, if I’m alone in a room. When I was thirteen, I finally asked my mother if she would do me the favor of passing out in her bedroom rather than in here. There’s something about a closed door that blocks it.” She pauses.
“But what happens, exactly?”
She closes her eyes. “My vision goes first. I can’t see around me. I’m trapped. If it’s a bad dream, a nightmare, I guess I start to shake and my fingers go numb first, then my feet, and the worse the nightmare is, the more paralyzed I become.”
He looks at her. “Janie,” he says softly.
“Yes.”
He strokes her hair. “I thought you were dying. You shake, you spasm, your eyes roll back in your head. I was ready to steal the nearest cell phone, stick a wallet in your mouth, and call 911.”
Janie is silent for a long time. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“You’re lying.”
She looks at him. “Yes,” she says. “I suppose I am.”
“Who else knows? Your mother?”
She looks at her plate of uneaten pizza. Shakes her head. “Nobody. Not even her.”
“You haven’t been to a doctor about it or anything?”
“No. Not really. Not for help.”
He throws his hands in the air. “Why?” His voice is incredulous. And then, suddenly, he knows why. “Sorry,” he says.
She doesn’t answer. She’s thinking. Thinking hard.
“You know, nobody’s ever gone there with me, like you did.” Her voice is soft, musing. She gives him a sidelong glance. “I don’t understand that part. How did you get there too?”
“I don’t know. All of a sudden it was like I had two different angles to watch from: one of them as an observer, the other as a participant. Like virtual reality picture-in-picture or something.”
“And don’t even tell me you’d believe a word of this if you hadn’t come through it with me.”
He nods soberly. “You’re right, Hannagan.”
It’s 10:21 p.m. when Cabel says good night at the door. He leans against the frame, and Janie kisses him lightly on the lips.
He hops off the step and starts walking home, but turns back in the driveway. “Hey, can I see you tomorrow night? Sometime around nine or ten?”
She nods, smiling. “I’ll be here. Just let yourself in—Carrie always does too. It’s cool.”
TRUTH OR DARE
October 16, 2005, 9:30 p.m.
It’s Sunday. The house is clean. Janie had the day off. She ran out for groceries in the morning, vacuumed, dusted, washed, polished, shined, and steam-cleaned.
Now, Janie is asleep on the couch.
Cabel doesn’t come.
Or call.
11:47 p.m.
She sighs, clicks off the lamp, and goes to bed, miserable.
October 17, 2005 7:35 a.m.
Janie grabs her backpack and heads out the door. She’s pissed. And hurt. She