We Awaken (5 page)

This was turning into a bit of a crisis.

Eventually the garage door opened, and I heard the faint sound of a car engine as my mother pulled out of the driveway and onto the main street. I threw my comforter off and slumped out of the plush haven, not even bothering to make the bed afterward.

A carnation was drying on my bedside table.

The first order of business would be to don my bathrobe and go to the kitchen where I would sit around for a ridiculous amount of time drinking tea, and after that luxury was complete, I intended to think about the day and what it would hold for me. I went about my missions.

The tea was strong, and I added too much sugar to counteract that, yet drank the whole pot while staring into our small rectangle of a backyard. It hadn’t rained in days, and the flowers were wilting.

Without even bothering to put on shoes, I abandoned the tea and stepped out onto the lawn to start watering the plants in my pajamas and bathrobe, grateful that there was a marginally tall fence surrounding the property. The roots greedily accepted what dripped and sputtered out of our hose, and I doused them accordingly, maybe even too much. This time of the year was always nice; all of the flowers were already in the earth and the only thing left was to provide them with sustenance. The small patch of carnations caught my eye, and as I focused on a white one, my mind began wandering back to Ashlinn.

She seemed like such an affectionate person. Couldn’t we just stick to that? Going further was something I’d managed to put off for all of high school, and I wasn’t too keen to break that record yet. She seemed to be offering me her adoration, but what she’d want in return was troubling. This wasn’t something that happened to people like me; it’s something that happened in movies.

I had had the same thoughts over a year ago when the police officer showed up at the door, but this situation was much more amenable.

That day passed in the way so many had before it, except there was no schoolwork taking up the first six hours of my consciousness. I practiced my dance for ages and, when not doing that, pretended I knew how to cook. In the afternoon I began preparing my portfolio for the audition, filling a manila folder with my alarmingly white résumé and ten-dollar headshot.

After Mother returned home and made dinner, we watched TV until I made my exit for the night. She made no comment about how she didn’t have to force me into bed for once in her life. I went willingly, with the foolish hope that Ashlinn would return to sate my curiosity, and my hopes were somewhat achieved.

When the dream began, it seemed as if I was already in the middle of a conversation. Blue light and glass surrounded me, but there was little time to notice this. Ashlinn was walking, and I was right alongside her.

“So you were talking about auditions. Where are you trying to go to college?”

She spoke as if we had been discussing the matter for hours beforehand. I stared at her, elusive and ethereal, as my feet carried me along. I wished to link my arm through hers. Contact was definitely a craving, but what else? I tried to imagine going further, doing the things that Ellie often spoke of, but felt nothing. There wasn’t revulsion, but a distinct disinterest. After a few seconds, I realized she had asked a question and I tried to get back on track.

“I have an audition with the Manhattan Dance Conservatory in something like ten days. Mother’s gonna drive me up to the city. If I don’t get in, I’m screwed.”

“Can’t you go to a different college? You must have a fallback. Who plans only one audition?”

This was the same question my guidance counselor had asked me. Figuring my lack of desire to do anything to further myself recently wouldn’t go over well as an excuse, I dragged out the same thing I told school personnel.

“It’s the only decent one I’d be able to afford. There’s good financial aid, and it’s close enough to home that Mother won’t be completely abandoned. If I don’t get in, there’s always community college, which isn’t too bad. I mean, lots of people from school go, and they won’t be turning me down for my crappy SATs, but they don’t offer degrees in the arts. I’m not good at much else apart from dancing, so I don’t know what I’ll do if this doesn’t work out.”

“If the ballet I saw is anything to go by, I think you have more than a fair chance.”

We were walking closer now, with arms brushing occasionally, and I finally began to observe the room around us. There were great glass windows stretching up into infinity and behind them, a rainbow. Coral spread out across the floor like a turgid garden, and fish darted about among them, painting the water with their streaked scales.

“An aquarium?” I asked, forgetting the fears of the previous moment.

She hummed in acquiescence.

“It’s hard not to like an ocean you can walk through without drowning.”

A dolphin was beginning to careen its way through the water, and I ran up to the glass.

“It’s so peaceful. Do you think they’re happy?”

Her voice came from behind me. “They aren’t real.”

“Spoilsport. Even if they aren’t real you still are.” I turned back to her and leaned against the tank.

“I am not imaginary, but I could be lying in saying that. It might just be your brain making up these words and me along with them.”

My head was shaking before she had even finished her sentence.

“We already covered the fact that I’m not good for much apart from dancing. I’m not creative or smart, and I definitely couldn’t have thought up someone like you. Besides, you let me have the flower. I think you want me to believe.”

“While I can’t disagree with that, I can say that you are wrong about your intelligence. Dancing is very creative and few people would be smart enough to figure out that this is all real. You, my dear, simply can’t be restricted by letters on a report card.”

Is it possible to blush in a dream? I hope not because I would have been the winner of a Hellboy look-alike contest. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. In school negative remarks were as common as my poor grades, and even at home my parents had always been harsh about schoolwork. Now my mother was harsh about nothing because she wasn’t enthusiastic about anything either. The strange thing was, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get used to Ashlinn’s kindness. Being pleasantly surprised nightly wasn’t a bad thing.

Once again I turned away from Ashlinn so she wouldn’t see how much her kind words had affected me, but she seemed to sense something was amiss. I was in the middle of a staring contest with a deflated puffer fish when her apparitional fingers grabbed my shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

How could I tell her that something was changing? She held the key to those dusty cabinets of my mind, and doors were flinging open left and right. I didn’t feel obliged to mince words or talk around everything anymore. Maybe it was her and the dream state compelling me to be more open. Maybe I had finally found someone I trusted enough to be open with, even so early in our relationship.

“Nothing. I just really like you is all, and I don’t see how that could ever work out.”

I could practically feel her unasked questions and decided to save her the pain.

“Obviously you know I’m a lesbian,” I began, not meeting her eyes. “You are in my head after all, and that fact hasn’t been particularly kind to me.”

She was staring at me.

“Actually I didn’t know you were a lesbian.”

Shit.
I stuttered through excuses.

“Oh God, I shouldn’t have told you that. Please don’t leave forever. I know it’s only the third time we’ve seen each other and I should be a bit more freaked out with you being in my head and all, but it’s less lonely with you up there.” It was like the constricting car ride with Ellie all over again.

She cut me off with a placating gesture.

“I’m not leaving forever. You know I can only see happy memories. Those are what good dreams are composed of. Obviously you aren’t exactly proud of your sexuality because that doesn’t make the cut of pleasant things in your mind. What happened to you?”

I still feared scaring her away but remembered the way she had been flirting with me if that’s what it really was. We were past the point of no return already, so I might as well keep going.

“Whenever I imagined my future, growing up and getting married, for some reason I always pictured a woman. It was just how my mind worked. It was always a wife. I tried to look at guys and will them to be hot, but it didn’t happen, not that it really happened much with girls either. I mean, I can tell when someone is attractive and I appreciate it, but I’ve yet to grasp the whole sexiness thing, but that’s whatever. So once I told Ellie about the whole wife thing, ’cause that’s what you do, isn’t it? Talk through your sexuality crises with friends? I only got about a sentence in when she just said ‘That means you’re a lesbian,’ and I went along with it. I mean, she’s right, isn’t she?”

I looked up imploringly at Ashlinn. Her hand, which had been resting on my shoulder, fell away. I felt the shame begin creeping up in earnest, but my soul was saved when her fingers returned and laced in mine. My eyebrows were raised and my mouth was wide open, but she just nodded with an understanding expression.

“You know your sexuality isn’t set in stone. There are more things than just gay or straight. It might be time you start exploring those.”

“Wish you coulda told her that.”

“Maybe I will one day. Now I’m not so sure how I feel about this friend who forces lesbianism upon people. She always seemed cool to me. I’m disappointed.”

The thought of her meeting Ellie didn’t have a place in my mind. They were as different as two people could be. Ashlinn was ice where Ellie was fire. They were lace panties to boxer shorts, Easter to Halloween.

“I promise she’s not all that bad. She thrives on social justice and defending minorities and all that. We were actually best friends for, well, ever. At each other’s houses every weekend growing up. We only stopped being so damn close a year ago.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve been pushing people away.”

“Well I’m not pushing you away.”

As I said those words, I realized how true they were. Ashlinn was the first person I had made an effort with in ages, and it took me that long to even notice. I wanted to talk to her; she was an explosion in a silent film, subdued yet powerful. Realizing my words, I began talking again.

“And she was always a bit too intense for me anyway. We stopped fitting together so well once we made it to high school. Losing Dad and Reeves was just the clincher.”

“Intense?” Ashlinn asked, although I’m not sure if she was really as intrigued in the subject manner as she was pretending to be.

“Yeah. I mean, one time last year, she went missing. Her parents got the police involved and everything. They hunted for an entire day. Turns out she had seen this rally for vegetarianism or something online and decided to drive to Texas and help them. She did this in the middle of the night without telling anyone. They found her asleep in her car in a Walmart parking lot the next day. She had gotten all the way to western Pennsylvania.”

“And she’s still free to do things?”

“Her parents could care less as long as her grades stay so fantastic.”

I tried to school the jealousy out of my tone. Not only did Ellie have parents plural, but Yale-worthy test scores.

“They’re probably to blame for making her a revolutionary, anyway. Doesn’t mean you should ignore her, though.”

“Yeah, just give me time.”

“Fine. I’ll give it to you now because if you’ve noticed, you’re starting to wake up.”

As she said this, the tanks began to go foggy, as if they were frosting over. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll be seeing you again sometime.”

But I still know so little about you and Reeves! Please, I want to talk. You’re wonderful.

And as she blew me a kiss good-bye, the tanks exploded into a rush of water around her before I jerked awake, remembering everything.

IF MY
life were a movie, I would have shot up straight in bed and screamed, “Holy crap!”

I would have begun writing everything down and tried to tell my friends.

But my life wasn’t a movie, so instead I stared at the ceiling with eyes wide open in more ways than one. A life with as many complications as
The Twilight Zone
just got that much more confusing.

It was over a week until the next time I saw Ashlinn in my dreams. That time was mostly spent either in a garden or in ballet slippers, easy ways to occupy my body as my mind wandered back to the girl of my dreams and I pretended I wasn’t lonely. I finally finished choreographing all ninety seconds of my dance, though.

Once I flooded a pot when trying to water some marigolds because I was thinking of how much higher in pitch her giggle was from her usual low voice. Another instance found me stuck in a split staring at my own reflection for God knows how long, dwelling on when she called our second meeting a date. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so fearful of telling her my sexuality. It almost seemed as if she felt the same way I did. Well, apart from the wariness in regard to a lot of things I had yet to explore and didn’t feel the urge to. That whole “sexuality isn’t set in stone” speech was nice, but I had to be a lesbian. I was sitting around wishing to hold the hand of someone who was definitely female.

A relationship was something I never had or particularly wanted before this, but she almost seemed worth giving it a try. Whenever I made up my mind to tell her how I was beginning to feel, there’d be a few minutes of brave bliss before the crushing realization that we could only be together in my sleep. How does one go about proposing a relationship with someone they only see in their subconscious?

Some nights, like after my weekly visit with Dad, I found myself sleepless. That would be angering enough on its own, but having blown an opportunity to have maybe seen her made it so much worse. Waking each morning trying to remember a dream that didn’t happen was starting to drive me even more insane than before.