Stupid Perfect World

I knew what she was asking, of course. I’d been asking it myself a moment before. But I wasn’t sure how you went from dreams to reality without the magic leaking out—or becoming too wild and powerful.

Truth was, I was kind of scared of Maria these days.

Her stare had grown more intense every day of the project. Here in the darkness of the auditorium she looked ready for one of her prized bouts of insanity. Especially if I said the wrong thing.

“Maria, it’s awesome when you read to me. I love your voice, I don’t think I could go to sleep without it. But I think that…”

“That you only like my voice?” she asked.

“No!” My dreams had gone way beyond Maria’s voice. Images flashed in my mind’s eye, as vivid as memories of real events. But how could I say that out loud? “It’s just that…dreaming can be weird.”

Her breath caught in the dark. “You started dreaming? Since when?”

“Since the first time you read to me,” I said.

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing.”

She leaned closer, her mad eyes flashing. “What’s embarrassing?”

I squirmed in the hard wooden chair, my brain rejecting this collision between dream life and reality. I thought of how Stage 5 sleep makes your eyelids twitch, your hands quiver, and how I woke up every morning with drool on my face. Maybe that was something she’d understand?

Here in the second week, all the projects were getting weird. Barefoot Tillman’s common cold had turned freakish—her eyes were all puffy and red. Strange colors of goo ran out of her nose, and she had to carry around paper towels to collect it. Even Dan Stratovaria—his eyes were milky white and his skin riddled with white veins— steered clear of her. He’d gone blind over the weekend, but had learned to avoid the honking noises Barefoot made.

“Okay, I’ll tell you. But it’s weird.”

“Weird how?”

I swallowed. Did I really want to tell Maria about my drool? “Well, you know how Barefoot—”

“Barefoot Tillman!” she hissed. “You’re dreaming of her!”

“No! I was just—”

“Just using me!” she shrieked. “It’s my voice you go to sleep to every night!” A scream spilled from her lips and through the auditorium. “What am I, some kind of Cyrano de Bergerac for bimbos?”

“No! Um…Cyrano who?”

“You illiterate, pathetic excuse for a rogue! I can’t believe you!”

She leaped from her seat and stormed away up the aisle.

“Maria, wait!” I called. “That’s not what I—”

“Goodbye, Kieran…and have a good night!” she screamed from the exit.

The door slammed behind her, a vast boom echoing through the silent auditorium. As I slumped back into my seat, I realized that stage and audience had been reversed: the assembled cast and crew were staring at me, eyes wide and jaws dropped open.

I leaned my head back, praying that this, too, was a dream.

The silence lingered for a moment, and then a single pair of hands began to clap out a slow beat. It was Ms. Parker perched on the edge of the stage, applauding with a broad smile on her face.

“Take notes, people,” she declared. “Because that was drama!”

Eight

MIDNIGHT WAS ALMOST HERE, and Kieran still hadn’t called.

The bathwater burbled just beneath my nose, its warmth enveloping me, keeping my skin hunger barely in check. I closed my eyes and sank down until its rumble filled my ears, shutting out the deafening silence.

I still couldn’t believe what he’d done, stealing my poetry to dream about Barefoot. And added to his theft was cowardice, hiding the betrayal inside his own subconscious. And he still hadn’t called.

Maybe the rest was silence between us.

I stayed under the water, holding my breath, imagining Kieran’s face when my tragic death by drowning was announced. After my explosion in the auditorium, everyone would realize he’d killed me with his dirty little dreams. I visualized the whole world knowing, my poems found and posthumously broadcast throughout headspace, along with cruel comparisons of my angelic death mask with Barefoot Tillman’s puffy, snot-filled face.

As the fantasy progressed, the oxygen in my lungs ran out, my brain growing fuzzy, my heart thudding harder and harder inside my chest…

…until my bioframe sent me bursting up into the air, sputtering for breath.

“I wasn’t really going to!” I muttered between gasps for air. Stupid perfect world.

I sank back down to shoulder height in the water, the memory of my auditorium outburst twisting in my stomach. All those times I’d imagined going crazy with olden-day emotions, the madness had taken place on a Scottish moor, a high balcony, or in a richly appointed boudoir—never in front of an audience.

Apparently, hormones went hand in hand with humiliation.

I tried to remember what had happened in the fight, exactly when and how everything had gone so wrong. As I’d stormed away, he’d tried to call out something to me, but my brain had been too addled to hear the words.

I thought of all the books I’d read, the stories where letters went missing or were delivered too late or to the wrong person; where pride, prejudice, and accidental judgments tore lovers apart. So what had he said? It would be worth something just to know that Kieran wanted to make things right, if only to throw the explanations back in his face.

Midnight chimed, his sleep-time officially here. I’d set the reminder after that first night, the night of his falling asleep, of my dance in the storm.

Why hadn’t he called?

I groaned with frustration, sinking lower into the water. I’d sworn an oath that I wasn’t going to call him. An oath on my life, which suddenly felt as powerful as the dictates of my bioframe inside me. I’d die for sure if I broke it.

Minutes ticked away. Was he really sleeping without my voice tonight? I lay there fuming, imagining him calling Barefoot and asking her to sneeze and honk him into dreamland. Fat chance. He needed me….

But no way was I calling him. A true heroine never breaks an oath.

His father looked surprised to see me.

“Mr. Black? I’m Maria, a friend of Kieran’s.”

“Oh?” He looked down at my long black dress clinging to wet skin, the water dripping from my hair.

“I’m in his Scarcity class. I need to talk to him. In person.”

“Scarcity class…?” A light went on behind the old man’s eyes, and he smiled. “Oh, yes. I believe he’s mentioned you.”

“Really?”

“Well, not by name.” He chuckled. “But a father notices these things.”

“Things?” I asked. His eyes widened a little, and I resolved to rein in my intensity. “Um, I know he might be asleep, but if I could just see him for a minute…”

“Asleep?” The man said the word like it came from another language. “Actually, he’s not here at the moment.”

I frowned. But it was midnight…and then a beautiful realization took flight in me.

He was too upset! Unable to sleep!