My jaw dropped. “Did you just shush me after I said the word k—”
He turned away and charged into the nothingness. Again. And ran into a barrier. Again.
I walked over to Caleb, trying to care as I looked at him sprawled next to my sneakers, but he kind of deserved it this time.
He looked up at me with a half-dazed expression on his face. “So much for my original theory.”
“Well, I kind of tried to tell you that.”
He scrambled into sitting position, his legs crossing. “But this…” He gestured at me and the space that he’d run into a moment ago. “This opens up a new possibility. I mean, everything seems a lot more real here than in a dream. Look at your hands,” he said, grabbing the one closest to him, and pulling me down into a crouch. “See the uneven cuticles? And where you bit off your pinkie nail? I never see that amount of detail in dreams. That’s kind of why I thought it meant that I might be breaking out of this coma.”
“Again, this isn’t your—”
“And the physical rules surrounding this place are connected to you and your position—like you’re the epicenter of this,” he said, waving his hands at the fluffy white stuff.
“Well, it is my—”
“And I know it isn’t just your dream because that would make me a figment of your imagination, which I’m not, because this is me thinking so therefore I am and all that.”
I thought about Kate again. Could this really be Caleb after all?
I swallowed, wanting to believe it, but freaked out at the same time. What if this wasn’t just some dream? What did that mean? And what would that make me?
I squished that thought as soon as I had it. This was just a really cool, messed up dream I was having because I almost lost my brother, and I’d just found out my dad was dead. Subconsciouses did weird stuff all the time. This was no different.
“So, what is this then?” dream-Caleb continued, “And how are you causing it?” he asked, staring around at the fog.
“How am I…” I wanted to pull my hair out of my head. “Caleb, I am dreaming. This is what people do when they dream. Make. Weird. Stuff. Happen.”
Caleb studied me for a moment. “Maybe you’re somehow pulling my subconscious into your subconscious.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “And maybe we should actually talk because even if I’m pulling you into my subconscious, it’s probably for a reason.”
He tilted his head, considering. “That’s a good point. This is only the second time you’ve done this, but both times you’ve been upset. Maybe when your emotions are very strong—”
I cleared my throat as loud as I possibly could without damaging anything.
“What were you thinking about before—”
I cleared my throat again.
“I just—”
“You promised,” I said.
“You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry.” Caleb held his hands up in surrender. “The ‘how’ can wait.”
“There is no how, it’s a…” I shook my head. “Never mind. So, can we talk now?”
“Yeah, I’ll be good.”
I eyed him.
“I promise,” he said.
“Kay.” I plopped down beside him and cleared my throat. “Deena called me today, and—”
“Wait, the caseworker, right? Southern accent, likes to knit?”
I gave him a look. “Yeah to the southern accent, but how’d you come up with knitting?” I asked, settling into our pretend conversation.
Caleb shrugged. “Nobody knows what to say to someone in a coma. Sometimes they read books, sometimes they talk about the handbag they’re knitting.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“So, Deena called you,” Caleb prompted.
“Yeah,” I said. I fidgeted with my fingers instead of looking at Caleb. “You were right. Deena said she died from a drug overdose—just like Dad said.”
I shook my head because it didn’t make sense. When Dad had told us five years ago, I had known he was lying—just like I always knew when someone wasn’t telling the truth. But maybe it was a lie that had become true.
Caleb sighed and put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer, “I’m sorry, Kella. I know you thought he was lying—that you hoped she’d come back. Probably especially now, huh?”
I shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter. But we both knew he was right. If Mom had been alive, we could have found her, told her she was safe from Dad, and she could have taken us in knowing he couldn’t weaponize the law and make all of our lives a living hell.
“And…there’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
I didn’t know why I felt so reluctant to tell him about Dad all of the sudden—I’d almost blurted it out earlier.
I took a deep breath. “Dad’s dead.”
The only indication I had that Caleb had heard me was his arm tightening around my shoulders.
After a few moments, he said, “Dead, huh?” He’d tried to keep his voice neutral, but it broke on the “huh.”Caleb swallowed. “How’d it happen?”
“He—they say he fell on his cellmate’s shiv. That it was suicide.”
Caleb’s brows drew together. “Suicide? You sure that’s what she said?”
“Yeah. Dad had a visitor, and when he came back into his cell, he fought his cellmate over the guy’s shiv and then…” I shook my head, not really understanding it either. “…fell on it. On purpose.”
Caleb’s Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “And who was the visitor?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
Caleb nodded.
Silence engulfed us, pressing in on us. Finally, Caleb said, “Whoever he was, he must have said something that scared Dad enough to drive him to it.”
“Like what?”
“Hell if I know. But suicide…” Caleb shook his head. “It’s not something he’d do.”
I nodded. Caleb was right. Dad might have hated himself, but I couldn’t imagine what would have led him to kill himself. Suicide would have meant admitting that life had defeated him. And Dad wasn’t one to accept defeat.
He sighed. “But why he did it doesn’t change where we’re at, does it?”
“Nope,” I said, popping the “p.” “Wait,” I said, an idea forming in my mind. “Maybe it does.”
But before I
