“Bravo, you’re a genius. I’ll get right to making you a sparkling gold star for your enthralling comments.”
He smiled at me and began to laugh a little. “Well young lady, why don’t you take a seat in my office and we can talk about your struggles.”
“Whatever,” I said rolling my eyes. I had thought this was an amazing idea yesterday. Today, I wasn’t feeling that way anymore. I tried to just calm down so I could work on sharing something. I was never going to get anywhere if I stayed in this state of mind. I sat down in the chair by his desk again. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m just nervous and haven’t talked about this with anyone yet.”
He looked at me and his smile grew. “Opening up is the only way.”
“I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier to talk about,” I sighed deeply at him.
He was right and I had known that for a while now.
“What you say, will stay in this room, Aidriana,” he assured.
I sighed again. I needed to talk about this to someone. So I told him all about the first dream. I told him all about the fears that I had and the things that I had been noticing now that I probably wouldn’t have before. He looked at me intently, nodded his head a lot and kept a stern but caring look on his face.
Then I very briefly talked about the new dream and I could see the resolve on his face diminishing fairly quickly. I didn’t explain about being someone else or that I was strapped to a bed in some institution. I also didn’t mention this dream was always changing and that the woman there seemed to know me very well.
He knew just as well as I did that the dream wasn’t normal just by the small amount of information I gave him. Most people dream weird things but the way I was explaining it to him was the exact reason it scared me. It felt too real. It felt like it wasn’t a dream at all.
“Did it ever cross your mind that the dreams are just a manifestation of all of the stress you have been dealing with?” He finally offered after I finished explaining everything I was willing to share.
“I’ve thought about it but I can honestly say that I’ve never dreamed something that whole heartedly felt real. Not like this anyway,” I admitted.
“The possibilities here are endless, Ms. Masters. People dream strange things very regularly. I think maybe more regular sessions with me, plus opening up with your friends, could really reduce or even get rid of these dreams.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we will try a new approach. I promise we will figure this out, no matter what it takes. Starting tomorrow morning, I want you to start recording your dreams in a journal. I want you to try to remember what happened and also give as much detail as possible. Try to record what happened, who was there, what the area around you looked like, actions those around you are making, anything and everything!”He said.
“Well that sounds pointless.”
“It may sound pointless but I’m asking you to do it. As for sessions, I would like to see you every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 9 for the rest of the school year.” He looked at me with a smile as he pulled out a composition notebook. “Bring your journal with you.”
I walked out of his office feeling defeated. My hands just barely gripped the notebook. I wanted to drop the damn thing and just move on with my life, but at this rate, I would be in a real mental institution if this continued. I kept my eyes on the ground as I walked to my locker.
“Aid, hurry!”
I looked back toward the hall leading to the back of the school. Ryder smiled at me warmly. For the first time, I smiled back at him.
Chapter 10
Without a care in the world, I went with Ryder. For whatever reason, it just felt right to go. I was much more comfortable with him than I had expected. I thought about what Ethan might say, considering I just left with his best friend, but I honestly didn’t give a shit.
We spend hours walking around. He stood with me while I shuffled through clothes and dug around for accessories. We stayed silent through most of the trip. There wasn’t much of a need for words. It was just comfortable like this. I felt exhilarated even with the lack of interaction.
I was beginning to think the ride back to school was going to play out the same way, but the silence was always cut short. “You’re so talkative, Aid,” Ryder said sarcastically. “I never knew.” His trademark smartass grin was creeping onto his face.
“You’re so charming,” I said back.
“The sarcasm suits you,” he said smiling. It got quiet again, just for a minute. “So why did you come with me today?”
“I don’t know, why not?”
“So what, is this your rebellious side or something?” He asked.
“Maybe.”
“You’ve never had one of those,” he stated.
“A rebellious side?” I asked confused.
“Yeah, you’ve always kind of been a goody-goody in my book. It doesn’t seem like you.”
“How do you possibly know what’s like me and what’s not?”
“I just do,” he paused. “It’s the dreams, right?”
“One day, if you’re lucky, I might just tell you about them,” I confessed.
“I hope so.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes when I suddenly started thinking about Alexa. “So, Alexa tells me that you and Ethan went to visit her.”
“Yeah, I saw her the day we were all there,” he said looking a little confused.
“No, another time. She said a few days after or something.”
“Hmm, well I was never there,” he replied, still looking confused.
After that I just kept my mouth shut. Something strange was going on and I wanted to find out what. I didn’t understand why she would lie about something like that. When we got back to the school, there was only an hour left. I looked at Ryder and thanked him for taking me out.
He leaned over and kissed my cheek. My skin warmed under the touch of his lips. It was innocent enough, or at least that’s what I tried to tell myself. He then went on to remind me that he would listen if I ever gave him the chance and that he would be more than happy to talk about the dream with me.
“I need to, uh, go,” I said awkwardly.
I was flustered now. There was nothing innocent about that kiss for either of us, and I knew that much. I jumped out of his car as quickly as possible, without even giving him the chance to say another word to me. The tantalizing aroma of him still lingered on my clothes from riding in his car. The warm sensation on my cheek intensified and my hand lightly traced the spot his lips had kissed my face. I couldn’t help but smile and my heart began to race as I thought about his lips touching mine.
What was I thinking! What about Ethan? I had to get out of here. I instantly began to walk straight for my car. I didn’t care about the hour left of class or even the fact that I had just skipped an entire day to go to the mall with my boyfriends best friend. I didn’t even care that I was now drooling over a guy I used to find annoying.
As I opened my door, a single rain drop hit my face. Overly flustered, I got in my car and I drove a little too fast. My attention was on the hot feeling tingling on my cheek. I was still bewildered and my thoughts were clustered together. My heart was still racing. My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly and I tried to get my mind on track. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but that heat dancing on my cheek.
The rain was beating down on my roof, making my heart race even faster. I tried to breathe in deeply and closed my eyes for just a split second. Just as quickly as I had shut them, I opened them back up, only to find myself catching a deer jumping out into the road. So what did I do? I did what every idiot does when they see an animal jump in front of their car. I swerved.
To my dismay, the deer ran the same way and I lost control. As my car spun around in slow motion and the deer’s body flew around me in pieces, all I could think was why the hell I didn’t just hit the stupid animal. The swinging of the car was so intense that I was i
nstantly nauseated. Then I saw the tree staring me in the face, mocking me for not just plowing the deer over.
When the metal collided with the wood, all I could hear was the crunching of the car folding into itself. The metal crumpled around me and I could hear the glass cracking. With an ear shattering boom, the glass exploded in every direction. I could feel the tree bringing my car to its ultimate stop and my head jerked from the head rest straight into the steering wheel.
They always say that you’ll see your life flash before your eyes when you die. All I saw was darkness.
~
I woke up in a white light. My eyes were unfocused and I suddenly wondered if I had passed over. Was this really what heaven was like? I wasn’t impressed so far. Sadly, I was instantly disappointed when I felt the restraints around my wrists. This wasn’t heaven at all. This was my own sick version of hell.
I heard a door creek next to me and I cringed. The woman walked in and sat in the chair near my prison. I laid there without saying a word. I looked over at her and frowned. It was the same woman I talked to the last time.
“Aidriana,” she said softly.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Ms. Kaitz,” she answered. “I’ve been your counselor for a few years now.”
“I’ve never met you before,” I argued.
“You’re right, Aidriana, you haven’t.”
“”You’re not making sense,” I complained.
“I know. I’ve been trying to get through to you for months. I haven’t been able to keep you here long enough to make any progress with you,” she explained.
“I still don’t understand.”
“Between having to sedate you and your inability to accept reality, I haven’t been unable to keep you aware of your surroundings for more than a few minutes in over a year now.”
I instantly started feeling sick again and my mind was reeling. “Are you telling me that this is real?”
“You’re not who you think you are. I promise you, we will do whatever it takes to figure this out,” she said determined. The conversation was starting to feel more and more like déjà vu.
The sickness in my stomach was beginning to pull me away again. “Something is happening,” I warned her. There was a blaring of beeps in my ear and my body felt like it was on fire.
“Nurse!” Ms. Kaitz ran from the room as my body began to shake. I went to take a breath in but I never felt the air come. I began to panic even more now and the convulsions only got worse.
Several people ran into the room and I could hear my heart slowing down to nothing in my ears. The world around me was in slow motion again. “Try to remember today, Ariana,” Ms. Kaitz yelled at me.
“Clear!” The jolt hit my body like a brick and all I saw was black.
~
“Clear!” Another jolt hit me again and I could hear the chaos around me. I sucked in a breath and my heart started beating again. I could see blurred faces come in and out as my eyes tried to regain control. I tried to move just slightly when I felt a firm hand rest against my shoulder.
“Aidriana, please remain calm. You were just in a car accident. We are taking you to the hospital and I need you stay still,” the man said to me.
I never said anything, nor did I know if I was even able to. I stayed still and my mind began to sort through the pieces. She had told me I am not who I think. Was she even real? Was this real? I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep. It wasn’t pleasant this time and the first dream replayed yet again.
~
I woke up in a white room and expected to see Ms. Kaitz sitting next to me again. I was in a hospital and wasn’t tied to the bed so I couldn’t be there this time. I looked around the room to see Ryder sleeping on the chair next to me. My body was throbbing in every possible place. I looked down at my arm to see a soft cast on it. I didn’t really remember what had happened.
I lay on the bed and looked up at the ceiling for a few minutes. I was losing my mind. I couldn’t even begin to understand what was going on anymore.
“Aid?”
I looked over at Ryder and he smiled at me as he rubbed his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I got a call from your mom. She said she tried to call Ethan and Alexa but neither of them answered.”
“I’m not sure whether I should be pissed or not,” I said a little confused. I couldn’t help but to smile at him. “I’m glad someone came.” He grinned widely. “Are my parents here?”
“Yeah, they just stepped out to grab something to eat not that long ago.”
We sat in silence for a minute and then I looked at him, “What exactly happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember leaving school. Then I remember driving and seeing a deer. Now I’m here. So I’m supposing what happened in between didn’t go so well.”
“You hit it and then you mutilated your car. The tree is okay though,” he said laughing.
Ryder always made it a point to make something serious a little more light. He always succeeded.
“Well that’s good that the tree made it.” I looked away from him and I noticed the painful sting on my face. “How bad is my face?”
“You’re bruised pretty bad and have some pretty intense cuts but you look good for what you’ve been through,” he responded with charm.
I laughed at his comment and the room got quiet again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why is it that you found a way to showed up and my boyfriend and best friend still haven’t even answered their phones? Don’t you find that strange at all?”
“Not really. Ethan’s been really busy with something lately. I hardly see him anymore. Honestly, I thought he’d been ditching me to see you.”
“I hardly ever see him anymore. I haven’t seen Alexa much either now that I’m thinking about it. She’s been pretty distant since the summer.”
He pulled his chair up next to me and touched my hand. His skin felt warm against mine and a grin crept on to my face. For a moment, I didn’t feel so alone.
“Everything’s gonna be okay, Aid,” he said.
“I don’t really know how true that is anymore. Things aren’t right,” I sighed and looked away again.
“Why do you say that?”
“Something strange is going on in my head,” I admitted.
He smiled at me and laughed. “So you’re finally gonna trust me enough to talk about that dream, huh?”
“I think I owe you that much. You’re the only one that cared enough to answer a phone call and come here for me.” I thought back to what I saw while I had been unconscious. “I don’t know what is real anymore.” A single tear dropped from my eye. Ryder suddenly looked so serious, which was very unlike him. He reached over and softly wiped the tear from my cheek. He didn’t interrupt my moment of weakness; he only sat there quietly and waited intently. “It’s not just one anymore.”
“What’s not?” he asked confused.
“There isn’t just one dream anymore. There are two of them. The first is always the same. I watch the same excruciating scenes, recite the same lines, and I lose everything. The second is like an alternate reality. It feels like waking up. Nothing is the same. I interact with the people and they know me. I’m someone else. We all are,” I said softly. I suddenly felt horrified at the realization that this could be my reality. “Something horrible happened to all of you. I’m the only one that survives. I’m alone.”
“You’re not alone. We are all still here and we are all safe! I think you’re going to be fine and that those dreams, are exactly that; dreams and nothing more.”
“Ryder, they feel so real though! I went back there while I was unconscious. I talked to her. She says I’m not who I think,” I began sobbing.
“You were gone for a few minutes. You could have seen anything. Shit, you could’ve gone to the other side for all we know.”
“I died?” I asked feeling horrified.
<
br /> “Technically.”
“Maybe she’s right then.”
“Who exactly is she?” he asked.
“My counselor,” I finally admitted. “ And my name is Ariana and you guys are all dead. She keeps telling me to stay there and that I don’t belong here.”
“And you believe this imaginary person?”
“I can’t bring myself to believe I’m some crazy girl stuck in an insane asylum. I think my mind is playing tricks on me.”
“Maybe it is,” he agreed.
The door creaked open next to us and my mom peered in. She smiled when she saw me and instant relief showed on her face. “You’re awake! Oh sweetheart, I was so worried. Your father has been in tears since we got the phone call.”
“I’m okay, Mom!”
“Thank you so much for coming and sitting with her,” she said to Ryder. “I can’t imagine why Alexa and Ethan aren’t picking up or haven’t heard from someone yet.”
“I’m not really worried about them, mom. I’m just glad I’m alive. I’ll call them later,” I said smiling at her.
“Don’t worry about that, I will get a hold of them both and have them call you. You should rest,” Ryder interjected.
“Yeah I think you’re right. I’m exhausted and nauseated.”
“It’s probably just the pain medication they have you on. I’ll get someone in here to make you more comfortable,” my mom said as she walked out of the door.
Ryder smiled at me warmly again, “Why don’t you try to get some sleep and I will start calling Alexa and Ethan as soon as you fall asleep.”
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I said casually.
“Close your eyes. I want to stay,” he whispered tenderly.
He gently placed his hand on my head and stroked my hair. I closed my eyes and felt the rhythm of his hand. He bent his head down and his lips just barely touched my cheek. I didn’t fight it anymore and drifted into a peaceful slumber. For the first time in months, I didn’t feel scared and all I saw were his deep hazel eyes.
Chapter 11
Somehow I left that hospital with stitches, a few cuts, bruises and a sprain in my wrist. The way my car looked, I realized I probably should have been dead. I wasn’t sad to leave that horrible place. It reeked of death and hand sanitizer. Just the simple act of lying in that bed made me sick. I begged them for days to discharge me and when they finally did, I bolted out of there.