Not all of Lacey's dreams are nightmares. She likes to tell herself that they are. If she wakes up feeling empty with tears in her eyes, then it should be a nightmare. If they make her hand linger over the number she told herself to forget, then they can't be normal dreams. They just can't be.
...
In one dream, Lacey does nothing but talk to him. Everywhere. Floating on a cloud. At her table during lunch. His room. Her room. The swingset. It's all words that she can't remember come morning and the soft caress of his fingers against her jawline. She wakes up in time to reel away from the touch she knows isn't coming. (Even if she wants it to.)
...
In a different dream, Lacey watches. He dances with Jo, and they're both in these suits and masks, but Lacey just knows who they are. She knows and she hates that she knows because they're not her friends anymore. They're not hers to care about. But then he meets her eye over Jo's shoulder, and he laughs. Then Jo laughs. Then everyone's laughing. Lacey looks down and she's back in her clothes from the day his aunt died. Her hair grows, and her body shrinks until she's so small that all Danny has to do is drop the yellow jump rope to break her in two.
...
But the worst dream isn't even a dream at all. It's not the product of neurons firing, or too much sugar before bed. It's a thought, fleeting and stupid and nowhere near what she needs to be thinking about in the middle of the school hallway. Yet, she does. When Danny hovers, his brown eyes hooded and drifting over her lips, when his sentence doesn't end ("I just want…" You? Please say you) Lacey finds herself imagining what could happen next. If Danny stops hovering and pulls her to him, steps in and kisses her the way he promised to do when they were eleven, if he just did all that, she'd be happy. Now that's the dream. Happiness. Normalcy. It's stupid, especially if she thinks Danny Desai's the one to share it with.
He's not, she reminds herself, watching as the distance between them grows. He's some guy she used to know. He's a murderer, a liar, and he's only going to destroy everything she's spent years trying to build.
...
But if that's true, then why does she keep dreaming about him?