I was mostly still asleep when I reached over to my night stand to answer my cell phone.
"Hello?"
There was no response. I checked the time before shutting it and saw that it was two a..m.. Egh. I had only been asleep for an hour. I'd been home from work since a little after eleven but I got distracted reading a book. I had only meant to reread Twilight (for the jillionth time) for a few minutes until my clothes were ready to be switched from the washer to the dryer before I went to bed. The next thing I knew it was almost one o'clock.
As my head started to clear, I realized that the phone had never been ringing, that the sound that woke me up was actually the door bell and that I could still hear someone knocking on my front door.
"Hold on! I'm coming!" I yelled, grabbing some dirty clothes off my floor as I ran. I had just finished with the last button on my shirt as I opened the door. My jaw dropped as I stared, right in front of me was the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen. His windblown hair was long and black and shiny. His skin was bronze and sweaty. He was wearing a wife beater tank top, blue jeans, and a care worn, black leather jacket. In his hands he held a motorcycle helmet.
"Hi." He smiled. "My motorcycle just ran out of gas on there on the interstate." He pointed. "I was wondering if I could use your phone?"
"Uh...sure." I was having trouble remembering how to talk. "I'll get it. Just a second."
"Thanks a lot. I'm Jake by the way."
"Jacob Black?" The question just slipped out before I had a chance to stop it.
"Yeah. How'd you know my name?" He looked confused.
"Your name is really Jacob Black!? No way!"
He nodded.
"You're not a werewolf are you?"
I expected laughter or maybe nervousness at the realization that I was completely insane, anything but the response that I got.
"Wh...who are you?"
"No one. I mean my name is Alisha but I am not anyone of any significance."
"How do you know me then?"
"You are my favorite character in the Twilight series, these books by Stephenie Meyer. Bella is crazy for liking Edward better than you."
"Bella? You know Bella? Did she tell you about me? Is that how you know who I am?"
"No she is in Twilight too. I have the books in my room. I'll show you." He followed me to my room but the book was not on my night stand where I know I left it. I looked on my bookshelf and could find neither New Moon nor Eclipse. What the hell?
"I'm not a character in a book. Look, I'm standing right here in front of you. How could I be an imaginary person you've read about?"
"Do you know anyone named Stephenie Meyer? Maybe she wrote a book about you and didn't tell you."
"I've never heard of her."
"Stephenie could be a pseudonym."
"Maybe..."
"I will find her on the internet and show you." I turned on my computer and went to I typed in Stephenie Meyer. There weren't as many results as I had expected. The first link I clicked on took me to the law offices of Stephens and Meyer. The next was just some girls Myspace profile. I couldn't find the writer Stephenie Meyer anywhere. I began frantically typing words into the search engine. Twilight. Jacob Black. Werewolf. I couldn't find anything. I started to panic. What did this mean? Could I have finally lost that last thread of sanity I was clinging to? Had I completely lost my mind? Was I hallucinating? Could I have really made up three entire books in my head? What about all the conversations with my friend Ashley, who had read the books too, about how great they were? Omigod! What if I made up Ashley too? Maybe I had never even noticed all these years that my best friend was imaginary. Omigod! She was imaginary. That would explain why she would never go anywhere in public with me. She didn't want anyone to see me talking to myself. Aww, what a good fri...wait... focus... I needed to focus. Boy...Living room...Gorgeous...Werewolf? Werewolves were definitely not real. Right? I had to be imagining this obviously. He seemed so real though. I could hear the slight squeak of his leather jacket every time he moved his arm. I could smell his yummy, sweaty boy smell. I could see the bead of sweat trickling down his scratchy stubbly face down to his pouty pink lip.
"Um, are you okay?"
"Yes!" I shouted a little too loudly. Focus. Must focus. "Ehem. Hem. Yes. I'm fine." He nodded slowly but continued to eye me suspiciously. "Right then. You need gas. I have a gas can you can borrow and can give you a ride to the gas station that is just up the road if you would like."
"Well, the thing is, not only am I out of gas, but I am out of money too. That's why I asked to borrow your phone earlier. I guess I am going to have to call my dad. I really don't want to. He's going to kill me. I just kind of took off a couple of days ago. I don't know what I was thinking really. Where was I even going?"
I thought for a minute. I sensed an opportunity for an adventure. I loved adventures. This was going to be better than that one time, when I ran away with the hippies. "You can borrow my phone if you want. You should really let Billy know you are okay at least. But if you don't want to ask for his help getting home I can help you."
"Really? How?"
I have maybe about twenty dollars in my wallet, that and a credit card. I will pay for the gas and stuff to get back to Washington. I mean if you, um, take me with you."
He looked at me like I was crazy, again. "Why do you want to go to Washington?"
"Why not? I get this whole wanderlust type thing a lot. Plus, um..." I could feel my face getting red. It seemed so silly to feel embarrassed over a made up conversation with an imaginary person. But I was all the same. I really like you."
He laughed. "You're so weird."
"What a strange thing to hear coming from an imaginary werewolf."
He rolled his eyes and shrugged.
Thirty minutes later I'd crammed a couple of changes of clothes, several paperback books, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap into my Ninja Turtles backpack and was staring reluctantly at the shiny and recently refueled motorcycle. I had failed to consider the fact, in all my adventure filled plan making that I was horribly afraid of riding motorcycles. "What if I fall off?"
"Hold on and you won't."
"These things don't even have seat belts."
"You don't really want to stay attached to it if we crash."
"Omigod, don't say 'crash'." Must stay calm. Must breath.
"Are you hyperventilating?"
"No. This is dumb. If you aren't real, then obviously you motorcycle isn't either. Imaginary things cannot hurt me." I tried not to remember I had ever felt any pain any of the times Ashley had retaliated when I got bored and threw random things at her face, or poked her repetitively in the shoulder and I hopped on . He started the engine and we took off. This wasn't so bad. I could handle this.
"So," he turned to me, "if this motorcycle isn't real, how do you explain the ten real dollars you spent on the real gasoline that we just poured into the engine?"
Oh, god.