Remember Me
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Prologue
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I forget how old I was when I began to dream about the boy.
One of my favorite pastimes when I was young was leafing through Grandma Swan's store catalogs, and pretending that I could choose one item on each page I saw. Would it be the red pleather pants, or the black? I could only choose one per page, and I couldn't change my mind afterwards, so it was a challenge. I'd choose something in every section, even in Appliances (silver and white outer-space looking washer and dryer), even in Automotive (red leather seat covers), and even in Fitness & Sporting Goods (scary-looking Bowflex thing).
And then there he was in Men's Clothing: body slouched gracefully, head cocked, smirking up at me in 5-by-7" glory. His hands were tucked casually into jeans pockets, and he wore a simple white t-shirt under a blue-plaid flannel shirt. I couldn't look away. It wasn't just that he was uncommonly pretty with his wide mouth, flushed cheeks, and rather startling copper hair, it was the look in his eyes — like someone had just told a joke, and it was taking everything in him to keep from busting out in laughter. I don't know what it was exactly about him. It was just a photo of a gorgeous boy-model I didn't even know.
Carefully, I'd torn the page out and smoothed it flat. Later, I hid him in my diary. I might have even looked at him again before bed.
He appeared in a dream as a new boy at my school. I remember the full body shock of trading looks with him the first time. His eyes were sea-green and surprisingly intense, and he hadn't been smiling at all. In my dream, I'd stumbled back and fallen to the floor. It's the boy in the magazine, I'd thought, aware I was dreaming.
His hand was warm when helped me up, and he didn't let go when I was back on my feet. We'd both looked down at our hands, then up at each other. Then, he'd stepped close to me, closer than any other boy ever had.
"Finally," I think he'd whispered just before he kissed my cheek.
He sat beside me at lunch that first day and every day after, and he'd tell jokes. He razzed Mike and Tyler about our football team, he dared Emmett to a hot dog eating contest, and he told me I could run from him, but he'd catch me anyway. We held hands under the table. He didn't let go to do a fist bump with Emmett, not while eating his hamburger, not even to unscrew the cap on his bottle of Coke.
As the years passed and I continued dreaming of him, my copper-haired boy grew more attentive. Out of all the girls he could have had at school, he chose me. Jessica tried the trip-and-fall-at-his-feet trick more than once. I saw Lauren corner him behind the bleachers in gym class. Tanya even hid in the backseat of his car. All three of them were beautiful, popular, and sought after at school, none of them the kind of girl a boy usually said no to.
Every time I woke up and realized again that he was only a dream, I had to fight not to scream or cry; Mom and Dad would never understand. I didn't even understand.
In real life, he was never waiting for me in the common area at school, although I looked and hoped. Every. Single. Time.
No one at school ever asked where he was.
He existed only in my dreams.
But he felt so REAL.
Which meant everything I felt was a lie.
I'd choke back tears, hating myself, trying to hide the pain. Or, lying it away if anyone asked, because how could I explain?
The older I got, the more frequent the dreams became, and the darker and more unhealthy they grew. My copper-haired boy went from gently smiling to almost glowering. It scared me at first; that fiery look in his eyes licked along every nerve ending in my body until I was squirming with wanting something I couldn't even name. But I wanted that look from him. I wanted that tummy-churning fear. It excited me, it made me feel alive like nothing else did.
We went from holding hands and innocent, closed-mouth kisses to suggestive caresses, his thumb slow-circling the palm of my hand; my fingernails dragging along the inside of his wrist, the way I'd learned from him. He'd press my hand against his chest, a heart-stopping move that then turned into something else as he moved it lower, but not close enough — just enough to suggest what he wanted when I was ready.
He liked sucking on my fingers, nibbling softly on the pad, his tongue caressing and curling around me until I could hardly breathe because of what he made me feel. Then the soft look in his eyes would morph into green fire and he'd bite down hard, and I'd slow-jerk in one long motion. It always made me wake up gasping and sweating, twisted in my sheets, my body humming and alive, craving more.
I resented bitterly the reality of knowing it was all only a dream. But why was it happening to me? Because it felt more and more like a curse. Maybe I was just horny, too young, too inexperienced, and the dreams were the way my sleeping subconscious was dealing with everything. Surely every girl had dreams like this. It had to be normal.
I had to be normal.
He was a dream, I kept telling myself.
Just a dream.
It had to stop. I had to stop.
I tried everything: NyQuil to sleep without dreaming. Red Bull to keep me awake. Jogging to exhaustion. Meditation to soothe away my longing. Chocolate, because I'd overhead Tanya say that it was better than sex. Kissing Jake, Tyler, James. Letting Jake get to second base. Essential oils. Vodka.
He was inescapable. Or I couldn't forget him, or didn't want to. I no longer knew.
Like me, he grew and changed in my dreams. He stood at least a head taller than me now, and he had the early, strong body of a well-built man. His eyebrows thickened and darkened, his cheekbones and jaw sharpening. Unless he smiled, he projected a kind of brooding, almost angry expression. His eyes that had once been carefree were now guarded with secrets. There was something he wanted me to understand, something always at the edge of my mind when I woke, just out of reach.
The changes in his appearance and attitude happened little-by-little, as it would have if he were alive and we were maturing together. Gradually, imperceptibly. By the time I fully realized that something wasn't right about myself or the man in my dreams, it was too late.
By then, I didn't care. By then, I was living just so I could go to sleep.