I had the dream again. Not that I meant to. Not that you can really control the dreams you have in the first place, I guess. I'd started having this particular dream a few days after the garage, Hyde not having spoken to me or even so much as looking at me since it happened. I woke up the way I always had, shivering in a cold sweat, choking out a gasp as I sat up. Every time, it was Andre: his smile, his laugh, so hauntingly clear in my mind that it startled me back to consciousness. The darkness in my room was illuminated only by my alarm clock, green numbers glowing "4:37," and I pressed my pillow to my face with a sigh. The worst of the jet lag had subsided a while ago, but I'd only had a few peaceful night's sleep before this started up. I'd been asked a lot about Africa, understandably, since I came back, and I was happy to talk about all of it: how great my students were, the food, the surprising climate. Andre was the one thing I refused to bring up. He stayed there, glued in the back of my mind, seemingly waiting for the right moment to strike, and apparently that moment was now. No one knew about him, he wasn't in any of the letters I mailed home, and the only photos I had stayed tucked away in my suitcase that I hadn't fully unpacked. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to look at them again, but couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of them. In the darkness, I could feel a heat emanating from those photographs, burning bright red hot, and I flipped over onto my side, begging my brain to think of anything else.

I'd been back a full two months now and it barely felt real. I fell into the orbit of everyone else's' lives that I had missed out on in the year I'd been gone, and I was grateful for it, for everyone's suspension of disbelief and willingness to assume that it was as if nothing had changed, and it was just us, hanging out like always. But in reality, I had changed while I was gone as much as they had, and there was much I was still unwilling to admit to them. I didn't really notice how different I had become until I was alone with Donna and she would want things I could never seem to give her lately. I pretended to not know why, but it'd become so painfully obvious. I loved her so much, she was still the most beautiful person I'd ever seen and she was all I thought about while I was gone. Until now. As the sky slowly gained more light and it become abundantly clear I wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, I slid on some jeans and grabbed the keys to the Cruiser from the dresser, desperate for some time away from here.

I had beat Red to the kitchen, which was somewhat surprising, and the house had a beautiful dim gray quality to it, as the sun slowly rose over the Pinciotti's house and light dappled through the screen door. Wisconsin in January was always bitterly cold, but the early morning is where it found its beauty, when the sunlight glittered off the snow and no one yet wanted to venture outside and risk ruining it all. My eyes were tired and pulled with a stinging pain whenever I blinked, and I briefly thought about returning to the comfort and safety of my bed, but ventured on. I had been avoiding driving the Vista Cruiser because it no longer felt like it belonged to me, but as the engine hummed back to life, I felt a piece of the past crawl back and smiled. Easing it out of the driveway, the creaks and moans of the old engine became louder than I remembered them being before, and the thought suddenly hit me: eventually I was going to move away, get a job, and my parents were going to sell the Cruiser. The bucket of bolts, that at the moment was running only on Red's mechanical handiwork and a prayer, could be out of my life soon. This could be one of my last times driving it. I gripped the steering wheel a little firmer, waiting for the heating vents to cut through the bitter cold, bracing myself at the thought. The minute this car was gone, so would be my connection to this place. So would all my memories with Donna, my friends. All of it was ending soon.

This early in the morning on a weekend no one was on the road in Point Place, so I did the usual lap I did in high school: circle the parking lot, round The Hub, pass the water tower, and then, the quarry. I didn't expect anything to look very different, but was still surprised at its' sameness. A pang of sadness hit me as a I eased to a stop at the stop sign near the edge of town, bordering on the interstate. I'd spent my whole life wanting to leave, and I eventually did, but leaving had come with a cost I didn't expect. It didn't feel like home anymore. It was the one place in this world I always expected to feel like I belonged and suddenly, I no longer did, and I was an imposter no one had seen through yet. My fingertips started to feel numb. I could I just keep driving. I could drive, and drive, until Point Place disappeared from my rearview window, nothing here belonged to me anymore. My foot gently accelerated as I turned the wheel to the right, easing into the curb lane, before a truck came barreling down the country road right at me, horn blaring, and I slammed on the brake. My palms left their impressions in sweat on the darkness of the steering wheel, vision wobbly. I could only sit there, drowning in adrenaline, waiting for my hands to stop shaking. I hadn't felt like this since I got on the plane back home, mind stuck on all the things stowed away in my suitcase that I couldn't imagine anyone else seeing, only capable of looking out the window at the clouds to keep from vomiting all over my seatmate. All I'd done was come back, but it felt like I'd committed some horrible crime.

I eased the car into the shoulder after a few moments of breathing, and the confirmation that no other trucks were about to crash into me, jamming it into park. Fuck. Fuck. I missed him. Head in hands, groaning in frustration, all I could think of was how much I missed Andre, how much I wished this feeling got left behind, tangled in the sheets of the bunk I spent a year sleeping in. I thought I could maybe just chalk it up to loneliness and homesickness, but no, I missed him. If I tried hard enough I could almost feel the phantom touch of his fingers on my wrist, which was how he would always interrupt me when I was writing letters or grading papers, I could almost smell the terrible cologne he kept insisting on buying from the markets even it was basically just musk and bug spray. His smile. His laugh. The way his hair felt against my hands when he leaned into me and I pressed secret kisses to his forehead. The way he reminded me of all the colors, all the sounds, all the music and dancing, singing and clapping of South Africa. I longed for all of it, but mostly, I longed for him. I should have stayed. Why didn't I stay? All I had here was an ex girlfriend I owed a lot of explanations to, oblivious parents, and a best friend who couldn't even look me in the eye.

I froze. Did Hyde know about Andre? Had he gone poking through my things when I was gone and found our letters, or worse, the pictures, and that's why he was acting like this? If he knows, would he tell the rest of the group? I felt my heart start racing again, blood pounding in my temples with panic. If it all came out, I could hide out in the FotoHut for a few days. I could try and save up enough money to go back to South Africa, try and contact Andre. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing, it could be my chance to start over, or at least a chance to go back to the last place I felt truly happy, the last place I felt like I had some sort of direction.

But wait. Hyde didn't freak out when he found out Buddy was into me. He thought it was hilarious that Buddy put some moves on me, sure, but he didn't seem upset, and definitely didn't shut me out like he was now. If it wasn't that though, what was it? When I called, he never wanted to talk to me, I thought he was just busy. If I'd known I'd done something, I would've tried harder. If he didn't want to be friends anymore, he could've just told me. I couldn't fathom a reality where we were no longer friends, it seemed stupid to throw it away after it'd been so long, but there just didn't seem to be an end in sight. We'd never gone this long without talking in twelve years. There didn't seem to be a point in fighting for it any longer if this was just how it was going to be, if he just kept refusing to talk to me, or even acknowledge me without being forced to. The curiosity of it all ate at me, but I felt too tired and too lost to keep trying.

Eventually, I needed to leave. Red and Kitty were almost definitely awake by now and calling me to breakfast, Hyde was probably sullenly eating some oatmeal and praying they didn't ask him to wake me up. They'd notice the car was gone, Kitty would probably have a panic attack, and it would all end with my ass being threatened by Red's foot. Rubbing at my tired eyes again, I put the Cruiser back into drive.