SIX
He must've dozed off at some point because the chime in his headphones is waking him up, from hazy dreams of a creaking dock and an abandoned building and an old book lit by flickering fluorescent lights. Alex on the beach. Booted feet on the metal grating of some kind of tower. A watchtower? Maybe.
It's pitch dark when he opens his eyes blearily, so it's way too early for an alarm to be going off. Also, isn't it Sunday? His hand slips under the pillow to blindly tap at the snooze button before rolling over, one earbud lost in the movement as he lets out a low sigh. Too early. Need sleep. Weird dreams.
.
"Helloooooooooo, sleepyhead." Alex does her best to at least not startle him too bad when he answers. If he was actually asleep, she isn't about to go screaming in his ear at— she turns to check the clock, and whistles in a low tone. Four in the morning. "You stopped answering, I got bored, therefore I gave you a good three seconds of warning before calling. Kinda surprised you picked up, actually."
.
He's too tired to be fully startled, but the voice coming through his headphones is still surprising. There's a soft noise of exertion over the line as Jonas rolls back onto one side, untangling the loose earbud from around his neck and slipping it back into his ear. "Alex?" His voice is weighed down with sleep as well as some confusion, a low murmur in the dark in case his parents are still asleep. "Why are…" He's groping for the phone under his pillow, squinting in the light of the screen. He groans. "Jesus fucking Christ, it's 4am," he grumbles, shoving the light away again. "Isn't this, like… I dunno… badgering the witness?" He knows nothing about law. He's heard the term, and liked it, and is vaguely aware that it isn't meant to be used how he's using it. "No wait you're the witness…" he mumbles, turning over again with a hot huff of breath too close to the mic.
.
There's a bit of a scuffle on her end when she pulls the covers up over her legs again, settling after she's piled no less than four pillows underneath her shoulders in order to hold the phone between her neck and collarbone while browsing on her laptop. Again. How many times is she going to do the stupid thing where she puts something away, thinking she'll sleep, and then goes right back to it? Seriously, this has to be a problem or something.
Her voice is too familiar. The little hint of a smile in it, almost melodic, "Welcome back to the land of the living, Jonas. Or I guess, half-living. You've gotta be tired." It's the first time she's said his name out loud.
.
"I feel like you've said that before." The statement, a murmur stumbling over graveled vocal cords, is told to the dark without thought. "'s weird." And why does it remind him of the hospital? It makes literally no sense. That was… two years ago, now? More? Maybe even closer to three, time has been a mess since his mom was admitted. How does that connect to this? Jonas runs an exhausted hand down his face, like it might help wake him up, then promptly pulls the covers over his head.
"Why are you calling at 4am, Alexandra? " His tone is somewhere between weary and cross, pointed, with a hefty dose of don't even in the mix. No good reason for this. Nope. Sleep is paramount.
.
From the other end of the line, she grins. "I thought I told you to call me Alex. It sounds so stiff when people say my full name." Her laugh is bubbling, despite the annoyed man on the other end of the phone. "Alexandra do this, Alexandra do that. It's too stuck-up for me."
.
"You said 'everyone else does.' Doesn't mean you like it." He points out, not quite awake enough for it to pass for full-on snarky. The intention is there though.
.
There's another question on her mind; why had she called? Sure, it was because he wasn't responding to her messages, but… it doesn't really make sense. There's a pause where Jonas can only hear the soft background noise of some game she's been playing to kill time, and Alex's breathing, little whistling sighs as she considers her options. There's going with the creepy dreams thing, seeing as he was just asleep and might be more willing to talk. Or there's just making up some random excuse about needing to talk. Then the lie will just get bigger. Ugh.
More shuffling, and a thud. "Oh, shoot-" It takes another minute for her to actually get back around to answering. Alex had been so dazed out that she'd lifted her head, and ended up dropping her phone. Because she really couldn't be any more of an idiot than she's already being. "Sorry, dropped you there for a second. Probably 'cause I'm shaking from sleep deprivation. Off topic, anyways; reason I called is because you weren't answering me. Also the dreams."
.
It's probably weird, that he doesn't mind listening to her think. Her presence is almost… comforting? The harsh fuzz of fabric on microphone stops him from drifting off again. Once she's back on the line he hums a vague acceptance of her apology.
Right. Dreams. All of… that. Whatever it is. Whatever it means. "…Think I got your watchtower this time…" It's basically a mumble, like he's talking to himself.
Jonas lets out a long breath. He's silent for a second, but there's a definite intention to say something, he's just not sure what. Is now really the time to be talking about this? Then again, is there a better time? It's not like he'll be that much more coherent any other day.
.
"Oh, hey! Maybe that proves we're not-"
.
"…Get some sleep, Alexandra."
.
"-Wait what?" Alex glances down to her phone like she's talking to the actual person, rather than a piece of metal and plastic and glass she's holding in her hands. He gives her a snippet of something she's seen before, a familiarity that both makes sense and doesn't, then just tells her to go to sleep? Yeah no. "Jonas if you think I'm gonna pass out anytime soon, you are sorely mistaken my friend."
.
He cuts his melodramatic groan short, tapering to a grumble as he remembers there are two other people trying to sleep in his house right now.
.
Instead, she takes to thinking out loud. It's muddied along with video game music and the little clacks of her keyboard and mouse. "Like I was saying… If we're dreaming about the same things, it might prove we're not completely insane for just randomly meeting each other again. I mean, it can't just be coincidence anymore. Watchtower for watchtower, weird ocean for weird ocean— that doesn't just happen to people. Right?" Alex leans forward a bit, trying to get out of a trap in game, spam clicking until—
.
"Did I mention the ocean thing?" Jonas is rubbing at his eyes again, letting stars fill his vision as he listens to secondhand clicks and—
.
Dead. "Ugh! God, that guy hacks, I'm fucking sure of it. Asshole. The respawn time is shit, too…"
.
He winces at her outburst, clicks down his headphone volume. "Look Alex, if we're talking dreams then we're talking dreams, but I'm not gonna stick around to listen to you fragging some dipshit online. Or getting fragged. Whatever." Probably both, that's kind of how PvP games go. "When the fuck do you sleep, anyway?" he asks irritably. Sundays are generally lax for him, as long as his mom doesn't catch him too awake before church and ropes him into going. It's usually a breakfast-at-11 sort of day, but that's assuming he sleeps til 10. "How are you even alive at school?"
.
Alex winces a bit at him, though she does log off the game. It might be rude. "Yeah, yeah, sorry. Coffee. Just so much coffee, you wouldn't even believe. Ren says I look like a zombie in the mornings. Hell, sometimes I don't even sleep." There's still a fair bit of clunking and scuffling as she moves her computer off of the bed and settles under the covers for good this time, pillows sagging when she plops down onto them.
.
Once the sounds of settling have faded from her end, Jonas clicks back up the volume, rolling onto his stomach with a soft groan and bunching a pillow under his chin. "That's not normal." Then again, he has a feeling Alex isn't particularly keen on normal. Blue hair, vaulting benches, calling up a guy at four in the morning… Normal doesn't really seem her wheelhouse.
.
"I think you mentioned something about a beach? Or a bonfire? It still reminds me of the island, but I'm not entirely sure."
.
"Did I?" He's skeptical. "I dunno. I mean, I feel like it'd be pretty creepy to share." Because it is. Another sigh huffs into his pillow. "But yeah. The beach. The bonfire. The blue hair and all that."
Wait, shit, that was probably too much. He clears his throat and adds, a little louder, "So what's this about an island?" Like she's gonna forget he just casually mentioned dreaming about her. Well, maybe she's distractible enough. He doubts it.
.
Alex, conveniently, forgets he made any mention of blue hair. Even though she's pretty sure all of two people have this particular shade of the color. "Edwards Island. I used to go there a ton as a little kid, but when my parents split up, we never really went back. I think I recognize some of the scenery, but I'm not sure."
There's a lull in her voice for a moment, and she pulls her phone away to yawn, flicking her fingers over the comforter. "And you know the red jacket I'm always wearing? It's not there. Instead it's some, like— some green bomber, or something? I dunno types of fashion or whatever, but it definitely isn't mine." Alex snorts; "And it's way too big on me."
.
There she goes again. Sharing so much personal information. She's like an open book. He goes looking for just a title and she gives him way more than he expected. Jonas can connect the dots well enough, based on the article about her brother's death. That would be the cause of the split, probably. A reason why they wouldn't be hyped for island trips, either. She yawns, and a few seconds later he's caught it, too. "Fuck you, those are contagious," he groans, before seized by another, and the need for a full-body stretch, toes hanging off the edge of the mattress as his joints crack and he lets out a long breath. "Shit."
He rolls back onto his back again. "Does the red one fit that much better?" Fingers are combing through his hair, scratching the back of his head, and the idea is playing at the corners of his mind. But no, it's just a color. A pretty common color, all things considered. The red jacket is the notable one. Just about everyone and their dad has had an army jacket at some point in their lives, right? Just your standard coat. But it does occur to him that they're already into fall and maybe he should break out his own.
.
She lets out a breathy kind of hum, shaking her head before remembering this is a phone conversation. Not a physical one. "Not really. Since Katie started it, I may as well finish; stole it from my brother a good while ago. Before everything happened." Before she let him drown. Before Michael the All Star left their lives forever. But she tries not to focus on that. Instead, Alex just closes her eyes and breathes. That's supposed to be a thing that helps, right? Deep breathing or something.
"That's all there is to it, though. I still get weird flashes or whatever. It's like going into a mini coma, I guess. You don't really know what's going on, but it's still going." God, she's actually tired. Then again, it's creeping up around five, and she hadn't slept last night either.
Her phone is balanced on the side of her head, close to slipping off, but she just tips it back into place every so often. Even if Jonas is starting to hear the exhaustion in her voice. "But I get nightmares more often than I get dreams. Someone always saves me. Doesn't make them any less terrifying."
.
Without the computer games in the background, and the soft sounds of sleepiness invading her side of the call, it's almost like… like a sleepover, kinda? His sleepover experience is limited, but he remembers lying in a sleeping bag on the floor of someone's basement, talking in the dark to a friend splayed across a couch. It's kinda like that. Maybe closer. Like she's in the bed with-
Heat creeps up his neck, and guilt into his stomach, and Jonas tries to ignore the way that train of thought is going.
He swallows hard, refocusing on her words once she's speaking again.
She's sharing so much. It feels like he should be saying more. But what is there to say? He's a private person, for the most part. Better at listening that talking, really. "'Saves you?' What do you mean?" He should be telling her more, giving her something like she's offering to him, but he keeps all of that sort of thing pretty close to the chest.
.
"Uh… It follows the same general plot? I think." Alex curls herself into a tight little ball, and then tucks her covers underneath her legs. It's getting colder, and she never really preferred the winter, but she doesn't really complain. "There's something about glowing eyes and triangles, I'm not really myself— It's weird. This is weird. It's staticky and mind-churning or whatever you want to call it."
She's rambling, and tired, maybe a little bit punchy. But she's still talking. "Someone always drags me out of it. A guy, I think, but that's all I can really gather. Then it ends." Alex yawns again. Slipping. She's already half asleep, and slaps herself for a second to just wake up a bit.
.
"Hm." They aren't recent dreams, but he's definitely imagined something with triangles before. Red eyes. Weird mumbling static. …Well shit, maybe he should've been exorcised, not rehabilitated.
"I, uh…" Jonas's voice is hoarse. He takes another breath, holds it for a long moment. She's shared a lot. But if feels like he's about to just drop a bombshell. Then again, can she possibly think he's any crazier? It's not that much weirder than sharing dreams, right?
Okay, yes, it's weirder but… Comm 101: it's the foot-in-the-door thing. She accepted the dreams bit. The whole amnesia thing should be easier. Should be.
"Um. I… Last spring, I kinda… well, I forgot. Like a bunch of stuff. I was having a lot of those dreams, I think, and was missing like… like a lot of memories. Like…" His throat is dry, and he swallows again. "…16, 18 months? Something like that?" She isn't responding, so he just barrels on. "It was sudden, I guess, or that's what they tell me, anyway. Just months of my life missing, and me babbling about— well, triangles were part of it, maybe. I need to find the notebooks." He shifts onto his side again, pulling his feet back under the covers. "Maybe I can do that tomorrow…" The words are mostly muttered to himself.
"Anyway." She still hasn't responded. "They thought it was maybe brain damage, or— or a psychotic break or something, except everything else was fine. Nothing really came along with it, just a lot of confusion and suddenly being even worse in class than I already was." He's maybe being a little harsh on himself. Once his mom's treatment took a turn for the better he'd actually improved immensely at school. Weird how that happens. "I had to do some tutoring and some weird… I dunno, I guess it's like physical therapy, but for your brain? …Just therapy, I guess. Cognitive therapy? I think they didn't expect it to work as well as it did. It all came back in a few weeks, really. Maybe a month and a half. I didn't walk with the rest of my class, but I still graduated."
His fingers are playing with the hem of his pillowcase. Silence. "…Alex?" No response. "Um… Are you… alive?"
.
It wasn't that the words themselves put her to sleep as much as his voice. It wasn't boring, but it was a drawl, something soft that made her think of the wind through trees. Jonas doesn't earn a response from her, other than the odd mumble or two in her sleep, voice low and cooing. He can't make out the words. Something something radio, something something Ren, and then Alex goes quiet again.
She'd only caught about half of it before her exhaustion had gotten the better of her. Forgetting things last spring, thinking it was brain damage, but that was it. No connection just yet. Her phone falls back onto the pillows in front her again, and of course she doesn't pick it up, but now Jonas can better hear her. Definitely asleep. Breathing almost too close to the receiver, shifting every so often, but definitely asleep.
.
…Right. Jonas lets out a slow sigh, then murmurs, "…No, I'm not offended that you fell asleep during my very personal story, thanks for asking." But there's a slight smirk on his lips as he shakes his head minutely, pulling his phone from under the pillow. He hesitates for a second. Nope, listening to someone sleep is just a bit too weird, even for him. "…Goodnight, Alex. You absolute lunatic." And he hangs up.
Notes:
Good news: we've been working on bridging the time between those first several chapters we wrote and the bit that we skipped to, so gradually those pieces are coming together, meaning you all will hopefully have shorter jumps in time (though we do jump a bit, because I personally am of the mindset that if there's something you can't think of to write, write the part you're eager to get to, so there are some interlude-esque montage moments). There are still a few more chapters until we get to that sort of thing, though.
My apologies in advance if chapters seem shorter than they should be. Generally our scene beats average about ten pages, so I chop those as chapters even if two could theoretically get mashed together (like this one and the last one), just cause I prefer a 3-5k chapter length myself. It also allows me to feel more comfortable updating more often (appx 1/week) even while we're in the midst of writing. But what do you think? Would you rather have longer chapters farther apart? I tend to be pleasantly surprised by the consistency of our 8-11 page scenes/scene beats, and try to keep chapter lengths under 14 pages on google docs when doing the dividing (which is how we ended up with shorter chapters these last two, because combining would've made them quite long, and it felt like a good division between texting and the call). Anyway, curious to know your thoughts, drop 'em in a comment.
-OWT