Gabi, an aspiring fashion designer, sees her world in colors. Scarlet, turquoise, and mauve coat a new world of controlled visions when, in an attempt to connect with her absent oneirologist father, she reads a book about lucid dreaming. But she i...
While I'm asleep, I dream. The real kind, not the ones I manipulate. It's the first time in over a year.
I dream stark, poignant memories, maybe to remind myself of a time when Asher and I were closer than any other two people on this planet. The first time I met him, when his hair was so floppy it covered one of his eyes and when his eight-year-old smirk snaked through my heart and entangled it. The time we both ran away from home when we were ten, cloaked in black raincoats to blend into the New York night, fleeing from everything and nothing all at once. We had been so small but as his hand had clutched mine, I'd felt safe. At home.
The time he'd come over to my apartment and I'd been thirteen and a mess of tears and betrayal. How he'd sat there with me and let me sob and mourn my dad, only leaving my side to bring me tissues and water. How his soft blue eyes had held mine just like always, with that same sense of familiarity and intensity.
And then last night: how that look in his eyes was gone, replaced by the emptiness of a stranger. How I called him just that and he left, slamming the door behind him, rattling me.
The dream shifts from real to imagined. Suddenly I'm watching Willa and Asher—they're in the living room of my apartment and they must not see me because they're pressed tight against each other. His lips find the top of her forehead and her nose and settle on her mouth. As my heart crumples to the floor my dream self clutches the doorframe so tightly my knuckles turn white. Asher can't be Willa's. He's mine. Always has been. Maybe always will be.
My alarm clock jolts me out of my nightmare, startling me. When I sit up straight and push the covers off, the fear doesn't leave. Instead it slithers through my veins and settles into my pounding heart. The feeling isn't going to wear off like it would with someone else's nightmare, because I'm living mine.
I have to talk to Asher.
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He does a spectacular job of avoiding me at school, until it's lunchtime and I corner him in front of his locker. Willa is there, studying me with hooded eyes and her lips flattened into their trademark thin line.
"Asher, I need to talk to you," I say, ignoring her as best I can. Last night's dream pulses in the back of my head, confusing me. I don't think of him like that—at least I try not to.
His eyes flick over to me; they look more grey than blue. Lethargically, he glances back at Willa and dismisses her with a nod of his head. The second she's gone, I close the distance between us and say, "Someone broke into my room last night. Actually, three people did."
"Are you okay?" For the first time since summer ended he looks concerned.
"Yeah, I'm fine. They didn't hurt me."
He sucks in his cheeks, chiseling out the bones. "What'd they take?"
I open my mouth to tell him everything but realize I can't. He doesn't know what I can do, and I can't tell him. But what else should I say? It would sound stupid to tell him they stole nothing.
