Porcelain Skin (NOW ON AMAZON KU)

34. Wake Up Call

He's messing with me now. And for real? As if he doesn't know who I'm crushing on. Unless he's got short-term memory loss and can't recall the private messages that he read on my computer.

"Wouldn't you like to know," I say, repeating his answer. "Now it's your tu—"

"Do I know him?" He cuts me off.

"What?"

"The guy you like, do I know him?"

"Come on, Trevor. Stop messing around." I'm irritated by his stupidity at the moment. I glare at him, but all he does is smirk back and I want to jump on his head like a mad cat woman and start yanking the hair from his scalp.

"Well, I may have an idea, but there's no way for me to actually know unless you tell me." He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and in that moment I have violent urge to shave them off.

"No."

"Okay, is that 'no' I don't know him, or 'no' you're not going to tell me."

Wow, I have never witnessed Trevor's annoying side, and it's really dragging down his points.

"Yes, you know him. No, I'm not going to tell you, so just drop it." I'm rubbing my temple while I quietly yell at him. I notice another evil smile on Trevor's lips, and I just can't take it anymore. My shoulders sag and I turn to him with pleading eyes. "Please, Trev. Just stop." The smile immediately falls off his face, and I'm wondering if I've said something wrong, or if there's something in my expression that makes him realize how serious I am.

"Yeah, Okay," he says, but there's a gravelly quality to his voice. He sounds... emotional. 

I try to get a better look at his face, but he's no longer facing me. Instead, he's looking straight ahead towards the front of the classroom. His entire demeanor has changed. All joking has evaporated and been replaced with, what, insecurity? Sadness? Pain? I can't tell, but for some reason, I feel instant guilt. If I could just be like my dream self and have some courage, admit my feelings to him, he wouldn't look like an abused puppy right now.

I swipe a hand behind my neck and rub away the tension. How did this conversation get so heavy and stiff? I'm about ready to apologize and just admit my feelings for him when he clears his throat and begins recounting his second dream to me.

"I'm home in Colorado at one of my favorite parks," he begins. "It's not a normal park with kid swings and sandpits. I'm talking, like, a national park with bike trails, waterfalls, cliffs. So I'm actually climbing one particular part of this cliff that I used to always climb, only for some reason this cliff is like a mile high instead of just a few feet. So I'm way up there. Looking down is terrifying. It's one of those dreams that just feels so real after you wake up that you just lay there thinking about it for forever before you feel like you can even move.

"Anyway, I'm climbing and everything's normal until I notice that my hands are covered in blood. I'm about halfway up this enormous wall, and suddenly my hands are slick with blood, and I'm struggling to keep my grasp but the hand holds are so minuscule that I'm literally holding on by just the tips of my fingers. My arms are shaking. I'm sweating and fighting, but the closer I get to the top the further I have to keep going. It's like the cliff is growing as I climb. So it's one of those never ending dreams, which are the worst. Anyway, that's basically the end of the dream. I reach for my next hold but my grip slips, I fall, and that's it. I'm wake up."

"Your dreams are creepy," I say, after eyeing him for a moment. "Couldn't you have chosen a more lighthearted dream?"

"Those were the lighthearted ones," he responds nonchalantly.

I watch him for a moment. "How many dreams did you have during the week?"

"Six," he tells me as he turns and looks me directly in the eyes. I just stare back. He dreamt every single night, except for one, and they were all nightmares. What has this guy been through to make his sleeping mind so disturbed?

"Do you—" I'm not sure if I should ask the question that's burning a hole into the tip of my tongue, but it slips out anyway. "Do you have nightmares often?"

His eyes flicker between one of my eyes and then the other like he's trying to see something in my gaze. I'm wondering if he's even going to tell me as the seconds tick by, and then he nods. It's a stiff movement, but there's no denying it.

"Listen, Emma." He turns towards me and rests his elbows on his knees so that he's blocking the aisle. He's so close to me, but his eyes are so far away, as if he's recalling some distant memory. "I haven't always been the guy I am now. Before I moved to Illinois I was messed up; lot's of issues, horrible friends, bad decisions. That's one reason why we moved here. My parents wanted to get me away from that lifestyle. So, yeah, I have a lot of nightmares. Things that I don't necessarily want to remember, but they're there. I hate it because all I want to do is forget. I hate who I used to be. I was a punk, a deadbeat. My life was leading me nowhere, and I just—" He drops his head for a moment and I look at the back of his neck; a neck that seems to carry a lifetime of burdens that he's kept hidden for so long.

"What happened?" I ask, and he slowly brings his head up to look at me again. "How did you get out of it?"

"My best friend died." He says it so bluntly that I'm forced to take in a soft gasp of air. "I guess that was my big wake up call."

I'm watching him closely, but his facial features give nothing away. I can't read what he's feeling at all. He's got his mask in place, and though he's just let me in on a large aspect of his life, it's still tightly in place. I'm wondering how long I have before he puts the walls back in place. Knowing that this might be my only glimpse into who the real Trevor is, I take a bit of a risk and ask a question that I would normally feel is inappropriate.

"How?" It's a simple question, and yet, the look that crosses over Trevor's face makes me feel like I've just poisoned his dog and then lit it on fire.

There's a crack in his features, and I'm shocked to see the level of anguish that hides behind his green eyes. Eyes that normally seem so strong and intense, at this moment, seem dull and tortured. He looks directly at me, so I get a full view of every emotion swirling beneath the surface of his carefully placed disguise, and says,

"I killed him."

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Hmm... a bit dramatic?... Yeah. Maybe. Lol :p

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