Dreaming of Alten

Chapter 8. Alten in Real Life

Alten stops the car at my favorite spot on the beach, right by the big rock shaped like a seal that I like to sit on when I need a place to think by myself. This place is kind of my secret. Not even Lily knows I come here. But Alten knows, of course. He and I have been here hundreds of times.

It's a school day and the water is still too cold for swimming so we're the only people on the beach. Today the sky is the same shade of gray as the ocean and I can barely see the line in the horizon where the two meet.

I get out of the car and go sit on the front of the Porsche. I've dreamed about doing this so many times, but none of my fantasies were filled with the smell of the ocean or the feeling of the wind whipping the ends of my ponytail into my face. It's so surreal that I have to take a moment to close my eyes and draw a breath to take it all in.

"So this is our spot," says Alten, coming up to join me. He sits on the car beside me and puts his arms around me from behind, pulling me back to lean my head into his shoulder. It feels safe and warm and comfortable and I wish we could stay like this forever, watching the waves crash onto the sand and roll back out again.

Neither one of us says anything for a long time, but it's the kind of warm silence that comes from knowing someone so well that there's no need to say a word.

I don't know how long we sit there, but slowly I become aware that Alten is feeling intensely sad.

"What's wrong?" I ask, without moving.

"I really like it here," he says, and I wonder if he hasn't said anything for so long because he knows I'll hear the emotion in his voice.

Without thinking, I reach up a hand to touch him and he leans his cheek into my palm. "I like it here, too," I say, but I understand that he's not just talking about this moment on the beach. He's talking about being here, in my world, and my life.

"It's different to how I thought it would be," Alten says, and I realize that, however shocked I was to see him in my world, it probably wasn't anything compared to how he felt coming to my world after being in his own alternate reality all his life.

"What's it like in your world?" I ask.

I feel him smile against my hand. "It's very you," he says. "It's made up of everything you were or could ever be. And it's pretty amazing."

I move my fingers up to his hair and turn to kiss him. I can feel his passion and longing and emotions explode against my lips like the first burst of flavor from a new piece of gum, and all I can think about is that I want and need more of him and I can never get enough.

I don't know how long it takes us to break apart, but it feels like hours have passed without my knowing it. If the world had disappeared around us I don't think I would have noticed it. I hear myself whimper as our lips part and it feels like my eyes have been fixed in place because I can't look away from Alten's face. I'm like an addict looking at a favorite drug, and all I can think is Don't stop.

Alten's dark blue eyes are staring into mine with a kind of drunken intensity and he looks just as stunned as I feel.

Somewhere in the silence, as our gazes burn holes into each other's souls, we seem to realize at the same time that neither of us has drawn breath in what feels like a really, really long time.

Alten speaks first. "Wow."

"Yeah," I say, trying to laugh through my sudden giddiness. "That was a real rush."

"Super intense," he says with a grin, before gently kissing the corner of my mouth, taunting me with the memory of what we just experienced.

We go back to watching the waves in silence for a few minutes. I can sense that there's less sadness in him than before and I feel comforted. I don't want to break the silence, but there's a question I have to ask. "Alten?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you going to do about Colin?"

I sense his muscles tighten against my arms. "I've got to get him back to our reality somehow. I haven't figured out the specifics of how I'm going to do that yet, but I will. I have to."

"Why do you have to do that? Get him back to your reality?"

"Well, I need to close the gap between this reality and ours, and I'm guessing that since we were the first two people that came through the tear in reality, the way to fix the problem would be for us to simply go back." I feel him shrug against my shoulder. "Right now, the tear in reality is just standing wide open, meaning that anything and anyone could make it through to this world, which is what Colin and his friends are probably hoping for, a big merging of the two realities."

"That doesn't sound too bad," I say. The world would probably be a nicer place if everyone's fantasy boyfriends and girlfriends came to life.

Alten rests his chin on the top of my head. "It's not just imaginary boyfriends and beautiful fantasies out there," he says. "There are lots of bad things too. And if they cross over, it would be absolute chaos."

I heave a slow shuddering sigh. It's what I was expecting, but not hoping, to hear. "I wish you didn't have to do this," I say. "I wish we could just stay here, like this. I wish you could just stay here."

"I know," he says sadly. "I wish I could stay, too. But I have to do this. I'm the only person who can. And it would be really bad if I didn't."

I wish I was the kind of person who could say, I don't care if the whole world burns, as long as you and I can be together, but I can't, and even if I could I know that Alten isn't the kind of guy who would do that anyway. If he was, he wouldn't be the perfect fantasy boyfriend I imagined him to be.

"I'm sorry," Alten says. "I didn't think it would be this hard. I thought I would come and see you, explain to you what was happening, and then I'd just do what I had to do and it would be over, and we'd be back to how we were. I didn't realize that this would happen."

"You didn't realize what would happen?"

He's quiet for such a long time that I start to wonder if he's not going to answer my question. I'm just about to change the subject when he speaks, whispering the words into my ear like a secret he only wants to share with me.

"I didn't realize that I would fall even more in love with you than I already was."

I'm suddenly glad that we can't see each other's faces, because my face is super hot and I'm sure it's burning red. My insides have melted into nothing. It's the sweetest thing that anyone has ever said to me, but I wish that he hadn't said it, not after he just told me that he has to go after Colin and take him back to their alternate reality. That's just cruel.

As if he can read my mind, Alten says, "Even after I'm gone, I'll still be with you. In all your dreams. Everywhere you go. Anytime you need me. I'll always be a part of you, even when you leave me behind someday for some great guy who really deserves you."

Every word he says feels like a punch in the gut. I twist out of his grasp and turn to face him. "Don't say that!" I practically scream at him, tears blurring my eyes and running down my cheek. I can barely see him. "How can you even say that to me? I'm never going to leave you behind!"

He takes my face in both his hands and wipes away my tears with his thumbs, his touch so light I almost don't feel it. He doesn't say anything.

"How can I leave you behind when every single guy I know falls short compared to you?" I ask. I'm sobbing so hard that I have to struggle to get the words out. "You're perfect for me, and you always will be. No one else could come close."

Alten leans in close and kisses me gently on the forehead. "At least those guys will be real," he says. "And I can't be that for you, no matter how much I want to." His voice breaks on the last word and when I look up at him he turns away. There's pain written in every line of his face, silhouetted against the gray sky. "I just want you to be happy," he whispers. "Even after I'm...you know...not here."

I turn his face and make him look at me. His eyes are two deep blue pools of pure agony. I touch my forehead to his and just stare at his face, trying to memorize every line of it, trying to make myself remember how it feels to trace my fingers through his hair and down the nape of his neck and the smooth curve of his back. I don't want to forget a single detail of everything we have in this moment. I want to freeze us in amber and keep us like this forever.

And I never want to let go of him.