The Open Door - Sean and Kaycee

16. Third Time's the Charm

(quick note: make sure you've read the previous chapter, or this one won't really make sense at all. love you all 💙)

Kaycee

I wake up disoriented in an unfamiliar bed that smells like fresh pine needles. Coming to my senses, I remember that I'm at Sean's house for a sleepover. Is this Sean's bed? But he isn't here. So how did I get here? The logic isn't working out. Unless... shit, did he carry me over here after I fell asleep? My face heats up just thinking about it.

It's still the middle of the night, but there's no way I'm falling back asleep. Not after having that dream.

And yet it wasn't really a dream. It couldn't have been. It was too realistic, too familiar -- a memory that's only now coming back to me.

I saw it again -- the subway station last year, right before I left. The time when I met the Boy Who Dreamed. I never knew his name. I don't even remember his face. Sometimes I wonder if he's just a figment of my overrun imagination -- if I just made him up because I felt lonely and I needed a friend. But I couldn't have. He's so real to me, I can almost touch him.

This time, I could have sworn that I'd almost seen his face in that dream. The details had become more defined. Warm brown eyes. Dimples. Wearing a gray hoodie that said "Lewser" on it.

Holy shit.

I can't be... and yet, it makes perfect sense. Because Sean lived in New York until last year. He said that he moved around the same time I did. And the boy on the train was about to move. And how many other people in this world would have been so impassioned about dance, enough to speak with almost poetic veneration about it?

I remember when I met Sean in the elevator a few weeks back that he seemed familiar somehow. Maybe this is why.

Now fully awake, I jump out of bed to look for Sean. It doesn't take me long to find him. Or rather, to step on him. He's such a heavy sleeper that he doesn't wake up, even though I definitely just stepped on his arm.

"Sean, wake up!" I whisper in his ear. He's still asleep.

"Shamu, you lazy butt, I have something to tell you!" Still snoring.

I hesitate, before saying. "Sean, I had a dream about you."

Miraculously, he starts to stir. "Kaycee, you're beautiful," he mumbles, with a little smile on his face.

My cheeks flush red. He must still be half-conscious and incredibly sleep-deprived. He's not thinking straight. Right?

"Um, Sean? Did you hear what I said?"

"You really are then most beautiful and charming person on the planet--"

I shake him by the shoulders. "Sean Charles Lew! Will you please wake up?"

His eyes, those incredibly welcoming brown eyes, pop open. "Huh? What's going on? Is it morning already?"

"No, you sleepyhead," I say, laughing. "It's still the middle of the night. I said that I had something, actually two things, to tell you."

He rubs his eyes. "Did you really have to wake me up? I was having a really good dream."

I raise an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't remember your dreams."

"I don't. That's why I want to enjoy them while I'm sleeping," he says, pretending to be angry with me. But his eyes are twinkling with laughter.

"Sorry, Shamu," I say apologetically.

"It's fine. What's so important that you had to wake me up at 2 AM in then morning?"