Insomnia

Chapter 3: The Storm

The sporting goods store always smelled like a gigantic rubber ball dipped in pine-scented cleaner. The store was pretty empty, but I noticed Jeff Sparks flipping through an issue of Sports Illustrated at the checkout line across from me. He was our senior class president. Everyone got along with him and he got along with pretty much everyone. He was definitely top dog, and had been the soccer team captain since junior high. There was a moment, when the team voted me co-captain of the soccer team this year, that I thought Jeff might not be down with sharing the spotlight, but so far he'd been cool. 

"Anything good?" I asked. 

Jeff glanced up and smiled when he saw me. "Hey, man. Nah, my team sucks this year anyway." 

"Dude, the Broncos suck every year." 

He laughed, put the magazine back on the rack, and placed a new pair of shin guards in front of the register. "And the Packers are any better?" 

I shrugged and walked over to Jeff's register. My line wasn't moving anyway and I didn't like shouting across the girl ringing him up. "Always." 

"Never took you for a liar." 

"Then you haven't been paying attention." 

Jeff paid and grabbed his shin guards. He walked backward toward the door and pointed one finger at me. "Soccer team meeting tomorrow after the assembly. Don't forget." 

"I'll be there," I said as he left. 

Jeff and I used to hang out all the time, but he was a year older so when he went to high school and I didn't, things changed. Sometimes I missed hanging out with him, but I'd been a little too distracted and tired to make an effort over the past couple years, and now I wasn't sure how to try again. 

I hadn't watched his dreams in at least two years, but he used to dream a lot about hanging out with his mom. It seemed to make him oddly happy. Hard to look at our school's star soccer forward, not to mention my co-captain, in quite the same way when you know he's a serious momma's boy. 

After buying my cleats, I glanced at the clock above the door and walked out into the damp night air. It was just after six. Not that I wanted to avoid Jeff's dreams, but I was glad Finn was waiting for me outside. His dreams were comfortable for me now. Besides, even his nightmares were too freaky to be considered scary. 

He was sitting on a bench talking on his phone. The air around us was thick and moist, but it hadn't begun raining yet. 

"Yeah, we had to stop by the mall after the movie," he said. 

I recognized his mom's muffled voice coming through the earpiece. He shrugged and said, "Fine, I'll ask him." He held the phone away from his ear. "Can we pick up Addie from the pool on the way home?" 

I ignored the way he shook his head, obviously wanting me to say no and laughed. "Sure, no problem." 

He scowled and said goodbye. I wasn't going to be the one to tell Mrs. Patrick no. Besides, Finn's fifteen-year-old sister Addie was the coolest girl I'd ever met—although I'd obviously never tell Finn that. 

I'd avoided most girl Dreamers since the end of junior high, when girls got all weird. Addie was the only girl I'd ever been curious about, but I'd never watched her dreams. For some reason it felt like an intrusion with her. It didn't help things that last summer she'd turned ridiculously hot pretty much overnight. She even went to our school now that she was a sophomore. Too bad sisters of friends were off limits. It didn't really matter, though—girls were so much work. I didn't have enough time left to waste it just trying to figure one out.