CHAPTER 3 NIGHTMARES AND NOAH #2
Noah’s face is the one I hope to see when I close my eyes at night but I’m not that lucky.
Lately, even when I stare at his picture, trying to burn it into my mind so that my subconscious or whatever it is that controls my dreams might have something better to take inspiration from, it never works.
I still dream of my mom dying. The only thing that makes me feel better is that I don’t need to dream about Noah.
I can see him every day at school, or when we go for walks in the park or to the movies or when he comes over for dinner.
I’d dated a girl in my freshman year for a month and a guy in my sophomore year for less than that.
But with Noah, everything changed. Nobody sees me the way he does.
My strange existence isn’t so strange to him and that makes me feel like I don’t have to change for him, or anyone else.
I take out my phone and am in the process of texting Noah when I think I would much rather hear his voice. I call him and he picks up on the second ring.
“Hey,” he says groggily.
“Oh no. Were you asleep?”
“Nah.”
“Liar.”
He laughs lightly.
“I won’t keep you up,” I say. “I just wanted to say good night.”
“Everything okay?” he asks. “You got that faraway sound in your voice.”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“Didn’t you just call me a liar? Look who’s talking.”
I smile. “Just, you know. Got a lot on my mind.”
“The sleep thing?”
“Yeah.” I try to hide how frustrated it makes me.
“The nightmare is keeping you from getting a good night’s sleep,” Noah says.
“Yeah, and you know, it’s not even the fact that I’ve had it almost every night since my last birthday.
It’s like the dream makes me miss my mom even though she’s right here.
” That is the truth I don’t want to admit.
The dream makes me think of what it would be like to be without my mom, and I hate it.
It shakes me so bad sometimes I don’t want to let her out of my sight.
I’ve been trying to decide if it’s fair for me to ask her to never ride in a car ever again.
“It makes no sense and on top of that, it’s changing. ”
“Really?” Noah asks, his gravelly voice ringing up a notch. “That’s new, right?”
I sigh. “Yeah, and it just makes it more awful. Usually, I wake up right when my dad is crouched over my mom. It’s like a bird’s-eye view thing. But now—now I’m outside on the ground, staring up at the sky. And there’s pain.”
“Pain?” Noah asks.
“In my neck and in my chest and I’m screaming.”
Noah is quiet for a moment. “I know we’ve talked about it before, but do you have any new ideas about what it means?”
“Not really, but I live in a house where dead people get carted around all day, every day. That’s gotta have something to do with it, right?”
“But you had the dream when you were little,” Noah says. “Before you started getting too involved with the dead people.”
I huff. “Yeah. It started right before we moved here. It wasn’t like this, though. It wasn’t every night. I’m just—I have no idea what it’s about.”
“My grandma says dreams can be like messages,” Noah says. “One time she had a dream about some fish and then boom, she found out my mom was pregnant with me.”
“I’ve heard of stuff like that,” I say.
“But do you believe it?”
I think for a moment. “I might? I don’t know.”
“I don’t know if dreaming of fish means somebody’s pregnant, but, like, sometimes maybe there’s a deeper meaning behind it.
” Noah sighs. “My grandma also put Vicks on the bottom of my feet when I had a fever and she thought Robitussin could cure cancer so maybe she’s not the most reliable source of information. ”
“Don’t even talk about Grandma Peggy like that,” I say, laughing. “Vicks works and Robitussin is the real deal.”
“Yeah, okay,” Noah chuckles. “It’s all fun and games until you’re eight and you get a cold. Now I have to explain why there’s a piece of onion in my sock.”
We laugh until we can’t even form coherent sentences. When I finally get it together, I sigh. “Maybe if I could figure out what the dream is trying to tell me, I could get some sleep.”
“I want that for you, Meeks. I really do,” Noah says. My heart flutters a little when he calls me Meeks. “You come to school looking like you haven’t slept in days,” he continues. “And I know Cip and Caleb give you a hard time, but you need rest.”
Cipriana and Caleb are not afraid to let me know when I look a mess.
Since the dream started back up and it’s affecting my sleep they keep telling me I look like a zombie, asking me if I’m a vampire since I like to stay up all night.
A part of me thinks being an undead demon might actually be easier than being scared awake almost every single night and then walking around with this ache in my chest whenever I see my mom.
“If the nightmare is trying to tell me something is going to happen to my mom, I gotta figure it out.” It sounds ridiculous but who has the same dream almost every night days or weeks at a time? It has to mean something. I wish I could pin it down and maybe do something about it.
“I love your mom,” Noah says. “If there’s anything I can do, please tell me.”
“I will,” I say.
“Hey,” Noah says suddenly. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Depends on what it is,” I tease.
“You ever see anything weird at your place? Like, I know you deal with bodies all the time but I mean . . . ?you ever see anything you can’t explain?”
I laugh. “You’ve been watching too many ghost hunting shows.”
Noah chuckles to himself. “That might be true, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked you about anything like that before. I was reading this book about haunted places in Ithaca and thought I’d ask.”
“I’ve never seen anything weird,” I say. “Not here at least.”
“Not there?” Noah asks. “But somewhere?”
“It was before we moved here,” I say. “I woke up one night, I think I was maybe five? Could’ve been younger, but I swear I saw somebody outside my window.
Somebody just standing there in the dark and his face was all messed up.
His eyes were different colors and he just looked .
. . ?wrong. I called for my mom and she came running but there wasn’t anything there when she cut the light on. ”
“So it was, what?” Noah asks. “A ghost?”
“Probably not,” I say. “Sorry to disappoint you but it was probably a creep.”
“That’s scarier than a ghost,” Noah says.
“You’re right about that,” I say, laughing. “Listen, I’ll let you go. See you tomorrow?”
“Yup,” Noah says.
We stay quiet for a minute. We both have something to say but neither of us has worked up the courage to say it yet, and it feels like we’re just waiting for the right time.
Noah laughs. “See you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
I hang up and lie back. I’m such a coward, but I’m gonna say it. I know I will.
My phone buzzes as a text comes through from Noah—a single red heart.