155. Courtney
Chapter 155
Courtney
The woods I’m walking through morph into a city park.
It’s summer, and the pavement is radiating heat.
I’m so warm.
And… I’m in a dream.
My dream self takes a slow breath.
I love it when I know I’m in a dream.
And not because it means I’ll have a nice dream, but when I know it’s a dream, I don’t have to feel scared if something creepy happens.
I keep walking, tipping my face up to the sunshine.
There’s something familiar about this place.
And when I look around, I realize it’s not a park but a campground.
And the pavement has turned to gravel.
I breathe in the thick, humid air.
This is the last place I lived with my mom inside that RV.
The same RV shimmering to existence before me.
The brown and tan coloring is the same.
The off-white curtains hanging on the inside of the windows are the same .
The silver sun reflector propped on the dashboard, spread across the length of the windshield, just how I remember it.
I watch as high school me opens the side door.
She jumps down the step… and suddenly, she and I are the same.
I’m standing with my back to the RV.
And I’m just… so fucking over it.
So over living like this.
I want a house.
I want a house with space and rooms and privacy and furniture that I don’t even use because my home is bigger than what’s necessary, but it’s still what I need.
I clench my fists, grit my teeth, and scream silently in my head.
And the desperate feeling that I felt then.
That I still feel now…
It’s so fucking real.
It’s so fucking real.
The need for freedom and escape but also for someone to take care of me.
The need for someone to just take care of me.
For someone to give to me freely. With abandon.
For someone to share without strings or guilt.
For a place to call home.
To really call home.
I want to tell my younger self that it’s okay.
That we get out and make our way.
I want to tell her that we find what we need.
I want to lie to her.
I want to tell her that we’ve built that house.
I want to tell her that I have a big walk-in shower.
That our life gets easier.
That we have someone to take care of us.
My vision blurs, and I peel off from high school me.
Becoming two people again.
And I know I can’t lie to her.
Because I can’t lie to myself .
I watch, feeling useless as younger me wipes at her eyes and starts walking.
She’s going to work.
But then the world shimmers again, and everything around us transforms back into woods.
Younger me keeps walking.
And I follow her.
I follow her to the Laundry Cabin.
But she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t even look at it.
She walks all the way to Sterling’s house.
Younger me stops at the base of the stairs, the dream stairs looking so much longer than the real-life stairs.
I stop beside her, looking up.
I can feel the desire to climb the steps and go inside.
I can feel her hope.
“That’s not for us,” I tell her.
Even though I know the emotions I’m feeling are my own.
Younger me turns to current me. “Maybe it could be.”
The door at the top of the stairs opens.
It’s dark beyond the threshold.
It’s so far away.
But… maybe it could be.
“What if it’s not?” I whisper.
“What if it is?” she whispers back.
I can feel the warmth of Sterling surrounding me.
And that hope… that damn hope I’ve clung to for so long…
I take a breath.
I lift my foot to the first step.
And I fall.
Jolting myself into wakefulness.