Bonus Chapter
Ash
One Year Later
I sit next to Dylan on a blanket spread atop the sand, focused on sketching the waves lapping against the nearby shore. The sun beats down outside the small circle of shade provided by our umbrella.
This tiny beach in Delaware is vastly different from the beaches I remember visiting in California growing up.
But I love being back near the water all the same.
The incessant crash of the surf and the briny scent of salt on the air soothes something in me—a certain restlessness that’s hard to fully define.
I struggle to capture the emotion of the experience in my sketch anyway. It’s hard to get the sense of motion from the waves just right. Hopefully, adding color later will help.
Dylan reads beside me. Lying on his stomach, his bare back already looking a little red despite the copious amounts of sunscreen I’d helped him apply, he has his book cracked open in front of him while his legs kick slowly at the air.
Even with my sketch preoccupying my attention, I find myself glancing over at him often, as if he might vanish if I look away too long. Like a fading dream.
That’s what these last few months together have felt like—a dream. The kind I never want to wake up from and wish I could make last forever. But even a dreamwalker like me can only do so much.
“I had no idea how much you loved the ocean.”
I look over at Dylan to see him smiling up at me. Sand coats his right cheek and a missed glob of white sunscreen glistens on the tip of his nose. But that doesn’t make him any less beautiful.
“What’s not to love?” I turn back to my sketch, determined to make the wave perfect. “It’s awesome.”
Dylan chuckles. “No arguments here. I can’t even remember the last time I came to the beach. As a kid, maybe.”
“Why? It’s less than two hours away.”
Dylan’s smile dims. “I guess life got in the way,” he says quietly.
Damn my thoughtlessness! Of course he hasn’t had time for trips to the beach.
Until recently, Dylan had been overwhelmed just trying to keep his fractured family together.
Things are still tight, especially with him off at vet school.
But he’d opted for a local college so he could commute home every weekend.
For now, I’m still living with my aunt, working a part-time job while I figure out what I want out of life.
I’d spent so long obsessed with the idea of getting away from everyone and everything that, now that I have people I don’t want to get away from, I’m not entirely sure what to do with myself.
All I know is that I want to keep practicing dreamwalking so that I can use my powers to help others the way I tried to help Greta. Well, that and Dylan.
Searching for a change of subject, I set my half-finished sketch down in my lap.
“My parents used to take me to this one beach near our house all the time. Dad fancied himself a surfer, though looking back, I don’t actually think he was very good.
” I close my eyes and tip my head back, letting the ocean breeze waft over me.
“There’s no place I’d rather be than here.
” Opening my eyes, I reach over and find his hand, threading our fingers together despite the awkward angle.
“And no one else I’d rather be here with. ”
Dylan’s smile is as brilliant as the sun—and as likely to burn me alive judging by the heat it stirs low in my belly. I shift, overly conscious of the fact that I’m wearing nothing but a thin bathing suit.
“I guess that explains why you’ve taken me to the beach the last three nights in a row,” Dylan says, a mischievous glint in his eye. “It wouldn’t hurt to mix things up, you know.”
Feigning outrage, I let my brow shoot up. “Wow, really? I’m so sorry that your magical boyfriend is too boring for you.”
Dylan laughs and nudges my leg with his arm. “It’s okay. To be honest, after how stressful my first year of classes has been, boring is exactly what I need.”
I smile and pick back up my sketchbook. With the distance and how busy he’s been, it’s been hard to spend as much time together as I’d like.
But at least our nighttime activities afford us a certain degree of freedom most couples don’t get.
When we say we’ll see each other in our dreams, it’s a bit more literal than usual.
“Hey, Dylan!” We both turn toward the shout to see Patrick jumping out of the water, waving his arms as he runs over to us.
Water drips off him, splattering the sand and the edge of our towel.
I hurriedly tuck my sketchbook against my chest to save it from any stray shots.
“Stop being lame and get in the water with us!”
Tommy trails after Patrick. Despite his large, hulking frame, he looks oddly hesitant, staying back and letting Patrick take the lead.
“Not right now, Pat,” Dylan says. “I want to finish my book first.”
Patrick huffs and crosses his arms. “Yeah, like I said, you’re being lame. You’re not just going to sit there all day, are you?”
Dylan hesitates, his hazel eyes flicking to me. “He makes a compelling argument. What do you say—up for a dip?”
“Nah, I’m good,” I reply. “You go on ahead.”
When Dylan still hesitates, I muffle a sigh and nudge him with my foot. “Don’t use me as an excuse for being lame. Go swim if you want. I’m just going to finish this sketch, I swear. Then, I’ll follow you in.”
Dylan brightens, flashing me a breathtaking grin. “All right. But if you’re not down there in ten minutes, you and that sketchbook are going in the Atlantic!”
I watch him run off after Patrick, admiring the play of sun across the pebbled skin of his back. The perfect image for my next sketch—even if I know it’ll be impossible to fully capture the reality. Most pictures are.
I’m about to turn back to my current sketch and that damn troublesome wave when I realize that Tommy is still standing there, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. I raise a hesitant brow. “Can I…help you with something?”
I brace myself for his response. While things have been slowly improving between him and Dylan, if he waited for Dylan to be out of earshot, whatever he has to say can’t be good.
“Nothing,” Tommy mutters. “Just…nice drawing.”
It takes me a moment to respond through my shock. “Um…thanks?”
With a terse nod, Tommy turns and flees down the sand. I stare after him, at a loss. I can’t even remember the last time Tommy said something to me outside a muttered ‘hello’ when our families meet up. Let alone something nice.
Maybe he really is trying to turn over a new, less homophobic leaf.
I watch the three of them play in the water for a time.
Dylan’s joy is utterly captivating, and I can’t help smiling at his outraged shouts when Tommy lifts him up and flings him into a wave after Dylan splashes him in the face.
My smile turns to muffled laughter when a lifeguard shouts at them to knock off the horseplay.
Seeing the brothers together conjures a hint of wistfulness in me.
As much happier as I am now compared to a year ago, moments like this remind me that I’ll always be an outsider looking in on their world.
Their family. A bit like an intrusive presence watching someone else’s dreams play out at night without truly being a part of them.
Trying my best to shove the unwelcome feeling down, I force my focus back on my sketch, determined to finish the damn thing. I’ve just about got the line at the front of the wave right when a shadow looms over me. I glance up to find Aunt Claudette standing there.
“Hey there, Ash. How’s it going?”
“Fine.” I tamp down my annoyance at once again having my flow interrupted. “Drawing,” I add, holding up my sketch and hoping she’ll take the hint.
She doesn’t, settling down on the blanket beside me in Dylan’s vacated spot. Her flamboyant bathing suit more than makes up for the lack of her usual necklaces and shawl. “Glad to hear it. Here, take a look at these beauties.”
She proffers a handful of shells. She’d gone for a walk with Ms. Krantz along the beach hunting seashells. Now that they were back, Dylan’s mom stands down by the water, snapping pictures of her boys on her phone.
I give the shells a cursory look, but none really stand out to me. Some are cracked, some too small, some blandly colored. Each and every one has at least one glaring imperfection.
“Cool,” I say.
She nods enthusiastically. “A good haul, if I do say so myself. I was thinking I could fill a basket with them. Take a little piece of the ocean home with us. What do you think?”
“Cool,” I repeat, pointedly turning back to my sketch. Despite my best efforts though, it’s impossible to concentrate with her sitting there, watching me. “What’s up?” I ask at last with a barely muffled sigh.
She shrugs. “Nothing really. I just wanted to come check on you and see how you were doing. I was worried when I saw you sitting up here all alone.”
My annoyance instantly evaporates, replaced by regret.
That’s something I’m still not used to, even after a year—other people actually caring that I exist. I used to think that I had no one except a pair of grandparents who viewed me as a reluctant obligation at best and an unwanted burden at worst. But now, I have Dylan, my friends at school, my aunt, Dylan’s mom, Patrick… hell, apparently even Tommy.
For so long, I’d felt as ephemeral as a dream, sleepwalking through life. It’s nice to finally feel seen. Loved.
Mortification seizes me when I feel wetness pooling in my eyes. Smiling, I frantically scrub at them with the back of my hand, hoping my aunt doesn’t notice. “Thanks, Aunt Claudette. Yeah, I’m good. Everything is great.”
She reaches over and pats my bare shoulder. “It’s good to see you smile. Reminds me of your mother. I know she’d be thrilled to see you out here, enjoying life.”
I glance down at the partially sketched ocean in my lap, then up at the real thing waiting in front of me right as Dylan dives face-first into a wave. He breaks the surface afterward, sputtering and wiping water from his face. When he sees me watching, he waves, beckoning me toward him.
Still smiling, I close my sketchbook and set it aside on the blanket near Aunt Claudette’s collection of flawed shells. Ordered perfection could wait. “In fact, I think I’m going to go jump in the water now.”
“Okay, have fun.” She frowns, giving me a critical once-over. “You might wanna put some more sunscreen on first though, so you don’t burn to a crisp like poor Dylan.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, waving away her concern as I stand. I start down the beach, then hesitate, glancing back at my aunt. “You coming?”
She beams at me. “You know what? I’d love to.”
As I walk down the beach with my aunt toward Dylan and the rest of his family, I feel something settle deep within me. I think I’m finally starting to figure out how to let the world in, blemishes and all.