Chapter Eleven
Eleven
I open my eyes in a stuffy gymnasium where the entire population of Sterlingwood High is screaming a fight song. Next to me, one shouting voice stands out from the rest. Sterlingwood, Sterlingwood, who are we? Champions, champions, ’cause we win!
The volume and intensity should make my head want to explode, but they don’t. My pain is gone.
I don’t understand how. Or why I’m suddenly…
A dream.
Holy shit, I’m in another dream. And it’s another day I recognize.
The Sterlingwood High Homecoming pep rally. I’m in the stands watching as the entire soccer team bulldozes through the gym in their uniforms, slapping hands with other students, dabbing and dancing and taking dramatic bows like they do at the start of every season.
I have no idea how I got here, because I certainly haven’t done anything but upchuck in the last hour in real life.
Right now, though, the person beside me is roaring, and I cover my left ear as I turn to see who has this much team pride.
My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “Marcus?” I shout over the noise to be heard. “What the hell?”
He looks just as stunned to see me, then a little embarrassed. “You’re here,” he says. “I thought I was just having a random-ass dream.”
Our conversation at the bonfire immediately flies back to me.
“How did…I thought we…you know what? Never mind.” I can’t pretend to understand dream logic, so I’m already squeezing through the rows of the stand and heading down the stairs as Principal Collins calls the room to attention.
“All right, all right! Thank you, Sterlingwood Silvers,” she says.
“I can’t believe it’s happening again!” I whisper to Marcus, overjoyed, as we wiggle through the stands. I’m going to get another chance to see Jason.
Not a single person pays any attention to us as we skip down the stairs to the floor of the gymnasium. Just like last time, it doesn’t seem like anyone can see us.
“Jason and Zadie are over there somewhere!” I tell Marcus excitedly as we approach the lowest bench. I know exactly when this memory is from.
“Are they,” Marcus says, voice flat, but he follows me, anyway.
Jason’s height makes him easy to spot in a room full of seated people.
And my heart leaps as soon as I see him.
His neat brown hair, his easy smile. His presence is as vibrant as the sun.
Speaking of owning the entire room, there is no logical reason why the most popular guy on the soccer team should be settling next to chronic overachiever Zadie Cartwright during a mid-October pep rally, but that is exactly what he’s doing.
Marcus and I stand off to the side, where we have a good view of Jason and Other Zadie.
Next to me, Marcus folds his arms across his chest. It occurs to me that this would have been Marcus’s first pep rally here, but I don’t think he actually attended.
As he sits, Jason casually greets the Other Zadie with a shoulder nudge, and she gives him a subtle smile. He gives her another nudge, more obvious this time, and she shifts away from him, trying to look stern.
“They’re keeping things on the DL. Only our friends—my friends and Jason’s friends—know we’re dating because I wasn’t ready to tell everyone,” I explain to Marcus. The night before this pep rally, Jason had sent Zadie a text with the words I think it’s time for our hard launch
Zadie had written back: Ok don’t hate me, but I need a minute.
Jason: Like a 60 second minute or…?
Zadie: Like a week or two minute
Jason: Because of your dad?
Zadie: Because of everything.
And there really were a bunch of things bothering me: Dad had died less than two months before.
I still had moments of bursting into tears for tiny things like hearing a song he’d introduced me to or someone quoting a movie he loved or simply because it was early evening, the time that we used to talk on the phone almost every night since I was thirteen.
Sometimes, there was no reason. But most of all, I wanted to be sure the relationship was right.
Not something I’d regret or feel ashamed of.
Not one of those typical high school relationships with the screaming matches and empty promises.
I wanted to make sure we were good together.
“As much as I wanted to be with Jason, I needed to wrap my head around it. I wanted us to figure out what being together meant before we were everywhere.” I suddenly notice Marcus is rigid beside me.
And that he actually hasn’t answered anything I’ve said in the last couple of minutes.
I look over at him, and he is wearing something akin to a scowl, face focused ahead as he watches Zadie and Jason pretend they aren’t newly dating.
“Are you okay?” I ask Marcus, tentative.
I can’t believe I actually care, but I think…I think Marcus is mad at me.
“Is this because of the bonfire?” I say when he doesn’t respond. “You’re punishing me?”
“I’m not punishing you, Zadie,” he says, still staring straight ahead.
At exactly that moment, Principal Collins starts reading a long list of announcements, each of them more boring than the last. Clean up after yourself on the quad.
No vaping on school grounds. Actually, no vaping at all, anywhere, unless you want to die.
She tells a string of bad jokes, hands out insanely large bouquets of blue flowers to two teachers going on maternity leave.
“But the dreams aren’t a thing, right?” Marcus continues in a whisper, as if he’s trying not to interrupt Principal Collins. As if we’re even capable of interrupting. “Isn’t that what we’re pretending?”
“I could have not been pretending,” I point out. “What if I just didn’t remember the dreams in real life?”
“Co-dreaming,” he says, while the pep rally continues in the background.
I frown. “Huh?”
“You said co-dreaming. At the bonfire. We only ever mentioned that in the dream.”
Shit.
“I’m sorry, okay?” I say, contrite. “Yes, I shouldn’t have pretended not to understand what you were talking about. I just…I don’t know what this whole thing is any more than you do. All I know is it sounds shady as hell to say I’ve been dreaming about my boyfriend’s cousin.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Marcus says after a beat. “And, of course, what everyone thought would be your top concern.”
“Caring what people think is not a bad thing, Marcus. Caring is a normal human emotion,” I say, unconcerned about coming off preachy.
“People care about other people. They care about their grades. They care about their sport.” It’s a jab specifically aimed at what Amber told us last night, about Marcus half-assing practices and missing his chance to start a game, to play Jason’s position.
“You think I don’t c—” He pushes a hand through his hair. “You’re right. I’m heartless. So what’s happening here?”
I focus on the pep rally again. “It’s Kiss Cam Day,” I tell Marcus, beaming.
“Kiss Cam Day?” he repeats.
“Remember what I said about Zadie not wanting everyone to know yet about her and Jason?”
“Yes?”
“Well…” Right on cue, the catchiest bubblegum pop song bursts from the huge speakers mounted in the corners of the gym.
It’s “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, and immediately, a live video of people in the gym is projected onto the screen.
At any given time, the camera seems to target the most awkward pairing of people sitting or standing side by side.
Megan Shu and Clark Howie, Braden Young and Hunter G, Vice Principal Moon and Coach Kyle.
And last but not least…
I watch through the spaces between my fingers as the camera pans to Jason and Other Zadie. When the camera lands on them, blowing up their interaction for everyone to see, Zadie looks horrified. She’s already shaking her head when Jason laughs, cups her face, and kisses her.
It is decidedly not a kiss between strangers.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, feeling like it’s happening all over again.
I’ve never been kissed like that in my life.
From the vibration of the music to the softness of Jason’s lips to the awareness of every passing second and people gaping and the crowd now catcalling and whistling and clapping.
It feels like the cameras stay on Jason and Zadie for an eternity.
Long enough for the kiss to end, and for her to finally, sheepishly crack a smile.
Jason, on the other hand, looks like he always does. Completely unflustered and in control.
I don’t know how I manage to tear my gaze away from them for long enough to see Marcus—the Marcus in the dream—enter the gym.
He’s wearing a backpack that could not look more decorative (read: empty) if it tried, old jeans, and a gray sweatshirt, hood up over his head.
He slows as he senses the commotion, finds the screen showing Zadie’s and Jason’s grinning faces, comes to a complete stop, then turns around and walks back out of the gym.
“Hey, why did you leave?” I’m asking the Marcus beside me, but I never hear what he says because, suddenly, the gym is very, very loud.
Marcus tries to tell me something, maybe in answer to my question, but I just shake my head and point to my ears. “I can’t hear you!”
The dream is ending.
It’s an undignified ending, like being sucked up by a vacuum, and I’m fighting it, trying to get Marcus and myself to stay in this one perfect memory.
But the force pulling us out of the present moment is much, much stronger.
Soon, I feel like my legs are disappearing, like bit by bit I am unbecoming.
Reaching for Marcus is a last-ditch effort, but to my surprise, when my hand grazes his, he catches my finger. Holding, holding, holding.
And then we are gone.