Dreamy

“Why do you care so much,” I prodded.



“Well I’m curious for one thing, and I had a dream last night about you jumping off of the tower. I didn’t think it was anything, so I wasn’t going to talk to you about it. You would think I was weird.”


“Weird. Yeah. I would pin that description on you,” I said sarcastically. “I’m the one who jumped from the tower and didn’t die. I’m the one who keeps killing everything.”


“Killing everything?” he repeated. This boy was in for a good freak-out. I took in a deep breath getting ready to blow his mind.


“Every time I get the least bit angry or scared or sad or any other negative feeling, something bad happens in my surrounding environment. It’s like I can’t control it. My emotions get the best of me, and then they get the best of something else.”


I looked at him to try to glean some type of response from his facial features—nothing. I waved my hand in front of his face. He seized it gently and uncovered a serious question poised on his lips. “Have you ever killed a person,” he asked curiously, though his clammy hand said he already guessed I was guilty.


My eyes averted, and I tried to think of something besides the sadness that overwhelmed me at the moment. “I don’t really know for sure,” I said with a short sniffle. I looked out at the half-withered garden just in time to see the greenery wilt to no return. Steven saw it too. Then he looked at himself half-expecting his own body to shrivel into a dead mess.


“How do you not know something like that?”


“I’ve blacked out a couple of times after losing my temper. When I woke up, I didn’t see the people who were there before. There’s no way of telling if I did or not because I was at a train station. People come and go. You know?”


He squeezed my hand, which surprisingly I had forgotten he still held hostage. I thought about yanking it back. He shouldn’t be touching me anyway; I could be a monster. I looked at his face just to catch his blue eyes finding mine like a lover found a lost mate. WTF? That was all I could think. This guy, who could have anyone he wants, looks like he has taken an interest in me—a person who can kill anything but herself. But of course, I looked away, highly doubting that my mind could even be close to judging things right.


“I do know.” He looked like he wanted to say something. His eyebrows hovered low over his darkened eyes, and he pursed his lips. I waited patiently and silently while he worked things out in his head.


“I have these dreams,” he admitted with the same look on his face that my dog, Zeus, had right after he completely destroyed my new pair of All Stars. I really just wanted to kick him out of my room that night, but his pleading eyes made me change my mind and let him snuggle in the covers with me.


I snapped back to the puppy dog at hand. I would let him snuggle with me no matter how bad he had been. I looked at Steven while trying to hide the dirty thoughts that were probably making some sort of appearance on my face. He looked at me waiting for a response.


“What’s wrong with dreaming?”


“Well there’s a strange twist with my dreams. My mom and dad used to fight a lot when I was younger, so when I went to lay down I would start imagining a sort of movie in my head. I had complete control of it at first, but when I fell asleep everything took its own path. Then, the next day or next week, the dream would come true in some fashion or form. My dreams have never gone awry until today.”


“Wait… Are you saying that you knew I was going to jump?”