Twenty-One
I WAS ALL set to keep my distance after that.
But then, that night, Jack had a nightmare.
A bad one.
I woke to the sound of him thrashing and choking. He had said not to be alarmed, but I’m not gonna lie: It was alarming. He’s not a small guy, and whatever was going on in that nightmare … he was fighting it with everything he had.
I stood up fast, heart thumping, and clambered over to him.
“Jack,” I said, trying to steady his shoulders. “Wake up.”
But he was thrashing like a wild boar. His arm came up and smacked me across the collarbones like a wood plank. I took a step back, found my breath, and regrouped.
I stepped closer again. “Jack! Wake up!”
This time, he heard me, and opened his eyes. He grabbed my nightgown to pull himself up—gasping, coughing, sobbing, and looking around like he had no idea where he was.
“You’re good!” I said. “You’re safe!” I said, as he tried to focus. “Just a dream. Just a really bad dream.”
And then what did I do? I hugged him.
I sat close to him, and squeezed my arms around him tight, and said every soothing thing I could think of.
As soon as it all registered—where he was, who I was, what was happening—he clamped his arms around me and wouldn’t let go.
So I stayed right there.
I stroked his back and patted it. I waited for his breathing to settle. I comforted him. Like real people do with people they really care about.
Even after he’d gotten quiet, when I thought maybe he was feeling better and might want to be left alone to sleep, it was—let’s say—challenging to leave him. When I tried to unfold myself from his arms, he tightened his grip.
“You’re okay now,” I said.
But then he said, “Stay with me a little longer, okay?” His voice was so shaky, there was no other answer but, Of course.
And when he decided to lie back on the pillow and kept his arms around me, clamping me close like I was his teddy bear, I let him do that, too.
“Just another minute,” he said.
I could manufacture a hundred reasons why I stayed. But the only one that matters is this: I wanted to. I liked it there. I liked holding him—and being held. I liked feeling like I mattered to someone. There’s nothing like the mutuality of a hug—the way you’re giving comfort but you’re getting it, too.
I didn’t know what was real or fake anymore, but right then, it just didn’t matter.
We faced each other on our sides. He kept his arms wrapped around me. I rested my head on his bicep.
I gave myself five more minutes. Then another five. I decided to wait until he fell asleep. But he didn’t fall asleep.
I’d close my eyes, but every time I opened them, I saw his, right there, open, gazing at me, pupils dark and wide.
After a while, I asked, “It’s the same dream every time?”
“Yep.”
Then I asked, “Can you tell me what it is?”
But he didn’t answer.
Finally, I said, “Because I read up on ‘how to cure nightmares.’”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I read up on a lot of things.”
“Were you going to tell me about it?”
“I’m telling you right now.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“There are lots of methods, but one big one is to talk about the dream.”
“I don’t want to talk about the dream.”
“I get it. But apparently it helps. You tell the story of the dream—while you’re awake … but then you rewrite the ending.”
“How can you rewrite the ending if it’s already ended?”
“You rewrite it for next time.”
“I always hope there won’t be a next time.”
“But there always is.”
Jack nodded.
“So let’s try it, then.”
Jack smiled then and let his eyes roam around my face. “I can see why my mom likes you.”
I didn’t want to enjoy that too much.
“Rewriting the ending,” I said, “is like offering your brain a different script. So when it goes to tell that story again, it has a choice to tell it a different way.”
“There is no different way.”
“Not yet. Because you haven’t written one.”
Jack sighed like we were talking in circles.
“Like one example,” I went on, “is a guy who had a recurrent nightmare about a monster chasing him. For years and years. And then one day, he turned and asked the monster why it was chasing him—and then he never had that dream again.”
“Nice solution,” Jack said. “One problem for me, though.”
“What?”
“In my nightmare, I’m the monster.”
“Oh.”
A minute went by. Then Jack said, “It’s the same every time.”
I waited while he took a breath.
Then he went on, “I’m in a sports car with my little brother Drew. It’s a Ferrari. I bought it to show off. It’s so new, it still has paper tags. Drew thinks it’s awesome. And we’re going so fast, it’s like we’re flying. The faster we go, the faster we go—until a bridge appears up ahead. It’s late afternoon in winter—and even though it’s not that cold out, there’s black ice on the bridge—the kind that’s the color of pavement, the kind you never see until it’s too late. As soon as we hit it, we just go sliding. We’re spinning and everything’s a blur and then we crash through the railing. I can’t believe it’s happening, even as it’s happening. Everything’s in slow motion and at hyper speed exactly at the same time. We go over the edge and then we’re in this free fall where gravity is turned inside out. It all happens in seconds—and hours—and years … and then we hit the water’s surface—the chassis flat, like a belly flop. This is good, I think. This gives us time. The car bobs at the surface—and time goes sideways. I roll down my window and shout at Drew to do the same. I hold the button with one hand, and I fumble with my seatbelt with the other—and then I look over at Drew, and he hasn’t done anything. His window’s up. He’s buckled. He’s staring at me in shock. Put your window down! I lean over and pop his seatbelt. I press against his chest to hold his window button—and it’s halfway down when the car fills up a rush of water and it’s so cold and so angry. Swim up! I shout before the water overtakes us, and as I push him out his window and follow him. The water’s so gray, it’s black, but I pump my arms and legs with everything I’ve got—but I can’t find the surface. I’ve lost the surface, and there’s no time to find it. The water tangles around me, pulling me deeper, and when I wake up, I’m drowning.”
Wow. Okay.
No wonder he got mad at me at the Brazos.
I was in over my head for sure. An hour of internet research was not going to equal enough expertise to cure this.
But I’d gotten this started. I’d told him to tell the story. No quitting now.
So I asked the first question that came to my mind. “Why do you think it’s the exact same dream every time?”
A long pause. Then Jack said, very slowly, “Because—except for the part where it’s me drowning—that’s pretty much the way it happened.”
I pulled back a little to check Jack’s expression. “That’s what happened? In real life?”
Jack nodded.
“You went off a bridge into a river?”
Jack nodded again.
“I’d heard it was a car accident.”
“Technically, it was.”
Jack pulled his arms away from me and rolled onto his back, crooking one arm over his eyes, covering half his face. “He died in the river. The police think he got turned around in the darkness and swam down instead of up.”
So this was the version of the story that got buried.
Was it Jack’s fault? Was there alcohol involved, like the rumor said? Had Jack killed his little brother?
I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
“I’m so sorry,” I said at last, hoping my voice could make up for the inadequacy of those words. “I didn’t know.”
Jack nodded. “The PR folks covered it up. Nobody knows. Except me. And my family. And a few local officials in North Dakota. And, of course, Drew.”
I thought for a second. “Is this why the studio insisted on you hiring protection?”
Jack nodded. “I’ve caused them enough trouble.”
Next, I said, “And this is the war between you and Hank?”
Jack nodded. “The troublemaker is my mom. She keeps wanting to see me. She keeps asking me to come visit. She just keeps on loving me and forgiving me.”
“And when she got sick, Hank didn’t want you to come here?”
“That’s right.”
“But you came, anyway.”
“I couldn’t exactly tell her no.”
“And now you’re just waiting until you can disappear again?”
“That’s basically it.”
“I think it sounds like you’re being awfully hard on yourself.”
“Next time you let someone drown in a river, call me and we’ll compare notes.”
“So you can’t forgive yourself?”
“Can’t,” Jack shrugged. “Won’t.”
“Seems a little harsh.”
“I just wake up every day thinking about how a person—a really great person, a much better person than me—isn’t here, and I am. The only way to make my existence bearable is to try to do something every day that justifies my life.”
“What do you do?”
“Oh, you know, start foundations. Fund scholarships. Make celebrity appearances at children’s hospitals. Help old ladies with their groceries. Donate blood.”
Wow. Some lucky person got The Destroyer’s blood and didn’t even know it.
“Big things,” Jack went on, “and little things, too. Just—something. One good thing every day.”
“That’s a lot of repentance.”
Jack nodded. “You’d think the nightmare would have faded by now, but it’s still going strong.”
“Okay,” I said. “What if the nightmare isn’t a punishment? What if it’s a chance?”
Jack met my eyes. “A chance to do what?”
“See your brother again.”
“Pretty slim, as chances go. Since he’s dead.”
I kept going. “I have an idea, but you’ll probably hate it.”
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“You’ve heard of lucid dreaming, right? Where you’re aware that you’re dreaming in the dream?”
“Sort of.”
“What if you taught yourself how to do that and then … talked to Drew?”
“Just taught myself to dream on purpose?”
“I mean, yeah.”
“And then had a conversation with my dead brother?”
I nodded.
“How? When? As the car is filling with water?”
“What if you just … steered the dream in a different direction?”
“That’s not how dreams work. They’re not screenplays.”
“But you are technically writing them. We all are.”
“It’s a terrible idea. And even if it worked, it wouldn’t be the real Drew.”
“But maybe talking to Drew could be a way of talking to yourself.”
Jack looked at me for a minute. “You’re right. I hate it.”
“Fine,” I said, moving to crawl away. “Hate it. Whatever.”
But as I shifted, he caught me and yanked me back, pulling me against his chest. It was solid, and warm, and smelled as ever like cinnamon. “Stay.”
My head landed on the pillow beside him. “I’m tired.”
“Two minutes.”
“Sixty seconds,” I said. “Take it or leave it.”
“Sold,” Jack said.
“Sixty seconds it is,” I said. “Just don’t let me fall asleep.”