Suddenly, the darkness lowers and the dream grows cold, the woods sinister. She jerks upright. I follow. I ask her what’s wrong.
Her face shows her terror. Her mouth opens in an attempt to speak. No words follow.
The next moment, she’s across the clearing. I call for her to come back. She doesn’t. She can’t. All I know is that she needs me.
Now.
I slam back into consciousness, panting against the thudding of my heart. I peel off the scratchy covers and slip out of bed. The hotel room is dingy, but the night is laced with a full moon’s light. I stand at the window and let the hopelessness overcome me as the dream fades away.
Heaving a sigh, I grip the windowsill and roll my forehead along the cool glass.
It’s just a dream. Just a stupid, childish dream.
But how I wish it weren’t.
Again I close my eyes, hoping to break free of this nightmare. Yet, when I open them, the hot breath of the southern summer is truly gone, replaced by a weakened sun and the cool breezes of the northwest. The car windows are open, and in the distance, the wooded foothills along the southern portion of the Cascade Mountains rise and fall like ripples in the earth. It’s June. It should be sweat-rolling-down-my-spine hot. Instead, there’s a damp chill outside. Not totally unpleasant, but not familiar. I slouch deeper into my seat and glare at Mom.
Her mouth pinches, her skin flushes, and she snubs out her cigarette in a tray overflowing with more than three days worth of ash and spent stubs. “Don’t, Dylan. Just keep it to yourself.”
She says I’m a petulant teenage boy. I am, but who wouldn’t be in this situation? I’m disillusioned. Frustrated. Disgusted by life.
I’m seventeen, on the brink of my senior year, and once again, I’ve been forced to leave everything familiar to me in order to appease another of her emotional breakdowns. Mom thrives on drama. She always has, and I’ve always played along.
Not anymore. I’m sick of playing the good son.
“All I’m saying is, we didn’t have to leave.”
“We did.”
Same answer. Always the same.
“He left,” I remind her for the hundredth time.
She shakes her head, and the few dark curls that have managed to stay bound in her messy ponytail suddenly bounce free to lash wildly in the wind. “His family lives there. You know how people are. Hateful gossips.”
“So?”
Her jaw sets at a rigid angle. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not to them, and not to you.”
“So my life means nothing to y—”
“Shut it!” She blinks rapidly, still staring at the torn-up road. “I mean it. Not another word.”
The tears are back. I look away, disgust searing my insides. The cool wind whips through my hair, pounding at my eardrums, drowning out her staccato gasps for breath. “I get it. Nothing’s ever going to change.”
She ignores me. I’m fine with that—at least, that’s what I always tell myself—and soon she’s lighting up again. She bought the ten-pack carton at the first gas station we saw on our way out of town. For eight months she didn’t take a single drag. Not one. I’d been begging her to quit for years. Did she listen to me? No. But she listened to Jared, her latest ex-boyfriend. Anything for Jared. It’s the one thing the walking dick did right, but now look at her.
Why did I think she would change? We’re drifters, stumbling from small town to small town, staying a year or two until the man-pool dwindles, leaving the next. Mom changes men like some girls change their nail color. When she finally settles on one “special” guy, it’s only a matter of time before he leaves, by way of the back door, with an armful of our stuff he can hock at the local pawn shop and a pocket full of what little money he finds in Mom’s purse.
I’ve learned to lock my bedroom door.
The small evidence of our existence on this earth is behind us, rattling around in a rented trailer as it bounces in and out of deep ruts, shaking our rusty, old Plymouth Road Runner until I’m sure the rivets have come loose.
Mom curses as the car whines up another hill. She pumps the slab of steel with the ball of her foot like the hick she is, until the engine revs, re-engages, and spits us forward.
“You coulda at least slept your way into a better car,” I mutter, pulling up the hood of my gray sweatshirt. Not likely. Mom’s always been better at giveaways than bartering.
She doesn’t hear, and it’s probably for the best. A fresh round of tears would’ve been her answer. They’re the answer for everything these days.
To the east, the hills climb into the mountain range. I stare out over the forested landscape, seeing but not seeing. My mind is on the girl in my dreams. Pale face. Dark hair. White gown. Eerie woods. Chills sweep my arms. It’s just an impression, there and gone before I can capture it, but a strange, deep longing rises in my chest. I’ve dreamed about her every night for two weeks, and each dream is more intense than the last. Lately, I’m feeling desperate in a way I’ve never felt before, like I’ve been ripped out of the ground one too many times, and the next time will kill me.
My thoughts return to the present, and I see the road split. To the left, pavement riddled with water-filled potholes. To the right, dirt riddled with muddy potholes. We turn right.
I slap my hand on the outside of the door. “Seriously? A dirt road?” Trees quickly surround the car, and an unfamiliar thickness invades the air. Our soon-to-be-new home is fast losing its appeal.
“It’s a sheep ranch, Dylan. Where do you expect it to be? In the middle of downtown Portland?”
“Not in the wilds of Oregon!”
The car shakes and rattles as we slowly make our way down the torn-up strip of dirt. Mom does all she can to avoid trouble spots.
“This is hardly—” She huffs when the car slams into an especially deep hole and mud splatters in a shower of gloppy brown. The undercarriage smacks the road hard, and she growls her frustration. “—out in the wilds,” she finishes, but I can see even she’s struggling to believe her own propaganda.
“Yeah, right. There’s not even a damn Walmart out here, and Walmart is everywhere.”
“Don’t cuss,” she says. “My mother hates cussing.”
Good to know. Rattle off the seven unspeakable cuss words the first chance I get, and family or not, if she has any brains, her mom will send us packing.
Trees crowd the road, sucking the air out of the car. I’d forgotten how much I detest the great outdoors. I’d spent my whole life traveling toward the city, longing for a place where I belong, and now Mom slaps me back to square one.
Every so often, another dirt road forks off the main one, but try as I might, I can’t see any signs of human life. The road looks like it leads to a campground. What is she thinking? She hates country life even more than I do.
“So, your mom… What am I supposed to call her?”
Her laugh is a short, bitter sound. “How about Granny? That’ll rip her up.”
“Using me to dig at your mom isn’t very mature.”
She pushes the dancing, brown curl out of her eyes. “Oh, shut up. You know I’m kidding. Anyway, what do you care?”
“I don’t.” I haven’t cared about anything in a long time, but still. Someone has to be an adult, and it sure won’t be her.
And she isn’t kidding, regardless of what she says. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who causes that particular look of resentment to flash in her eyes.