Dread filled my entire being. Without a moment’s hesitation, I ran in her direction. I sobbed as I listened to his voice and the little girl’s calling for me, begging me to come back to them. I ran harder, but I still couldn’t reach them.
Then there was a loud whoosh cutting off their cries. White noise filled my ears, growing louder by the second. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I waited in the dark, straining to hear their voices again.
Wind slammed against me, leaving me breathless. It was so hard, I could barely hold myself upright. Then I heard it—the sound of a freight train. Slowly, I turned. A bright light flashed and all around me was white. My legs gave out from under me and I screamed.
“Nicole, you’re dreaming again. Wake up, Nicole!”
I jolted up. Strong arms wrapped around me as I gasped.
“What happened? Where am I?”
“You’re in your bedroom at Rainbow’s house. We moved in yesterday, remember?”
My eyes focused and I gazed into Greg’s concerned face. I let out a slow breath.
I was at my aunt’s house in Texas. Today was the first day of college classes. A freight train didn’t flatten me. Now if only my heart would catch up with my brain before it crashed through my ribs and headed for the hills.
“You were having that dream again, weren’t you?”
Greg found out about my crazy dream when we went camping in his backyard years ago. I had woken up sobbing, and he’d comforted me.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I had punched him in the nose when he’d tried to wake me. We took turns crying and going through an entire roll of paper towels that night.
“Yeah. It’s been getting worse the last couple of months.”
“Stressed much?”
“You could say that. And the dreams are creeping into my day. I keep having these—what are you doing?”
He held up a finger and whipped out a notepad and pen from his back pocket.
“So how do you feel about that?” He leaned forward in a classic psychologist pose.
“You haven’t even gone to your first psychology class and you’re already diagnosing me?” I laughed.
“Practicing, babe.” He winked. “Seriously, aren’t you taking your meds?”
Reaching over for my backpack, I took out the medication that my mother’s five-hundred-dollar-an-hour shrink had prescribed for me when I’d gone through my Emo phase in high school. Waving it at Greg, the pills rattled in the almost full bottle.
“I hate taking these things. They make me feel funky, and they really don’t help that much.”
“Take them, woman. Those dreams of yours are messing with your beauty sleep. And girlfriend, I hate to tell you this but . . .” He pointed to the mirror across the room.
I was a mess. My hair was all over the place, mostly plastered in wet strands across my face. And something weird was going on with my skin. I jumped off the bed to get a closer look.
“Oh my god! What happened to my face?”
Pillow creases lined bright pink cheeks and there were white circles around my eyes. They were the exact same shape as my sunglasses.
He chuckled. “I think you had a little too much Texas sun.”
“No way! How could I get sunburned so fast?”
“We’re in Texas, remember? The land of y’all. And you, Ms. Albino, need to learn to lather on the SPF.”
I delicately touched my fingers across my face, wincing. “I can’t go to class looking like this.”
I glanced at his smug, yet perfectly tan, reflection. “You were outside longer than I was, why don’t you look like a red crayon?”
“It’s the magic of mineral foundation with SPF and buffing. You can borrow mine if you want.” He gave me his model perfect smile before turning to the nightstand.
“Here.” He shoved what looked like a breakfast taco into my hand. “You look like you could use some food.”
“Greg, I swear, you’re so metrosexual. You wear more makeup than I do.”
“Yeah, but I’m totally worth it. And stop frowning; you’ll get more wrinkles than you have already.”
I grumbled, taking a bite of the taco. I winced at the bitter taste. “What the hell am I eating?”
“That, my friend, is a tofu breakfast taco. I think you failed to mention that Rainbow is a vegetarian. There’s nothing that even closely resembles food in the house. Now hurry up and get dressed. I want to stop somewhere for some real food before class.”
After quickly throwing on some clothes and borrowing Greg’s magic makeup, Rainbow called us into the kitchen.
“What did you do with your taco?” I whispered. I didn’t want her to think we didn’t appreciate her making breakfast.
“I flushed it down the toilet. I think.”
“You think?”
“It wouldn’t die! I attacked it with a plunger though. I think it’s gone for good.”
There was a click and a bright flash.
“Hey!” Greg rubbed his eyes.
“Sorry about that. I forget how these things can blind you.” Rainbow placed a camera on the counter next to a hand-carved wooden box. “I just wanted a picture to add to my collection of Nicole’s photos.”
“You have pictures of me?”
“Of course I do. Take a look.”
The box was filled with photos of me from kindergarten to my senior year. I couldn’t believe my mother had sent them to her. I didn’t even know they existed. I dutifully posed for my school photos every year, but I never saw copies of them. I figured my parents were too busy to care.
“Mom sent these to you?”
“Not really.” She looked down, fiddling with the camera. “I made a deal with her that the school would send me a copy of any photos I requested.”
“I don’t understand.”
Soft brown eyes looked up to meet mine. “Your mother and I were never close, but when I found out she was pregnant with you, I wanted to be a part of your life. She didn’t think I would be a good influence on you because of the way I live.”
I furrowed my brow. “The way you live?”
Greg poked my ribs and gave me a knowing look. It took me a few seconds before it hit me. She played for the other team like he did.
“Oh! I see.”
I couldn’t believe my mother would do something like that to her own sister. She was a classical musician who traveled the world for crying out loud. How narrow-minded could she get?
“I promised her that I wouldn’t sell this to the media.” She held up a picture of my mom wearing a skintight fuchsia bell-bottom jumpsuit. The curls in her permed hair were so tight, it looked like a brown cotton ball on her head. Whoa. This was a side of my mother I’d never seen. She’d die if this ever got out. “I hope you’re okay with that.”
I brushed over the dozens of childhood photos in the box. My childhood. Tears pricked my eyes at what my aunt had done.
Okay? I was more than okay with it. In less than one day, my aunt had shown me more unconditional love than my parents ever had. In her own way, Rainbow had been with me and watched me grow up.
“You’re the best, Rainbow.” I hugged her. I definitely made the right decision coming here.
Smiling from the warm afterglow of Rainbow’s confession, Greg and I drove through the small town in search of a pancake house on the way to campus. With each street we passed, the glow faded and the hairs on the back of my next stood up. It was the same eerie feeling I had last night. Everything looked familiar. The streets, the houses, even the traffic lights. I turned a corner, anticipating that I’d have to stop, and when I did, there was a stoplight. It was like I knew where I was going without having to think about it. It was instinctual.
I wondered if my parents had performed on campus and I was just too young to remember. Sometimes, as a favor to their music faculty friends, they’d provide a master workshop and give a concert for the student body. They rarely did it and if they did, it was mostly at prestigious schools of music like Julliard or the New England Conservatory. I doubted that they’d come to a place like Texas State, especially since my mother swore she’d never step foot in Texas again.