Goth Girl Rising (25 page)

Damn. What the hell
happened
to him while I was gone?

I've got these two monsters inside me, playing tug-of-war with my gut. I want to buckle down and blow him away, but I also want to call him and tell him how totally amazing, how completely kick-ass this thing is now. How he's totally taken everything I suggested, but also added in his own shit and just ... just, made something unreal.

I don't know what to do.

But I think about Miss Powell. How she shoveled shit at me and I just came back at her with the truth. I told her the truth.

And that's what I do, right? I mean, yeah, I lie. I lie a
lot.
I know that. But I tell the truth, too. About the important stuff. About stuff that matters.

So I have to tell him. I have to tell him the truth.

I call him. His mom answers the phone and I open my mouth and then I freak out and snap my phone shut because what if she recognizes my voice from my fake hospital call today?

I lie there staring at my phone. I didn't block Caller ID. She could call right back.

Shit.

Shit!

Shit!

After a few minutes, nothing happens. I have sweat on my head. It feels weird.

I fire up the computer instead. Luckily, Roger didn't block my net access. He does that sometimes when he's punishing me.

I wait. It takes forever for Fanboy to pop up online.

I notice Simone and Jecca are on, too. I block them real fast, hopefully before they notice I'm on. I don't want to be interrupted.

Promethea387:
Hey.

XianWalker76:
Hi.

Promethea387:
What's up?

XianWalker76:
Not much. Did you look at that comic book?

Promethea387:
Not yet.

Promethea387:
You're not doing chat-speak anymore.

XianWalker76:
Out of deference to you.
☺

XianWalker76:
(Hope you don't mind the smiley, though.)

Promethea387:
No, smileys are OK.

XianWalker76:
You should read the comic. It's really cool.

Promethea387:
Right.

XianWalker76:
Seriously.

Promethea387:
I will.

XianWalker76:
u better

XianWalker76:
I mean "You better.
"

XianWalker76: ☹

Promethea387:
I've been reading Schemata and I have to be honest with you...

XianWalker76:
brb

Promethea387:
I think it's totally amazing.

Promethea387:
Oops.

Promethea387:
OK.

XianWalker76:
I'm back. Sorry.

XianWalker76:
And thanks!

Promethea387:
Where did you go?

XianWalker76:
I'm gonna have to get off soon. Mom wants the phone. And she's pissed.

Promethea387:
Why?

XianWalker76:
She thinks I have an STD or something.

XianWalker76:
You still there?

Promethea387:
Yeah.

Promethea387:
Why does she think that?

XianWalker76:
Someone called her today and said they were from the hospital and that I had test results or something.

XianWalker76:
She was all freaked out when I got home.

XianWalker76:
I've been spending all night trying to calm her down.

XianWalker76:
But she's still not sure and she's pissed.

XianWalker76:
She's like, "Why would someone call and say that if it's not true?
"

XianWalker76:
And I don't know what to tell her except that it's not true.

XianWalker76:
You know?

Promethea387:
Yeah. That really sucks.

Promethea387:
I guess you should go.

XianWalker76:
c-ya 2morrow

I
STARE AT THE EMPTY
IM
SCREEN
for a little while. I feel proud. I feel like shit.

I feel like proud shit.

It worked. Simone's mean prank worked. Fanboy's mom is pissed at him. He's getting shit at home.

And now I should be on to the next step—sorting through the
Schemata
pages, plotting the world's most perfect, most embarrassing, most devastating revenge.

But when I look at the pages, I don't feel anger or that little thrilling tickle I get when I do something mean to someone who deserves it. I just feel sad.

Just remember, Kyra: A little revenge and this, too, shall pass.

My cell phone beeps.
i jst 8 half a pizza

Jecca.

What the hell is it with her? What the hell is it with me? It's not like we're in love. What
are
we? What are we doing?

I stack up all the pages and crawl into bed. It's early and I'm not tired, but I am tired of thinking.

I
T'S ALL A DREAM
.

I know it's all a dream.

But I keep forgetting.

And then remembering.

It's called "lucid dreaming." I looked it up once. It's when you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming, so sometimes you can actually control the dream, if you really want to. And other times you just let it unfold, but even
that
is controlling the dream because you're deciding
not
to interfere. Which means you're telling the dream, "You keep doing what you're doing." Which is still some kind of control, right?

Right?

Dreams are confusing. Like, there's a scene in
Sandman—I
think it's in
Brief Lives,
but it might have been in
Season of Mists—
where Dream goes and meets up with Bast, who's this cat goddess. And she says to him, "Are we meeting or am I just dreaming that we're meeting?"

And Dream says, "We're meeting."

And Bast says, "Well, sure, but maybe I'm just dreaming that you said that."

The cool thing is that Dream doesn't deny it. He's just like, "Maybe."

So, you never know with dreams. Like, even in lucid dreaming. Are you really controlling it? Or are you just
dreaming
that you're controlling it? And is life like that? When we're awake? Are we really doing and thinking things, or are we just imagining that we're doing them? Maybe we're
always
asleep and that's why life doesn't make sense sometimes, why weird or bad things just happen out of nowhere. Maybe that's why we can't remember
everything
that's ever happened to us.

I don't know.

But I know I'm dreaming. And I'm at Jecca's house and she says

my rents rnt hme

And even though she's talking out loud, I hear her speaking in chat, somehow.

She's wearing all black again, like she used to, but she's wearing that white lipstick. She leads me out of the family room.

com w me

I let her take my hand and lead me away. For some reason, when we leave the family room we don't go into the little hallway that connects to the kitchen and the rest of the house. Instead, we're in the social studies hallway at school. There are kids all around and I pull my hand from Jecca's.

wut r u doing?

"I thought ... We don't want people to know ... right?"

But no one is paying attention to us. Jecca comes up to me and leans in and kisses me, and since it's a lucid dream, does that mean I
made
her kiss me? Or is that what would have happened anyway? Is this what I want? To kiss her in the middle of school and have no one notice? And is this what the dream means—that I
could
kiss her at school and no one would care?

u thnk 2 much,
she says.

Now we're on the beach, which should be weird, but it's a dream. Jecca's still wearing the same black outfit. I think to look down at myself. I'm wearing black, too. Was I
always
wearing black, or did it just appear on me now because I decided to look?

"Where are we going, Jecca?"

2 my room

Right.

She grabs my hand again and we walk along the beach. We're the only ones here. The sun is bright, but I'm not worried about burning because it's just a dream.

"Are we like the chocolate raspberry lovers?" I ask her.

She looks at me like she doesn't know what I'm talking about, which she probably doesn't, even in real life. The sad thing is that it's not just dream-speak. I could explain what I meant, but I suddenly get one of those dream-moments, when your voice doesn't work. I should be able to get past that, right? Because I'm in control. But I can't. So, am I making myself
not
control my voice? Or is the dream out of my control now?

We're in a forest. Jecca dances, kicking up pine needles and leaves.

almost there

And then it's like I see an aerial map of the whole thing, and it makes perfect sense: I see Jecca's family room and then the school hallway and then the beach and then the forest and then Jecca's room, off to one side.

She opens a door and we're in her bedroom. She throws herself down on the bed.

do u luv me?

"No." I say it so fast that I don't even realize it's out of my mouth until a second later.

She doesn't even flinch.
will u have sex w me?

I don't know what to say. I go over to the bed and sit down and then we're kissing, my eyes closed in ecstasy and her hands on me. I can't breathe. My body's on fire. I put a hand on her shoulder, then—I can't help it—I drag it down slowly, over her breast, down her side, down her hip and thigh, then over the thigh, between her legs and...

Something that shouldn't be there.

Hard.

I've never, ever touched a penis in my life. How can I be sure this is what one feels like? How can I know?

But somehow, I
do
know. My hand freezes there. Jecca keeps kissing and touching, but
is
it Jecca? Is it?

I don't want to open my eyes.

I don't want to open my eyes.

I don't want to open my eyes.

I don't want to open my eyes.

I
OPEN MY EYES
.

The clock next to the bed tells me it's not even five in the morning. How long have I been asleep?

What the hell did
that
dream mean? Did it mean anything? Was it just my mind messing with me? Does it have some kind of significance?

I imagine a comic book panel: I'm standing with Dream, just like Bast did, and he says:
Maybe.

Thanks a lot, Lord of Dreams.

I'm wide awake; no sense trying to get back to sleep when I just have to be up for school in another hour.

I ignore the
Schemata
pages because I'm just not ready for that yet. I don't feel like thinking at all, so I do something Simone does—I look in my closet and just stare at my clothes. Simone calls it "sartorial meditation." Whatever.

It's all black stuff, with the new white stuff all in one corner. I move things around and more colors appear. I
do
own stuff that's not black or white. My grandmother is always buying me outfits, hoping that maybe I'll change my mind someday. I can't bring myself to throw them away because my grandma is actually sort of OK. So I stick it all in the back of my closet and I tell myself that when she visits I'll wear one of her outfits, but I never manage to do that.

Sartorial meditation does nothing for me. I keep thinking about the dream. About the way it ended.

I bet if I told someone about that dream, they'd be all like, It's so
obvious,
Kyra. You
think
you want to make out with Jecca, but in reality, you totally want to be with a guy. Your dream is saying, "You're not gay, Kyra!
"

But that's not it. I know it.

Because even though I didn't open my eyes ... It was a lucid dream, see? Lucid. I was in control.

And I know...

It's not just that Jecca had a dick. Or that she somehow magically turned into a guy. That's not it.

She turned into a
specific
guy.

I know that. Even though I never opened my eyes in the dream.

I know that she became Fanboy.

Christ.