Nightdreaming
Part I
By
the time I reached my early twenties I knew I would end up living two lives: one
for the world and another for myself. On the outside I projected a bright,
responsible girl who enjoyed socializing and was generally likeable. On the
inside I was a mess; I thought too much about everything; I over-prepared yet
always felt under-prepared. My inner voice kept me company more than I felt
comfortable admitting. Still, this worked for me. Kept me sane, sort of. I
planned on riding this out until the end of my years. No surprise, that didn’t
happen or I probably wouldn’t be writing this.
I
met Jaime at a restaurant when I was fourteen. We wouldn’t meet again until
much past our college years, but he would show me how the real me existed
inside a shell, between the half everyone knew and the half I kept hidden.
Neither of us could have known that when we first met. It wasn’t exactly a
fairytale encounter.
“Oh,
I didn’t see you,” he said after running into me in the hallway of an old
restaurant. “I was just looking for the bathroom.”
“You
really have to go, huh?” I blurted.
He
looked so embarrassed, mumbling quick apologies.
We
saw each other again on the way out, our parents walking ahead of us.
“Sorry
again about earlier,” he said.
“It’s
okay,” I said, noticing his hunter green eyes.
His
parents cut our conversation short, calling out to him. One quick wave later he
disappeared.
“Audrey,”
I heard my parents shouting as I stared at the red vehicle lights moving away
from me. I turned around and hopped into my parents’ car thinking maybe green
might also be one of my favorite colors.
Jaime
doesn’t remember that evening. I know. We’ve never talked about it and by the
time I realized why he looked so familiar I decided to keep the memory to
myself. Fate kept him a secret from me for so long. I didn’t want to give her
the satisfaction of telling me, “I told you so.”
* * *
After
the end of my sophomore year in high school my parents got into an accident.
They literally drove off the road trying to avoid another crash that took place
right before their eyes. My mother came home from the hospital that same day
and said we would all go visit my father as soon as we woke the next morning. We
got the call in the middle of the night. My younger brother and little sister
never got to see him, but I did. His mutilated face just lay there, unmoving,
ugly. I wanted to cry and yell. I wanted to say this isn’t fair, but that
wasn’t me.
The
outside me knew I needed to take care of mom first and then my brother and
sister. I needed to remain strong for them. They could grieve while I kept it
together for all of them. My grief would come later in the solitude of my bed,
at night, while everyone slept, and I would make sure to fold it up and put it
away when the sun rose. That’s how the inside me grew strong.
* * *
The
visions started two weeks later. At first I thought they were nightmares; well,
not exactly nightmares since I had them in the middle of the day with my eyes
wide open, but they felt kind of like nightmare remnants. I blamed my ceaseless
ruminations. God knows how many times I dreamt of my parents driving off the
highway in the blue Subaru they purchased the previous winter. Even awake I
imagined the barely-licensed high-schooler ahead of them crashing into some
vague vehicle, my parents swerving out of the way, hitting the railing, and
their little four-door flopping down the embankment. So when Myriam, my
best friend's mom, came to offer her condolences, I did my best not to flinch. I
told myself to keep it together, reminding myself that my parents’ passing had
left a deep impression on me. Yet, no matter what I did, I couldn’t stop
picturing Myriam’s pale face pressed between the driver’s seat of her car and
the dashboard, the steering wheel sunk deep into her chest cavity.
At
around the same time my siblings started experiencing night terrors. They would
wake in the middle of the night screaming for dad. I would rush into their
room, before mom woke, and shush them back to sleep. “It’s going to be okay,” I
would say. “Dreams aren’t real.” Truthfully, I said that more for myself than
for them. I never asked what they dreamt about. I just assumed we all felt the
same things.
Barely
two months later mom received a call from my best friend confirming my worst
fears. Her mother died from blunt trauma. Myriam had stopped behind an eighteen-wheeler
at a streetlight. The people in the SUV driving behind her hadn’t noticed the
stalled cars ahead of them. They ran into her at full speed, wedging the front
of her little coupe into the back of the semi. When my mother hung up the
phone I felt a cold chill run up my neck and race across the back of my head. I
even smelled the hot metal and burnt rubber that wells up after a car accident,
though I was certain no one else could. Before my mother raised her tear-filled
eyes to tell me what happened and hand me the phone, I already knew.
For
an entire year I denied these events. When these visions of death sprang up, I wrestled them into the hidden parts of my mind. I told myself that everyone
who suffers through a family death goes through this. I made excuses whenever I
learned one of my forebodings came true. I blamed coincidence and probability so
often I could barely tell the difference between them. It took a long time
before I accepted the pattern.
Sometimes the images came
when meeting a stranger, like the lady behind the counter at the sub shop down
the street. Her nametag read Wilma. I kept staring at it, doing my best to
avoid looking at her face. Part of her cheekbone protruded from a bloody gash.
I knew it couldn’t be real. She kept smiling, acting like nothing was wrong,
the bone moving with every twitch of her pudgy features.
Strangers like Wilma threw
me off because I couldn’t always know when or if they died. To make matters
more complicated sometimes the visions came to pass after just a few weeks,
sometimes months, sometimes not at all. But by the time I reached my mid-twenties,
I knew exactly how they worked and I was used to them. When I met someone who
would die in an accident, I saw that person’s death, but I wouldn’t know when
it would take place. When I met Jaime for the second time I breathed a sigh of
relief as I looked into his eyes and saw nothing.
* * *
Our
courtship had all of the romance of a children’s story, which explained why I
hesitated for so long. At twenty-four I had a pretty good idea of what guys
wanted. If they promised me the world from the beginning then I wondered where
their insecurities lied and why they felt the need to trap me in a commitment.
If they didn’t, then I wondered how long I’d last as the flavor of the month. Everyone
else in between taught me about what I didn’t want in a husband. Jaime, on the
other hand, taught me more about myself than I could ever learn about him.
That’s how I knew he was the one.
His
patient manner soothed me. Besides the visions, I still had nightmares. Jaime
would wake up with me, turn on a soft light to ward away my fears, and curl
strands of my hair between his thumb and index finger until I fell asleep
again. Without fail I would sleep through the night—no more dark thoughts. The
first night that happened I thought he’d ask me about my dark
dreams. He didn’t. He never did. For that alone I would have loved him forever.
Instead, Jaime would spend the following night telling me stories about his
childhood, or his family, or some ridiculous adventure he’d want to take me
on—anything to keep my own fears from drowning me.
I
loved his stories, and when he wasn’t telling one, we were making new ones. We went
on candy binges while streaming endless romantic comedies late into the night.
Other times we’d go out with our friends and dance until our feet hurt. Every
once in while we flew to an exotic city, find the highest rooftop bar, and sit
there staring into each other’s eyes, smiling, giddy like teenage kids in love.
Even when we argued I couldn’t help but love him. He never walked away, never
disrespected me, only stood there asking for a moment while I did my best not
to let his deep breaths and broad chest turn me on.
I always feared the moment
the story would end. The first time it almost did was my fault. The second time
was our daughter’s.
* * *
