You're Not in This Alone

I saw lots of new faces in my dreams that night. I saw a boy and girl sitting on the steps of a gazebo. They looked to be a few years younger than Ebony and I. I knew that they were Lance and Miranda. They both had blonde hair, but the boy had piercing blue eyes and the girl’s eyes were an unnatural shade of green. They girl leaned into the boy’s side, and he held her hand. I knew they were waiting for something. Then I saw myself, Ebony, and Sarah walking on the grass towards them.

My dream changed, and this time I saw a boy with curly red hair and an Asian girl with dark hair. They looked like they were closer to Sarah’s age.

Before I could get a good look at them, my dream changed again. I knew this was a dream from the past, not the future. I saw a slightly younger version of Sarah. She was lying on her back on a bed with a pink comforter and a purple pillow. Her hands were folded across her stomach, but it was her face that caught my attention. Her mouth was a thin, tight line, and her eyes were vacant with only a small smudge of pain in them.

In my dream, I heard a woman and man arguing quietly outside her bedroom door. They started yelling louder and louder until Sarah was flinching with every single word. Soon they were yelling so loudly that it woke me from my sleep.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Ebony was sprawled across my chest, so I didn’t get up, afraid I would wake her.

I looked down at her peaceful face. She was so beautiful when she was sleeping and when stress and worry didn’t mar her expression. I wished she would stop looking so far ahead in the future. I saw everything in such a basic way. As long as I was with Ebony and she was happy, I would be happy. All I needed to do was live in the present.

But now we had to take care of Sarah, and Ebony was always worrying. I wished that she would think in the present like I did. However, it wasn’t like I didn’t care about Sarah. I felt like her big brother now, and that last dream about her bothered me. It had sounded like her parents were arguing about her.

As I contemplated these things, the sun slowly slid over the horizon and peeked through the hotel room windows. Ebony was first to wake up. For the first few seconds after she opened her brilliant eyes, she was just as serene. Then she looked around like she was about to get up and felt like she needed to do something.

“Don’t,” I begged quietly. “We have all day. We have all the time in the world. Just lay here with me for a few minutes.”

She looked back into my eyes and saw the raw need I had for her. She looked torn, and her muscles tensed in indecision.

I kissed her softly and then pressed my forehead against hers, moving my hand down her waist, her hip, her thigh. She exhaled, letting all the tension out of her in that breath. I smirked. That was exactly what I had wanted.

“Just for a second,” she pleaded, “make me forget everything except how much I love you.”

“I’ll do my best,” I whispered back.

I pulled her all the way on top of me, and she complied immediately, pressing her body against mine without hesitation. I kissed her again, this time with much, much more force. She took off my shirt and started exploring my chest with her fingertips. Her hands were cold, and I shivered. My heart started racing. I started kissing her neck just below her ear, and she moaned, clinging to my hair with one of her hands.

Sarah coughed exaggeratedly, and we both jumped so high that Ebony almost fell off the bed. Once we composed ourselves as best as we could and I put my shirt back on, we both glanced at Sarah cautiously.

Her lips were pressed together, and for a few seconds she fought with her emotions, forcing herself not to laugh. Then she burst out laughing. I didn’t join in, and Ebony was blushing so much that ever her neck was red. “We’re sorry, Sarah,” she apologized. “We were… I didn’t… We didn’t mean for… We just got carried away with ourselves and forgot you were here.”

Still giggling, she replied, “Don’t worry about it. I just thought I’d stop you before you got too carried away.”

I cleared my throat, avoiding her eyes. “Um, thanks.”

“No problem.”

After a long, awkward silence, Ebony suggested, “Let’s eat breakfast.”

We agreed. After eating we changed, packed up, and left the hotel. As we walked out of the city, the streets became less packed with cars. I found a house that had a car in the driveway and an unlocked door. “You two stay here,” I ordered Ebony and Sarah.

I entered the house and started searching for keys. There were two reasons I didn’t just take a car off the street. One was that none of them would probably start from being left on for three days. The other was that they probably smelled like a corpse. Now that we were away from the city, I realized that it had gained a foul smell. I was glad to be far away and getting farther.

I found the keys easily in a drawer. I grabbed them, went back to Ebony and Sarah, and tossed them to Ebony, saying, “You drive. You’ll know where to go.”

She nodded, and we got into the car. “It’s normally about a two and a half our drive, but it’ll probably take us over three hours,” she explained in her way of knowing.

After a few minutes, Sarah piped up from the back seat. “This is so much better than the city. There’s so much more to hear.”

“I like it better too,” Ebony agreed. Then she asked me, “Gerard… what did you dream about last night?”

“I saw four new faces. Two were Miranda and Lance, and the other two were a younger girl and boy. We’ll see them all today.”

“Anything else?” she prodded. “The fire?"

I shook my head. “I didn’t dream about fire last night, but I did dream about Sarah’s past.” When I turned around in my seat to look at her, she looked away and didn’t answer. “Sarah, did your parents argue a lot?”

Still not looking up, she mumbled, “Yeah. They argued about me. My mom hated me as much as I hated her. She thought I was some sort of devil child. My dad defended me and said I wasn’t evil. I was only sick, only crazy. It didn’t matter much to me what they said about me.”

Frowning, Ebony said softly, “We know you’re not evil or crazy, Sarah. You’re just like us. You’re part of our family now.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

We drove on in silence. After almost three hours, Sarah lifted her head up. “I hear them,” she declared. “There are four of them. Two boys, two girls, one of each are younger than the other two.”

“Are we going in the right direction?” Ebony asked.

“Yes,” Sarah answered.

We drove into a small town with little shops all around. As we got closer to the center of the town, the houses started to look older. We came to a park in the middle of the town that had a gazebo in the center just like the one I’d seen in my dream. We got out of the car and walked towards it warily.

We saw them before they saw us. The older two sat on the steps to the gazebo, while the younger one sat in the grass a few feet away. I took Ebony’s hand, and she took Sarah’s.

“Hey,” Sarah called to them. They all looked up in unison. The younger two smiled, while the older ones looked more guarded. They waited until we got closer to answer us.