Chapters On A Page

It wasn't blatantly obvious that I was dreaming right away. The party was still going on; I could hear it through both the door and the floor of the room I sat in. I was in my old room though, at the old house, and this was confirmed when I paced to look out the window that faced the dirty red bricks of the house next door. Wanting to make sure I hadn't made a mess of things with my stellar act of drunkenness, I opened my door and headed out into the hallway. It was thick with people, which lent to my belief that I was still totally and completely awake as I made my way through everyone and down the stairs. Dozens of people surrounded me no matter where I went in the house, but not one of them was someone I noticed and wanted to apologize to. I gave a sigh of defeat, tucking my hair behind my ear, and continuing through the kitchen to reach the back door. As I stepped outside, I realized for the first time that it was the middle of the day and the sun was shining bright high up in the sky. I skipped down the concrete steps that led into the backyard and took notice of the other change that was giving me reason to believe that something was going on.

Instead of the ugly privacy fence that had encased the yard since long before we had moved in, a regular chain link fence was glinting in the hot sun. Somehow, I knew exactly what I was doing as I walked parallel with it and I didn't ask myself any questions to any of these oddities as I went. I stopped nearly at the end, where two sides met and formed a corner of the yard, and dropped down onto the grass. Facing the yard next to ours, I waited for what I knew was going to be there in just a moment. I only had to be patient. I spent what felt like no time at all staring at the nothingness of the neighborhood before she was there, just four feet tall with the fair hair that marked her as a Rutherford daughter and the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled that had been her favorite feature for as long as I could remember. She approached me without any hesitation even though I knew she had been a timid child and she didn't technically know me. Not the me at this age, and especially not when she herself was currently an age when I hadn't even been born. She sat right across from me, only separated by the fence, all smiles and giggles while her pale blue eyes met my green ones.

"Emma, what are you doing here?" I asked. It maybe wasn't the question that worked in this situation. I should have asked what was going on in general, more than likely. Asking why she was here was just more natural to me since my sister had been dead for almost two years, no longer a part of my life due to this tragedy. Of course I had had dreams where she had the starring roles these last two years, but never ones that took place at our house, and certainly not where she was only a child.

She shrugged her tiny shoulders, but it wasn't because she didn't know how to answer my question even though it was an easy one. It was more in the manner of letting me know that the reason she was there across from me was quite obvious. It was an intelligent sort of gesture, something an adult would use rather than a five-year-old. When she opened her mouth, her voice matched. It wasn't a small, tinkling voice spoken in broken sentences. It was the way she had spoken before she died, the voice of her adult self, the one I still wanted to hear floating down the hallway every single day. "I'm here to talk to you. Why else?"

With the help of the sound of a too-loud motorcycle speeding passed the house, I woke up. My eyes didn't pop open as the result of my confusing dream, but opened slowly and steadily as they always did with a few blinks thrown in. I was facing the back of the couch, the leather one that I hated, but my pillow from my bed was under my head. I wasn't so concerned with where I had been sleeping though, not at the moment. My mind was flipping through the dream I'd had, not wanting to forget a second of it. Forgetting had been the problem before, not allowing me to even know why I had had such a hard time sleeping some nights. This was the nightmare I had been having since the start of summer, except even with the addition of the old house and the party, this was really no nightmare. It had had that real sense to it, even though so many aspects weren't possible. It was just like I was talking to my big sister again, and there was nothing I had ever wanted more.

This wasn't something that could possibly turn into reality though, and there was no point in wasting my time wishing for it. Instead, I stretched out on the couch, causing my toes to poke out the bottom of the thin blanket tucked around me. Ignoring the slight pounding in my head that was a result of my unintentional bender, I rolled over so I was lying on my other side and shoved both my arms underneath my pillow. I had closed my eyes again while stretching and I kept them squeezed tight while lying in my new position, too worried about what the current state of the house was. Once I had left the kitchen last night, my vision had been blurred already and I hadn't gotten a good chance to even notice if it was trashed or not. But I did remember a mess that was an all too common result of a party, and I was afraid that it would still be there, ten times worse along with a ton of people I didn't know sleeping on my floor, just waiting for me to wake up to give me a heart attack. Even it was there though, all I was doing was stalling. No amount of sleep or evading could make something disappear no matter how hard I willed it to work. Slowly, I lifted my lids again and was met with a virtually spotless living room.

"Morning, princess," someone greeted not too far from me, a teasing air heavy in their tone. I shifted my head down on the pillow, causing my chin to connect with my chest while my eyes found the chair next to the couch on the raised part of the floor. Alex had turned it around and angled it so that it was facing my direction but also so he could stretch his legs out and prop his feet up on the arm of the couch. He threw me a closed-lipped grin, his thick brows raised high above his eyes while he looked down at me, and I could almost predict exactly what the next words out of his mouth were going to be. "How are you feeling over there, Val?" he asked me, his smile growing into a full-blown one without any problem.

I tried my best at a glare that would have him cowering into the soft cushions of that chair, but it had no effect on his joyful mood whatsoever. He simply chuckled at my attempt, twisting his head to see around the back of the couch and glance at the television that I could only hear at the moment. "I feel just fine. Thanks for asking," I lied when he faced me again, a fake smile right back to him in place on my lips to go along with it. "Where the hell is everyone? And why is it so clean in here?" I questioned, resisting the urge to press my face into the pillow and go back to sleep. Sleeping just seemed like a better option than hearing what had happened last night, especially since the more I thought about it, the more I was starting to remember.

"Most people left around three," he replied, sitting up some and removing his feet from the couch to pull them up on the chair in front of him and sit Indian-style. "There were a couple of people that were just too drunk to let them leave then, but they left by seven. Nic, Gwen, and Russ are sleeping in your room, I believe. Rian, Jack, Zack, and Matt are in the spare bedroom. And then we have Grieco who passed out on your dining room floor at a quarter till two and hasn't moved an inch since then," he informed me, waving his hand behind him in the general direction of the dining room where his friend was apparently sleeping. This sounded like a humorous sight and as soon as I thought I could manage my feet enough to walk, I was going to hurry down the hall to see it. "Oh yeah, and your sister's in her room. Not drunk or hungover, in case you're wondering," he continued, knowing that my next question was probably going to be about Lilah. I couldn't even remember seeing her after I had decided to hide away in my room until Alex had gotten here with Zack and Jack, but I nodded anyway, thankful that he had apparently kept at least some tabs on her throughout the night. I took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh that was a mixture of relief and semi-disappointment. "And I cleaned up. Well, everyone who's still here did. I promised, and I don't break promises," he reminded me in answer to my other question, which I had completely forgotten about in the two minutes it took him to answer the first.

"Thank you," I said, smiling lightly and hoping that it let him know that I really was grateful for everything he had done. "For taking care of me last night, too. I don't remember much before I threw up, but I don't doubt that I was probably a mess. I only have myself to blame," I affirmed with a small shrug against the cushion beneath my shoulders as an accompaniment of admitting my stupidity. "What… happened after? I remember some things, but it's bits and pieces, and I severely hope that it's mostly stuff I dreamt up while I slept." I wanted to hide again, my brain throwing a new image that I couldn't possibly believe at me every few seconds. I couldn't justify that I had made such a fool of myself, even after I had accidentally gotten drunk and then ran away from the guy I liked to vomit.

Alex looked pleased again, making my insides twist in anxiety as I thought about why he was so smug over my words. "I've never seen anyone bounce back from being sick like that so quickly. Especially not after it was their first time being drunk," he responded, lowering his feet to the ground again and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his arms crossed over his lap. He was way too into this for my liking. "I helped you out of the bathroom when it looked like you were getting better. It took you maybe sixty seconds after we got back out here for you to perk up and remember that there was a party going on. You insisted that you had to take everyone's picture, and you raced upstairs like a fucking Olympian. You burst into your room on a couple about to have sex, if I interpreted their irritation right. But by the time I had caught up with you, you had already picked a camera out and were on your way back out the door. I didn't follow you all night, because it was pretty much impossible. But I kept you away from the drinks, and made sure that anyone standing around them didn't let you near the counter. And when you passed out right there, Nic got you a pillow and a blanket, and I volunteered to stay down here while everyone else went to sleep upstairs," he explained, recounting his version of the night that I was positive he had planned to turn out much differently.

I couldn't explain what I was feeling at him telling me all of this, informing me that he had taken care of me far beyond what I would have expected out of anyone. Grateful was no longer the emotion for me. Indebted was more like it, somehow sounding like it meant an incredible deal more. Defining it was tough, but actually telling him how much I appreciated it was nearly unimaginable. There was no way those words would be able to leave my mouth again because I wasn't sure I could actually get them passed my lips. So I kept on the subject of my shenanigans, knowing that acknowledging my moronic actions would smooth over the bumps my mind was creating in this conversation. "I didn't act like a dinosaur at some point… did I?" I wondered, sounding as apprehensive as I really was. This was the first memory that had come back from last night, and I could already feel my cheeks getting warm with a new blush because of it.

He burst out laughing, loud enough that I thought he had caused everyone else in the house to wake up. It took him a moment to compose himself again, but the smirk would probably never come off his face when he thought back on this. "I completely forgot about that. Yeah, you did," he confirmed, breaking into a snigger once more and shaking his head as if he couldn't believe it. "You pulled your arms up to the middle of your forearms inside your sleeves and then you pretended to be a T-Rex when someone got in your way when you were trying to get to the stereo. It was a good show for a while." He took another minute to laugh some more, and I had to tell myself that my pillow was much more use under my head than it would be connecting with his from this distance. He calmed himself down quickly though and did his best to look innocent to prevent me from being angry with him. "And to top it all off, this morning, you've got pillow face," he told me, hiding his smile by pretending to wipe his mouth.

Finally, I really did turn my head and hide my face in the blue pillowcase that matched the sheets currently on my bed. Ones that I would probably have to wash this afternoon if what he said about that couple was true. "Shut up," I retorted, loud enough that it would still carry to him, albeit muffled. I lifted my face enough so that only my eyes were showing and saw him chortling away over there on the chair. Telling myself that the red lines on my cheek caused by the exact thing I was concealing my face in now didn't matter much when he was the only one to see, I slowly pushed myself to sit up. I worked my shoulders back into the cushions, situating the blanket so that it still covered my legs completely while I sat with them crossed. I took another deep breath, just one of the many I was sure were going to happen today. I had to prepare myself for my next question, because it was the most important one to me. In a way, the answer was probably going to define how I carried myself when I walked back into school after summer vacation was over. "Do you know what happened to Dominic?" I asked slowly, praying that I didn't sound or appear too eager. I had no doubt that that would only entail more mocking from Alex.

He didn't mention it though, staying relatively serious while he answered, leading me to believe I was in the clear. "You guys hung out some more after you were done taking pictures of everything. I'm pretty sure he left with the majority of everyone else though. You were already asleep by that time, so it's doubtful you noticed," he shrugged, sounding like it wasn't a big deal for me to get worked up over. I breathed a silent sigh of relief, happy with this answer. It sounded like I hadn't completely blown my chances, whatever those chances had been in the first place. "You really like him, don't you?" Alex inquired, curiosity obvious in his voice as he stared across the room at me.

To this, I shrugged. I hadn't expected to get so worried over things that normally didn't matter to me, even with a boy involved. But here I was, scared out of my mind that I had wrecked a perfectly good shot at a relationship with a guy that seemed to like me back. It was different, and I suppose it answered his question for me since I hadn't really known what I was going to say at first. "Yeah, I guess. It's strange, and a little out of my norm. But he seems like a nice guy. I can't really say at this point that there's anything not to like about him," I answered honestly, the words making sense in my own, slightly befuddled mind. "I think he likes me, and I don't see any reason not to reciprocate the feelings when he's making it hard not to." I shrugged again, still not totally sure if what I was saying would have any substance outside of a girl's brain. He nodded though, somehow getting what I was trying to tell him. For some reason, I didn't want him to get it. I wanted him to tell me that I was insane and that I was dreaming up feelings that some boy had for me and that I should start being more realistic. But no words left his mouth, and I didn't get a chance to try to coax them out of him.

The first feet hitting the stairs in the so far quiet morning could be heard easily, and they were followed by several more as they continued down the stairs. Almost like a small troop filing down into the living room, both my friends and Alex's appeared from the second floor. All seven of them barely paid any attention to the two of us watching them closely as they made their way to separate seats in the room. Rian and Jack plopped down onto the love seat, sitting so that they were both leaning over the sides of it with their heads on their arms. Zack, Matt, and Nic fell onto the couch, not even caring if they landed on top of each other and mostly focusing on the TV playing what looked like a marathon of America's Next Top Model reruns. Gwen squeezed in right next to me, lying her head on my shoulder while Murph sat on the other side of her, curling up into an impossibly small ball for an average-sized boy. Not one of them said a word to Alex or I, and I wondered if they had somehow gotten turned into zombies during the time that I was either drunk or sleeping.

Before I could get too worried that I was soon going to be a nice meal for a dead cannibal, one of the boys cleared his throat. "Did anyone wake Grieco up?" Rian asked, not moving his head from its apparently comfortable spot on his arm that was still draped over the arm of the love seat or taking his eyes off of a lone soda can on the coffee table.

"Nope," Alex answered, looking over at his friend. "I was hoping Val would take some humiliating pictures of him before he woke up, and then we would just leave him to it," he chuckled, but was completely serious. He faced me again with an expression that was clearly meant to get me out of my seat at that moment to do what he was anticipating. When that didn't work, he put on the biggest smile he could muster, his teeth clenched together and the muscles in his neck bulging. He was just short of giving me a childish and drawn out please when I gave in.

"Okay, okay," I declared, throwing my blanket off of me and over the side of the couch. As I stood, my feet meeting the cold wood of the floor beneath me, Gwen whined, having lost me as her pillow. "Well, I'm not doing this alone," I countered in response to this, giving her a pointed look. I extended it to anyone else who had happened to decide to look my way, which really had only been Alex. "You guys are terrible with your hangovers." I really couldn't talk because now that I was standing and fully awake, I wanted to punch myself for even allowing it to get this bad. I tried my best to ignore it though, grabbing my camera where either I or someone else had left it, and then heading toward the dining room. That wasn't my true destination though, even if Alex was trailing behind me and it had been his idea. I paced into the kitchen -where pictures could also be easily taken of the sleeping boy I could now see on the floor in the next room- and set my sights on the coffee pot between the sink and the fridge.

"I'm sorry, by the way," Alex said suddenly, causing me to spin on my heel so I could see him. "I was really persistent for you to have this party. And then because I invited Dominic, you got wasted out of sheer nervousness. If I would have just kept my mouth shut, on either account, you wouldn't have gotten sick last night, and wouldn't have had so many things to be stressed about this morning," he revealed when he saw the way my brows pulled together in confusion. He sounded concerned and apologetic, two things I certainly didn't believe he needed to be.

Without thinking about it, I stepped forward, closing the short distance between us. We weren't too far apart in height, only a few inches at most. But I still had to reach up on my toes some to kiss his cheek, and I gave him a beaming smile when I was flat on my feet again. "Don't worry about it, Alex. It wasn't your fault," I promised him, and turned back around to make the both of us some much deserved coffee.