What You Know Is True

I kept waking up throughout the night, each time feeling more exhausted than I had before. By the time the sun was in full shining mode and I could hear my mom and Louie moving around in the house, I was ready to drop dead. I felt like I should be waking up from a graveyard. I didn’t want to move, so I laid there for as long as I could. After awhile my body drifted off to sleep again.

I knew I wasn’t simply dreaming up something random when I saw Josee and she was normal. No marks around her neck or a dark look to her face. She was alive and pretty like she always was. The familiarity of it made me guess I was reliving a memory, but it felt so distant. Like it had happened, but I couldn’t recall it as perfectly as I wanted. I knew it was from when I was 8- or 9-years-old.

We were back at our old house, in the livingroom. Josee was sitting on the armchair with her knees drawn up to her chin. I went over to her and she ruffled my hair before resting her hands on my shoulder. I said to her, “Louie’s says he doesn’t like me.”

She asked, “Why?”

“He says because you don’t like him like you like me.” Josee laughed and tugged me closer.

“He’s just being a baby. I do like him. He’s my brother.”

The memory suddenly became dull and static obscured my view, like I was watching TV with a bad signal. Uneasiness fell and the brightness that plagued the memory suddenly turned grey.

All I could sense were Josee’s hands and her saying, “But you’re my favorite, Dallas.”

I woke up sharply, breathing heavily and feeling the need to vomit but nothing would come out. My hands pulled at my bed sheets as I tried to remember, but the dream, the memory, whatever it was, was already retreating away.

Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what or why.

I ran my hands through my hair and groaned loudly. I can’t even find peace in sleeping anymore. What else was there?

Out of habit, I reached under the bed to grab the Grimnoire and felt nothing. The panic hadn’t settled until after I searched my desk drawer, book shelf, and closet, and still hadn’t found it. I cursed loudly as I kicked the side of my dresser. The only place it should’ve been was in here, and it wasn’t. The last time I had it out was to show it to Louie, and then I put it up.

Unless Louie took it.

I rushed out of my room and barged into Louie’s. He was sitting on the floor by his window, writing in a notebook. He looked up when I came in.

“Where is it?” I asked. “Where’s my book?”

“What?”

I was ready to push him out of the window for playing dumb. “The book I showed you with the spells in it.”

For a quick moment I saw his façade falter. His eyes darted to the side for a brief moment before they looked back at me. That was how I knew for a fact he was lying. He’s always been a liar.

“I don’t have it,” he choked.

I turned away from him and began throwing books off his bookshelf. Louie ran up and pulled on my shoulder, getting in front of me.

“Get out!” he shouted, but gasped when I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

It’s funny – the scared, dark look that shadowed Louie’s face brought a warm joy to my chest. Weird. “I need that book.”

He wouldn’t say anything for a long time. My cool was already gone and my temper was continuing to rise. Louie looked straight in my eyes when he said, “F—k you. Why do you want a book with fake spells in it?”

“It’s not fake,” I seethed, and my stomach dropped to the ground. That was the first time I admitted outloud that I thought the book wasn’t fake.

“It is,” he said. I gripped his collar tighter.

“Everything’s been going fine till I stole it and used one of the spells,” I said. “You weren’t acting like this till I used it.” My hands were shaking too badly at that point, so I let Louie go and backed away. Every time I let out a breath, it felt like I was going to puke my guts out.

The silence was irritating; it forced me to over-think and made my emotions erratic. I wanted Louie to say anything to get rid of the silence.

He wiped his eyes like he had tears in them, but they were dry. “It’s not real, Dallas, okay, it’s not,” he said. “I’m sorry I kissed you. It was stupid, I get it, but I didn’t think it was when I did it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I just wanted . . . I was thinking about Josee and –“

I didn’t get to hear what else he had to say, because my arms automatically shot out and shoved him into the wall. He slipped down onto the floor, arms coming up to protect himself if I were to hit him.

But I never got to. Mom came running up, shouting, “What’s all that noise?” She opened the door and I ran out, ignoring her calling my name.

“I’m going to Nixon’s,” I said, and left.

I couldn’t tell you what it was Louie was about to say that made me beyond angry. All I knew was, this sudden fear came gnawing at me and I desperately wanted him to not speak anymore

x x x x

Took me longer than I wanted to get to Nixon’s, but by then I had calmed down somewhat. I was surprised I hadn’t punched a random person on the street.

I hadn’t called Nixon ahead of time to tell him I was coming, but he answered the door anyway like he expected me. He smiled and told me to come downstairs to the basement. We passed by the livingroom where his kid sister was playing with some Legos. Something about it made me feel jealous.

Nixon had such an average, normal family. Parents that rarely fought and a non-weird sister. I wanted his life, even if only for a little while.

` Nixon’s room was located in the basement, in a space separated from the laundry area. We sat on the futon couch with Nixon peering at me with his arms crossed.

“Guessing things aren’t so hot in Texas, huh?” he asked.

“Wow, how’d you know?” I sighed. “I can’t even –“

Nixon waved his hand at me to be quiet. “Hey, just . . . relax for as long you need to. Need any advice, I can give you some, but I can’t guarantee good results.” He grinned wildly and I laughed at him. It didn’t make everything feel okay, but it was a start, and I needed something to hold onto before I blew up.

“I don’t how to talk to you about this,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I should.” Again I was reminded of no matter how much I trusted Nixon more than anyone else or that he was my closes friend, I couldn’t find it in me to tell him what had been going on. It all seemed too far-fetched for him to believe me.

“You don’t have to tell me the exact details if you don’t want to,” he said. “Just keep it vague, if you want.”

That was probably the best I could do. “I’ve been having nightmares, I guess, about my sister again.” Nixon’s arms fell to his side and he watched me more intently. “And I’ve been kind of remembering things about her, but I don’t know exactly what it is because I black out before I can actually remember. I feel like it’s something bad and so I don’t want to remember it. And I think Louie knows something about it, but it’s so messed up because every time we’re together we just end up fighting and I don’t want to hear what he has to say anymore. I don’t know what to do.”

Nixon was quick in his answer, and his solution made me feel more dumb than relieved. “You need to stop running from everything and actually listen.”