

The Dream Doctor Mysteries

Dream Student

Dream Doctor

Dream Child

Dream Family

Waking Dream

Dream Reunion

Dream Home

Dream Vacation

Fever Dream

Dream Wedding

Dream Fragments: Stories from the Dream Doctor Mysteries

Betty & Howard's Excellent Adventure

A Box of Dreams: the collected Dream Doctor Mysteries (books 1-5)

Dream Sequence (the Dream Doctor Mysteries, books 1-3)

The Jane Barnaby Adventures

Finders Keepers

Losers Weepers

Her Brother's Keeper

The Jane Barnaby Adventures Box Set

Welcome to Romance

Finding Dori

All available in Audio, Digital, and Print at:

www.jjdibenedetto.com
Copyright © 2013-2018 James J. DiBenedetto

All Rights Reserved. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-1482716276

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used factiously. Names, characters and places are products of the author's imagination.

Cover design by: Emma Michaels   
www.emmamichaels.com

Book design by: Colleen Sheehan   
www.ampersandbookinteriors.com

Printed by: Createspace  
First printing: 2013

Writing Dreams  
Arlington, Virginia  
www.jjdibenedetto.com

## Table of Contents

  * Title Page
  * Also from the Author
  * Copyright
  * Dedication
  * Author's Note
  * Epigraph
  * Prologue: Dream a Little Dream
  * Chapter 1: Trading Places
  * Chapter 2: Footloose
  * Chapter 3: Casual Sex?
  * Chapter 4: Running Scared
  * Chapter 5: Scanners
  * Chapter 6: Innerspace
  * Chapter 7: Real Genius
  * Chapter 8: Close Encounters
  * Chapter 9: Family Ties
  * Chapter 10: A Christmas Story
  * Chapter 11: Some Kind of Wonderful
  * Chapter 12: Back to School
  * Chapter 13: Tales From the Darkside
  * Chapter 14: Legal Eagles
  * Chapter 15: 48 Hours
  * Chapter 16: A View to a Kill
  * Epilogue: The Sure Thing
  * Acknowledgements
  * About the Author

For Cathey.

I couldn't have done this without you.

Welcome to the Dream Doctor Mysteries! You're about to take a step into the past, in more ways than one. First of all, because this is a prequell to the first book of the series, Dream Doctor; and second of all, because this book takes place a few years ago—right at the end of the 1980's, in fact.

So prepare yourself to visit a time before Google, before Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and the ten new social media apps that have been invented since I wrote these words, before smartphones, and maybe strangest of all, a time when everyone really believed there was never going to be another Star Wars movie, if you can imagine that!

But even back then, prequels were a thing, and, like I said, that's what this book is. It's Sara's very first adventure, before she becomes the Dream Doctor (that's not a spoiler, right? It's in the title of the series...), and I hope you'll enjoy meeting her all the way back in college.

Just to set the stage, pop culture-wise (in case you didn't live through the 1980's like I did!) at the time this story takes place:

  * Tom Cruise is a huge box-office star.
  * An animated Disney princess movie is one of the biggest hit movies of the year
  * There's a new Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford, a new Ghostbusters movie, and a new James Bond movie.
  * Roseanne Barr is the star of a new hit TV sitcom
  * Alex Trebek is the host of Jeopardy! and Pat Sajak and Vanna White are the hosts of Wheel of Fortune
  * U2 and Guns 'n' Roses are hugely popular, and their concert tours are both in the top to most profitable tours of the decade

Actually, all those things are also true right now, as I write these words in May of 2018. So I guess I'll stop right here, and let you get on with the book already...
"Why us?" he said. "Why is it happening to us?"  
"Everything has to happen to someone," said Ginger.

— Victor and Ginger, in "Moving Pictures" by Terry Pratchett

Dream a Little Dream

(November 24-25, 1989)

Sara rarely remembers her dreams. She has no idea that she's had more or less the same dream two or three nights a week since the beginning of the semester. She's sitting there in the lecture hall, and if she were ever able to remember this dream she'd recognize it as the same seat she actually sits in every Tuesday and Thursday at nine-thirty in the morning. She'd recognize Dr. Wallabeck, too, and in the dream he's wearing one of those dreadful patterned ties he always wears. He's peering over his awful wire-rimmed glasses exactly the way he does in real life. Every detail of the lecture hall is captured by Sara's subconscious with almost perfect accuracy, including her fellow students. Two rows in front of her is the tall redheaded girl whose name she can never recall and who nods off in the middle of almost every class; in her row and six seats to her left is Adam Walker, who lives directly above her in the dorm, with his huge thermos full of almost-but-not-quite-undrinkable dining hall coffee. In the dream Sara looks around and sees all the faces she sees in class twice a week, and they're all just as puzzled in the dream as they usually are in class.

Sara is the only person in the whole room who's not. If she could remember the dream, she'd understand why: Dr. Wallabeck isn't lecturing about angular momentum or torque or any of the other mystifying topics that make up Physics 121. Not now. Instead, the good doctor is talking about amino acids and protein structures, a topic that Sara just last week aced a quiz on in her Introductory Biochemistry course. It doesn't seem the slightest bit odd to Sara that her physics professor is lecturing about biochemistry instead of physics...

Brian's never properly met Sara, never actually spoken to her. He's seen her quite often, though. In the dining hall, walking back from class, in the student union or the bookstore, in any one of a dozen other places on campus. Even, once, at a party, where he'd just about worked up the nerve to approach her before she disappeared for the night. But he doesn't really know her; he doesn't know anything about her that isn't revealed in the student directory.

He's dreaming about her anyway.

Not only about her; Sara is just one character in this dream. She's there in a cheerleader outfit a size too tight, watching Brian, admiring him, cheering for him, shouting for him as he stands there on the basketball court about to hit the game-winning shot. Sara's there, admiring and watching and cheering and shouting right alongside every other woman on campus that Brian is attracted to. All admiring and watching and cheering and shouting.

But for some reason, Sara's outfit is just a little tighter than anyone else's; her voice is the tiniest bit louder than any of the others...

Sara is still in the lecture hall, still the only student in the whole room who's not completely lost. She's so far ahead of what Dr. Wallabeck is talking about now that her eyes and her mind begin to wander.

In the back of the room she sees her roommate, Beth. Sara is not surprised to see her in Physics, even though she knows that Beth isn't actually taking the class. She's also not surprised to see that all the students sitting near her are male. Long-legged, blonde-haired, beautiful Beth; of course the boys all look at her, she thinks, rather than plain old Sara.

Sara isn't terribly bothered by this. First of all, Beth is not only her roommate but also her best friend, and has been since halfway through the first semester of freshman year. Second, on a campus with twice as many men as women, Sara doesn't really have to compete with Beth for male attention. The true competition is between Sara's interest in male attention and her own generally quiet–verging on shy–nature, not to mention the extremely demanding course schedule that the pre-med program requires of her.

Suddenly, Sara isn't in the lecture hall anymore. She's sitting somewhere else, on metal bleachers inside a large gym. The bleachers are mostly filled, and every eye is directed towards a tall, dark-haired young man standing at the free-throw line, preparing to take the game-winning shot.

It takes her a moment to gather her bearings. Sara has no idea why she's in a gym watching a basketball game: she has no friends on the team, and she doesn't even like the sport. She has the oddest feeling that she doesn't belong here at all, that she's not supposed to be here. And then she sees herself down there on the court with the rest of the cheerleaders.

As soon as she sees that, she knows: this is not her dream anymore. It has nothing to do with her. The Sara in the cheerleader outfit is a character in someone else's dream. She doesn't know how she knows this, but she has no doubt whatsoever that it's true. It's crazy and it's impossible and it's happening just the same.

Sara doesn't know what to do; this is so far out of her experience that she doesn't even know where to begin. All she does know is that she's in someone else's mind–or somebody else is in hers. When the young man with the basketball looks up from the court and sees her, locks eyes with her, it's all too much.

This isn't supposed to be happening, Sara thinks, but she doesn't know how to get out of his dream, any more than she knows how she got into it in the first place. And then panic sets in–what if she's trapped here, what if she can't ever get out of his mind, or throw him out of hers, whichever it is–and she begins screaming...

Trading Places

(November 30-December 1, 1989)

I'm staring at my clock radio. According to the big green digital numbers, it's exactly 3:14 AM. I think it might be off by a minute or two, but that's not really the point. The point is that I'm awake to know it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:14 AM.

This is not by choice. Actually, it sort of is, I guess. I'm awake because I don't want to fall asleep. And why I don't want to fall asleep? It's a fair question I'd ask if it were someone else.

The answer sounds stupid, even to me. If I'm honest, I have to admit I'm just being a baby about this. I don't want to fall asleep because of the dreams I've been having. "Nightmares" is a better word. I don't think even that really gets the point across, though. Is there a word for dreams that are worse than nightmares? There should be.

It's been the same the last four nights, exactly the same. The people in it are the same, the places are the same, everything happens exactly the same way, in the same order, and the worst part is that it all feels so real. There isn't any of that weird imagery that people always talk about–talking rabbits or losing your teeth while flying naked behind trains through long dark tunnels or whatever else. Everything that happens in this nightmare could come right out of the news. It could all really happen.

Oh, my. That's a horrible thought. What if it is really happening?

No. Absolutely not. It can't be.

I know, I know. There are lots of people who believe in stuff like that. Bob–my younger brother–is one of them. He's sixteen years old, and the magazines he hides under his bed, or in the back of his closet or wherever teenage boys usually hide copies of Playboy or Penthouse, include Psychic Times and UFO Monthly.

Personally, I think most of that is nonsense. People don't really have visions of the future or psychic flashes or any of that. This nightmare is probably just from some stupid slasher movie somebody rented for one of our dorm movie nights. Against my better judgment, I sat through it and even though I was only half watching, not really paying attention, it leaked into my subconscious or something. That makes sense, right? I'm sure that's all it is. Probably happens all the time. Except that I don't remember ever sitting through a slasher movie in the first place.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that the dreams are incredibly disturbing when I'm actually experiencing them, and, of course, in the moment I'm not thinking logically. I'm just reacting to what's going on, and it's really getting to me. What makes it even worse is that, up until this last week, I've almost never been able to remember my dreams at all. And now, suddenly, I remember them perfectly. That seems like it has to mean something.

It's not just what I'm seeing, either. It always feels like—and I know this doesn't make any sense—I'm not in my own head. It's completely wrong, in a very "not in Kansas anymore" sort of way. I don't know the words to describe it any better than that. I'm not sure there actually are any better words.

And then once I wake up and the whole stupid horrible thing replays itself in my mind, I can't fall back asleep even if I wanted to, which at that point obviously I don't anyway. So then, on top of being freaked out and miserable, I'm a tired mess the whole next day.

To top all that off, I had another dream that I remembered right before the nightmares started. It had that same not-in-my-own-head feeling. But that first dream was different. I was frightened, because it felt so strange, but the dream itself wasn't creepy or horrible at all. It was—well, "flattering" is the word that comes to mind. I remember waking up screaming, not because of the content of the dream but because I knew that somehow I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I think that's it, anyway. Unfortunately, I don't really trust my own analysis of any of this very much right now.

Now it's 3:20 AM, give or take. Beth is snuggled up under her blankets in her bed, and she looks all peaceful and happy. Every so often she makes these funny little noises, not quite snores, but almost. I never really noticed she did that before, and we've been roommates since freshman year. I suppose it makes sense, though. In the two and a half years we've been rooming together, I can probably count on my fingers the times she's gone to sleep before I did.

I haven't told her about the nightmares yet. Partly it's because I have this feeling—and, yes, I know it's a naïve, childish thought–that if I don't talk about them, maybe eventually they'll just go away. But mostly it's because I know what she'd say. First, she'd pretend to analyze them, probably throwing in something from one of her advanced Psychology classes to make it sound better. And then she'd get just slightly more serious and tell me that the nightmares are my subconscious trying to get me to let my hair down, have some more fun, don't take everything so seriously. Basically, live a little.

After which I would say that I do have fun, I do let my hair down and I do live a little, after all my studying is done. "Like the Halloween party," I'd say. "I went to that, didn't I?"

She'd scoff and say that, yes, I went, but only after she harassed me for over an hour to come downstairs to the party. And she'd point out that my "costume" was a lab coat with a plastic nametag reading "Dr. Feelgood" that my brother bought for me as a bad joke when I came home for Christmas my freshman year. Which I only had because Beth grabbed it out of my bedroom when she came to visit me last summer. She waited four whole months for just the right moment to embarrass me with it. She's got good timing; I have to give her that.

Then she'd remind me that what "going to the party" actually entailed was me spending an hour standing off in a corner. And it included highlights like not dancing even though several people from our dorm tried to drag me over. Oh, and completely ignoring a tall, cute guy from another dorm who–according to Beth; I didn't notice him–kept looking hopefully over at me the whole time. And then to top it all off, taking exactly three sips of punch (even Beth can't really blame me for that–it was a mix of the vile forty proof fake vodka they sell in the little grocery store just off campus, combined with generic orange soda. No thank you!), before I snuck away to revise a lab write-up for Advanced Organic Chemistry that I was already going to get 105% on.

But she probably wouldn't mention how lucky she was that I left early and sober and that when she stumbled back to our room at four o'clock in the morning I made her drink a big glass of water, take two aspirin and got her safely to bed. Actually, I take that back. She would mention that. She did mention it the next morning, when she woke up without a hangover, in a clean bed, with her smelly, nasty costume in the laundry bag. She was very grateful.

Anyway, like I said, I haven't told her about the nightmares for what seem like very good reasons to me. Looking at her there, it's as though she doesn't have a care in the world. I wonder what she's dreaming about...

...Sara is in the back of the ambulance, rattling off items on her checklist and somewhere between excited and frightened out of her wits. She's been over this a thousand times, but that was all practice, all fake, and this is real and it's her first time and...

"Nice and easy, Sara," comes Tom's voice from up front. "We haven't lost a volunteer yet, and I promise you won't be the first."

She manages a laugh. "It's not myself I'm worried about losing."

Sara expects Tom to say something, but the radio crackles to life and cuts off any reply he might have made. It doesn't matter anyway, because now they have a call. Her very first call.

"One minute!" The ambulance speeds through the night towards the scene of the accident. The car wreck, Sara hears that much from the radio. The rest of the call goes right past her and then, more quickly than she expects, they're there. Sara opens the doors, steps out. At first, she can't see anything; it takes her eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the darkness. Once she is able to see, she realizes she preferred it the other way.

The scene is a mess: a compact car–Sara thinks it might be a Toyota but it's impossible to tell for sure now–had a run-in with a big Jeep and it had lost, badly. Her feet crunch glass as she makes her way towards what had once probably been a very nice car, and is now so much scrap metal.

The car isn't anything compared to its driver; he's lying on the ground and to Sara it looks like more of his blood is on the street and all over the remains of the car than inside him. Her first thought is to wonder how the man could still be alive, and her second is that if she doesn't do something, and fast, he won't be for long.

But what to do? She hears a voice, one of the policemen at the scene, running down the man's condition. Somewhere in the back of Sara's mind, as she listens to the litany of injuries–major blood loss, a broken leg, several cracked ribs, almost certainly internal bleeding and all that just for starters–she wonders if the policeman has any idea that she's seventeen years old and a volunteer on her very first ever ambulance run and utterly clueless. No, Sara decides, he probably doesn't know all that. He probably expects Sara to actually do something for the man. But where to start with someone this messed up?

The absence of a pulse gives Sara the answer. CPR, that's easy, she can do it in her sleep. Except the patient's ribs aren't supposed to give way like that when she puts pressure on them.

Still, it works; the man's eyes blink open. They focus on Sara and even though he can't speak, she sees the question there. What can she possibly tell him? He has to know how bad it is, doesn't he? She owes it to him not to lie, not if it will be the last answer he ever gets. She holds his stare and shakes her head. And then she reaches down and takes his hand, squeezes it. It's only a few seconds after that; Sara knows the exact instant when he's gone...

...Sara isn't at the accident scene anymore. She's somewhere else, somewhere strange. Except not strange at all. She's been here before. Hasn't she? Yes, she has, she feels very sure about it, but she can't remember the circumstances.

It's a bedroom. A big bedroom. Bigger than her dorm room. It's also a man's bedroom; there isn't a thing in here that has even the vaguest suggestion of a woman's touch. It's certainly nice; the furniture looks expensive, as does the painting on the wall above the bed: a picture of a sailing ship with the sky full of color behind it, framed in gold.

Definitely gold. Sara knows that for a fact. Just like she knows that the watch on the dresser is a genuine Rolex. It doesn't occur to her just now to wonder how, exactly, she knows these things.

Sara sits down in a comfortable recliner in the corner. She reaches down for the handle, on the right side of the chair near the back, exactly where she knows even without looking–how?–that it will be. She leans all the way back. Everything is right with the world.

No, it isn't. She's not completely sure, but she thinks she hears footsteps just outside the bedroom. Scratch that, she is sure now. Footsteps, and the doorknob turning, and the door opening.

A man enters. He's big; easily over six foot tall and well built. Not quite Schwarzenegger big, but plenty big enough. And familiar. Sara knows she's seen him somewhere, but she can't guess where that might have been. He's leading, or maybe dragging, a girl into the bedroom with him. She's a teenager; she might be as old as eighteen, but Sara doubts it. She's blonde and petite and Sara can just picture her leading cheers at a high school football game.

There won't be any cheerleading from the girl tonight. Right now she looks scared to death. So scared she doesn't notice Sara even though Sara is looking right at her. The man doesn't see Sara either. Or hear Sara when she screams, after the man throws the teenager onto the bed and begins to tear at her clothes.

The girl is fighting, scratching, shouting her head off, but none of it does any good. Sara can't help her; she stands up, but she can't get to the bed. It's as though there's an invisible wall in her way. She can't get to the phone, or out of the room. She can't do anything except watch. And scream until her own lungs give out...

Someone's screaming. No, not "someone," me. I don't know why. And then it hits me all at once. I see the whole nightmare, every detail. I go right on screaming.

It's not until my voice just about gives out that Beth wakes up. That's the only reason I stop, because my throat hurts too much. I can barely breathe, and I'm clutching myself, holding my arms across my breasts. In my head I'm still seeing that bedroom and the man and the girl over and over and I barely notice that Beth is sitting up now, staring at me.

She looks worried, or maybe frightened out of her wits is a better description. Frightened for me. I've never seen that expression on her face before. It doesn't make me feel any better. All it does is make me want to cry, even more than I already am.

I can't really see her, between the tears and the fact that I'm too much of a mess to even focus my eyes. She must have gotten out of her bed and walked over to mine, because now she's hugging me, holding me, telling me everything's OK, everything is going to be all right. I don't know how many times she has to say it, over and over, before I start to believe it.

A little bit, anyway. Enough to stop seeing the nightmare on infinite replay inside my head and I'm back in our room again.

I don't know how long it takes me to collect myself enough to talk intelligently. A few minutes? An hour? I have no idea, and I don't even have enough energy to turn my head to look at the clock to find out.

I'm still shaking, still about two seconds away from bursting into tears again. I don't know why it was so much worse just now; it's been the same the last four nights. Maybe the lack of good, restful sleep has frayed my nerves to this point?

That, and knowing that I'm probably going to keep seeing this every night. If it's been four nights in a row, why would it stop tomorrow night? Or the night after? Am I going to see this sick, horrible shit inside my head every night for the rest of my life?

Beth is looking at me with the saddest expression I think I've ever seen on her face. She clearly has no idea what to think about me right now. Having to take care of me in the middle of the night is a new experience; like the aftermath of the Halloween party, it's usually me seeing to her.

I don't want to say anything. I don't want to think about it at all. But I have to tell Beth something. And maybe talking about it will help, somehow. I know I need to share it. I can't handle this alone. And then the tears do come again, and it takes another few minutes before I'm able to speak. But when I do, finally, recover the power of speech, I tell her everything.

It's not easy, obviously. Talking about the nightmare brings it back again. I can see it all and it's just as bad the hundredth time through as it was the first. "It was really horrible," I say. Beth still has her arm around me, and I can feel myself leaning against her without really thinking about it. She's warm and comforting and best of all she's just here.

"I've had the same dream the last four nights. Nightmare. Whatever the hell it is. It doesn't start out bad. I remember..." What do I remember? Just a feeling, darkness, and a mixture of fear and excitement. And then two details come to me. "There was–I think it was a siren, maybe? And then glass–I was stepping on glass, under my shoes, it was making this noise, a sort of crunching sound."

The ambulance. My first night. I must have been dreaming about that. What else could it be? "It was my first call as a volunteer, my first night out with the paramedics, you remember that, right?" I feel myself calming down a bit as I mention the accident, and yes, I do realize how disturbing it is that talking about a fatal car wreck is actually comforting to me right now.

Beth knows about it, because I told her the first night of freshman orientation. All the other freshmen in Carson House, too. We'd finished up the scheduled and approved activities and our group leader took us out to a scuzzy little bar two blocks off campus called Club Illusion, which I think is the least aptly named place I've ever been to. It's a tiny hole in the wall with about three tables inside and a dance floor that's something like two feet square. The appeal of Club Illusion, at least for us, is based on two things: it's a five-minute walk from the dorm, and (much less of a concern since I turned twenty-one back in October) they rarely if ever card anyone.

Anyway, off we went, and after a couple of pitchers of beer we ended up playing sort of an informal game of Truth or Dare. Someone, I don't remember who, asked if anybody at the table had ever seen someone die. "I did," I said, and I told them what happened that night.

I was a volunteer with one of the local ambulance units during my senior year in high school. I've always had the idea that I wanted to be a doctor, for as long as I can remember. That seemed like a great way to see how I'd do with the blood and guts and everything. And of course my guidance counselor kept reminding me how good it would look on my college applications.

Three months of training and it was finally time for my first ride. We drove around for maybe half an hour when the call came in, and then there was the accident scene, that poor man bleeding to death on the street. I hadn't ever seen a dead person before, at least not that way. When I was ten, I went to my Uncle Albert's funeral. But seeing someone laid out like that, after the mortician is done with them, isn't the same thing at all. Seeing someone die right in front of you is something most people never experience, I think, at least not if you're lucky. I was the only one at the table that night who had, for whatever that's worth.

I handled it really well, too. I didn't freak out and I think–I know–that I gave that poor man some tiny bit of comfort before he passed. Maybe it doesn't sound like such a big deal, but think about it. He was in pain, he knew he was going to die, and he was all alone and frightened and pretty much as bad off as a person can possibly be. I couldn't save him, but at least I was there. It could have been anyone, all I did was hold his hand and look him in the eye and not lie to him, but "anyone" wasn't there. I was. It was only a few seconds, but as far as I'm concerned it was important. Nobody deserves to die cold and scared and alone.

Obviously, I still dream about it. I don't really remember anything more than feelings and vague impressions, but I think it must have been a replay of that night. What little I do remember about my dreams is usually like that. Very boring. Until now, anyway.

I don't have to tell Beth all that, so I skip ahead to the awful part: the man and the girl and the bedroom. I realize, as I'm telling her about it, it wasn't separate dreams, it was the same dream. I was in one place, and then in the other, just like that. And it was the same feeling of being not in my own mind again, just like all the other times. I must have been on the street, at the accident scene, and then I was in the bedroom watching. There wasn't any in-between at all.

By the time I get to the end, I can barely get the words out. I don't want to see it, but it's there, playing out over and over again.

I don't know how long I cry for this time, but Beth is a real trooper, she holds me until I finally recover a little. Not much, but enough to keep talking. "He killed her. I watched the whole thing, and I tried to help but I couldn't move, and they didn't hear me and there wasn't anything I could do. She was–she was kicking and fighting but it didn't do any good."

Beth thinks about that. She's staring hard at me, and I can tell exactly what's going through her head. She's wondering where the hell this came from. I don't like horror movies; I hate even watching the news sometimes. And nothing's ever happened in my life or to anyone I know like what I dreamed. Beth knows all that, and I can see from her expression that she's nearly as freaked out as I am.

"I don't blame you for losing it. That's–I'd say horrible, but horrible doesn't cover it."

Yes, I know. "The worst thing is that it looked so real. And I have no idea who they were. They didn't look like anyone I can think of." Well, the girl didn't, I'm sure about that. When I picture the man I can't place him either, but I've got this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I ought to be able to.

I keep talking. "It all came out of nowhere. The only thing I can think of," and it's just at this moment that it occurs to me, "is that it's something subconscious. Maybe deep down I get off on that kind of stuff?" That can't really be true, can it?

Beth doesn't think so. She shakes her head and answers me immediately. "No way. I know you better than anybody. If you had that kind of a dark side–well, you don't. Trust me."

She's right, I think. I hope. "Thanks. I guess I just needed to hear that." She's still sitting on my bed right next to me. I lean close, hug her, and give her a little kiss on the cheek. "I feel much better," which isn't true, but talking about this more isn't going to make me feel better, and both of us should get back to sleep. "Why don't you go back to bed? I promise I won't wake you up again."

"You're sure you're OK?" I nod. We both know I'm not, but she doesn't call me on it. She just pats my head before she gets up and goes back to her own bed. "No more nightmares, right?"

"I promise."

Thankfully, there aren't any more nightmares. I actually get a couple of hours of decent sleep. I wish it could have been more, heaven knows I need it, but it's Thursday and I have an early class.

So does Beth, but she's still lying in bed when I get out of the shower. She's awake, though, talking on the phone. It's her younger sister Chrissy. It's easy to tell, because Beth is complaining about how she doesn't want to be called Liz or Lizzie. It annoys her, so of course her sister does it whenever possible. I've got a younger brother so I understand completely.

Beth is still on the phone when I leave for 9:30 AM physics. I don't like 9:30 AM physics. I wouldn't like it at eleven o'clock, or at any other time. Just like green eggs and ham, I guess. But I need it for the pre-med program so I'm trying to slog through it. I don't have a problem with any of my other classes, just this one. It doesn't click for me, and I wish I knew why.

I've got a nice long, cold walk to think about it. Physics is on the other side of campus, in one of the old, dingy engineering buildings on the main quad. At least it's something to think about instead of the nightmares. On the other hand, it's kind of disheartening that there's something going on in my life that I like even less than physics.

I make it to class, and I manage to stay awake and even take some notes, not that I understand anything that Dr. Wallabeck said. I haven't understood much in that class since the last exam. At least, I had to concentrate so much on trying to comprehend it that I couldn't think about the nightmares.

No such luck now. I'm sitting in my Science in Western Thought class. It was the only class this semester that fit my schedule and that filled the requirements for a Liberal Arts elective, so I signed up for it. I can see where the material could be interesting, except that the professor, Dr. Sorenson, somehow manages to suck all the life out of it. She's a very dry speaker, and it's hard to concentrate on anything she's saying. Usually, it's not that much of a problem since she's taking everything straight from the textbook. But sometimes my mind wanders....

...the blonde girl's on the bed, and the big man climbs on top of her, and all Sara can do is watch helplessly...

"Is there a problem, Miss Barnes?"

Yes, there is. Very much so. "I'm–I'm not feeling well, I need to go to the bathroom." I must have shouted something, or maybe I just completely spaced out when Dr. Sorenson called on me. I'm not really sure what I did, to be honest.

I don't wait for her to even acknowledge me; I run out of the room, down the hall to the ladies room. I splash some water on my face and then I lock myself in a stall. It seems like the only sensible thing to do.

I thought I was getting over it. I talked about it with Beth, and isn't talking about bad things supposed to make them seem better? Besides, for God's sake, I'm twenty-one years old. I'm an adult. Some stupid nightmare isn't supposed to affect me like this. Right?

Wrong, apparently, or I wouldn't be sitting here in the bathroom, hiding. And I'm not even sure exactly what I'm hiding from. This absolutely sucks, and that's by far the most polite way I can think of to say it.

I sit there another few minutes and then I hear the door open, footsteps echoing and finally a voice. "Sara? Are you there?" It's Marcia Goldstein. She lives just down the hall from me, and she's also in the class.

"I'm still here."

"Dr. Sorenson wanted to know if you were OK. She was worried about you."

I'm worried about me too but of course I can't say that. "It's really nothing. I'll be fine. I'll be back in a minute, OK?"

That's good enough for Marcia, and, although it takes more than just a minute, I'm able to keep my word. I go back to the classroom, back to my seat and I sit quietly for the remainder of class. When it's over, I tell Dr. Sorenson I'm sorry for disrupting class. She smiles patronizingly at me and shakes her head. "Don't worry about it. It happens to all of us at one time or another."

I don't think so. I don't think this kind of thing happens to most people ever. For their sake, I certainly hope not.

It's almost twelve-thirty in the morning and I'm not asleep. I was staring at the poster of Daffy Duck over Beth's bed, but I gave that up a few minutes ago. I thought he was staring back at me. I've got a print of Monet's Water Lilies over my bed and now I half think they're staring at me, too.

I realize that's not good. It's pretty far from good, actually.

So I crawl out of my bed, put on my slippers and my bathrobe and go downstairs. Two of my fellow residents are sitting on the big discolored couch watching David Letterman. I give them a little wave and I sink into a corner of the couch to watch the show.

People trickle in a few at a time. It's Thursday night and The Cellar–our own little on-campus "nightclub" in the basement beneath the dining hall–always has a live band. Sometimes, the shows go until two or even three in the morning, but tonight's band, a group called—God only knows why—Wounded Dog Theory, must not have been very popular. I talk with the returnees, although I'm not nearly conscious enough to have any idea what they're saying or what I say in return. I'm on autopilot.

And then, just like that, Letterman's done, and the little crowd in the lounge disperses. I head back to my room, hang my bathrobe back up in my closet, crawl back under the covers and...

... Sara is awake, sitting in a chair, her eyes wandering around a large, expensively furnished bedroom. There are details that seem familiar, but Sara can't quite remember why: a Rolex watch on a dresser, an expensive painting on a wall. And then, suddenly, a large man and a much younger, much smaller girl come through the door.

What happens next is also familiar, and terrible: frantic shouting from the girl as the man throws her onto the bed, and screaming from Sara, which no one else hears...

...Something's wrong. I'm awake. Someone is screaming.

It's me. Goddamn it, I hate this!

I turn on the light, and what I see doesn't make me feel any better. The first thing I notice is the blood on my pillow. I can taste it in my mouth. I guess I must have been biting my lip to keep from screaming, and I bit so hard that I drew blood. And then I screamed anyway.

No more sleeping.

It's almost three o'clock in the morning now. It seems like it's three o'clock a lot lately.

The door opens, and Beth comes tip-toeing in. She takes one look at me and she knows she doesn't need to worry about making noise. She doesn't need to ask what's wrong, either; she can see it's last night all over again.

I haven't looked at myself in the mirror, but I can picture what she sees all the same: dead eyes staring out at her, clutching my bloody pillow as though I'm drowning and it's a life preserver. Beth doesn't say a word, she just throws her coat on her bed and strips down to her underwear. I never really gave it much thought before, but she really does that awfully quickly. She puts on the double extra-large Van Halen t-shirt she always wears to bed–she keeps telling me there's a really juicy story behind that shirt, but after two and a half years of not hearing it, I'm not sure I believe her. "Move over." It's the first thing she says to me. "You obviously need someone to hold you. Scoot over."

I do, and she gets into the bed with me. "You really ought to be doing this with a boyfriend. When are you going to start dating again?"

She's just trying to distract me. I realize that. But she hit on a good subject. It works. "You're the one who kept telling me to dump Thomas!"

"Yeah, but I didn't tell you to join a convent or anything. You need to find somebody. Soon. Right?

Maybe. I'm not sure I really want to have this conversation right now. On the other hand, it beats the alternative. "Sure. You're right, Beth."

"Of course I am. But since you don't listen to me, I guess this is my job tonight." She laughs. I know what she's going to say next. "Besides, it's not like we haven't slept together before, right?"

Last Spring Break, to be exact. We went to Florida with two other girls from the floor, Kathy and Theresa. Someone–Beth, not that there's any point in bringing it up just now–messed up booking the rooms. We ended up with just one room and a single king size bed instead of two rooms with two double beds in each. The second night down there, Kathy saw a spider, and nobody was willing to sleep on the floor after that. So all four of us ended up in the big bed every night that trip.

She's got her arms around me. I don't object, because she's exactly right, I do need holding. It's half an hour later before she asks about the nightmare. I tell her, it was exactly the same. Exactly as awful as the last few nights. But I do feel a little better right now, thanks to her. She says she's glad she can help. She says that she'll stay right here the rest of the night, if I want her to. I'm fine with that. She asks me if she can turn out the light. I'm fine with that too.

There's someone in bed with me. Someone's next to me, someone warm and soft and he's–wait a minute, that's not right. There isn't any "he" at the moment for me to be in bed with.

She. It's Beth. She's in bed with me–I don't know why, I don't remember–and then it all comes back in a rush. I had a nightmare, I freaked out, and she decided I needed to be held. Except it isn't helping. I sit up, and it's as though it never went out of my head–I'm seeing it again, the bedroom, the man, the...

Beth stirs herself awake, sits up. I can barely see her; I'm still in that bedroom, still watching that helpless girl scratching and clawing and...

Beth fades in and out of view; for a moment I can see her more clearly. Her eyes narrow, focusing on mine. Then she's gone again, and I'm watching the–the–the murder. That's what it is. I can't get it out of my head.

I feel–what? A hand, soft, gentle, on my cheek. It's Beth. She's back. She's moving towards me, her face is just an inch or two away from mine, her lips are...

"What the hell are you doing?" The bedroom and the man and his victim are gone, and Beth is suddenly three or four feet away from me, her hand up, bracing herself against the wall. My hands are out in front of me; I must have shoved her away into the wall without even realizing what I was doing.

She's staring hard at me, right into my eyes, trying to see if I'm back here with her, if the nightmare is out of my mind. It certainly is. She stares for another moment or two and then, without any warning, she dissolves into laughter. "You should—God, you should see your face right now!"

I don't really see what's funny about anything right now. "What were you doing?" I snap at her, breathing rapidly.

She needs a few seconds to recover her composure. "You were gone again, and I felt like I had to do something to bring you back. It was either that or a good hard slap."

My breathing slows; it's almost back to normal. "I guess that makes sense." I think I might have preferred the slap. But I have to admit that her way did work; I'm certainly not thinking about the nightmare now. I'm pretty sure she's driven it away for the night.

"You forgive me?"

Of course I do. I lean over and hug her. "You bet." Our heads turn towards the alarm clock in unison: 5:20 AM. "You think we can get a little more sleep? I'll be OK by myself now, I think." If I didn't know better and I heard myself just now, I might even believe it.

She's already up and halfway over to her bed. "I know you will," she answers. I wish I were as confident as she is.

I'm sure I did things this morning. I must have gone to my class, and I assume I had conversations with people and all the usual things that make up the day. I can't remember any of it right now. It feels like I've been sleepwalking all morning, which really isn't too far from the truth.

Now, lunchtime, I almost feel something close to awake. I'm in Lardner Commons, which far too often means I'm staring at a bowl of Froot Loops. Today is no exception.

Needless to say, Lardner is the dining hall for this side, the north side, of campus. Also needless to say, the food is usually, to use a technical term, yucky. We've got a rule: if you can't immediately identify it by look and smell, you don't eat it.

Almost everyone else at the table shares my opinion of today's entrée. Beth is sitting across from me, and–maybe to show solidarity with me–she's also chosen the Froot Loops. Joe Karver, the upstairs Resident Assistant, went with Cheerios. John from New York selected Frosted Flakes, and George from the fourth floor apparently decided to be a rebel and went straight for dessert. He's busy slurping down a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

Jackie and Fred, two of our freshmen, joined us, too. When I say "our freshmen," I really mean it. Carson House is a very friendly place; at least it's been for all of my time here. With only a handful of freshmen out of the hundred or so of us who live there, most of us have gone out of our way to make sure all of them feel like they belong. It looks like we've fallen down on the job a little bit, though. They clearly haven't memorized the rules of the dining hall; Jackie and Fred are the only ones at the table to brave the hot food.

"I think its Swedish meatballs. That's what the sign said," Fred says, when Joe asks him what, exactly, he's eating. Amazing.

"If you have to read the sign," Joe starts, and then we all chime in, "You don't want it!"

We chat about our final exam schedules while we eat. Finals start a week from today–on a Friday, for some reason none of us have been able to figure out. Jackie's the most worried, she doesn't know what to expect. We all try to reassure her that finals really aren't that bad. George tells her that last year, when he was a freshman, he played Monopoly every night of finals and he still did fine. I happen to know that's true, since I played in a couple of those games as well.

Having put Jackie at ease, our conversation turns to plans for tonight. It is Friday, after all. There are a couple of fraternity parties, and the campus movie. As usual, none of that really appeals to me, so I just sit tight and listen as Jackie and Fred start talking about this new club downtown that they got into last week, a place called Checkpoint Charlie's. It's the new "in" spot, apparently.

"That's a great idea," I hear myself say. I'm not quite sure where the words are coming from. "Yeah. I want to go out and dance and drink way more than I should. Let's go."

Beth stares at me, extremely confused. A few hours ago, I was a complete wreck. And in any event, the idea of me actively wanting to go out when there's studying I could be doing is a shock to her. Honestly, I'm just as surprised as she is. I had no idea that's what I wanted to do until I heard myself say the words. I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, but too late to worry about it now. "Are you sure?" Beth asks

"Maybe it's not such a great idea," Joe adds. "You don't look like you're feeling too well."

Well, thanks for noticing that. Thanks a lot. I wasn't sure until just this second, but now I definitely am. "I'm fine. And I'm sure that I want to go out. OK?" It's OK with everyone. "Jackie, you and Fred want to join us?"

"They're only eighteen. How do you expect them to get in?" Joe asks. It's not his fault; he is the RA, after all. I suppose it's his job to discourage irresponsible behavior. Maybe that means we should be irresponsible every so often, so that he's got something to do. Isn't that what they call "division of labor?" "They got in last week, Joe. I'm sure they've got it all figured out."

Jackie grins, fishes into her purse and pulls out what looks to me like a pretty convincing fake driver's license. Hey, whatever works. The rest of us are legal, at least Beth and Joe and me are. It doesn't matter anyway. The really important point is that maybe going out and having a good time will take my mind off the damn nightmares and I can get a decent night's sleep. It seems like a good plan to me.

It's nine o'clock, and everyone's waiting downstairs for Beth and me. She looks great, which is no surprise. She generally does. What is a little surprising, at least to me, is just how good I look. That sounds immodest, but what the heck. I'm allowed to be immodest once in a while, right?

Beth spent the last two hours helping me do my hair and makeup, and she absolutely demanded that I wear the dress I bought with my birthday money. It doesn't quite say "do me"–nothing I own says that–but it might say "buy me some drinks and dance with me and I'll think about it" if I wear it with the proper attitude. It's black and strapless and–for me, at least–very short. It's such a change from my usual wardrobe that I barely recognize myself in the mirror. Especially with my hair up and the way-more-than-usual makeup job.

She gives me a final once over, and claps her hands. She's thrilled. "There may be hope for you yet!" She doesn't need me to check her over, she knows without even looking in the mirror that everything's right, not a hair or anything else out of place.

I have to take one last good long look at myself, though. The woman staring back at me has my eyes, but the rest of her...

I hear my own voice asking, "Who is that?"

Beth laughs, and steps into view next to me. "That's one hot babe, that's who it is."

Hot babe? Me? Not quite. Beth is the only hot babe in the mirror. There's really no comparison between us. She's got ridiculously perfect shoulder-length blonde hair, while I've got a tangle of barely-manageable brown curls. She has unbelievable legs and a good five inches on me. And to top it off, she's—"well-endowed" is probably the best way to put it, and I'm, well, not.

You know what, though? Despite all that, even though she's beautiful and the most I'd ever call myself is "cute" or, maybe right now, at my absolute best, "pretty," I'm not a bit jealous or envious.

I feel really good next to her, actually. I look into my own eyes, green and bright and alive, as though I haven't just gone through a week of horrible nightmares and barely any sleep, and I like what I see.

OK, enough staring. We've got places to go. I grab my purse and we're off, out the door, down the stairs. "Prepare to be amazed, people!" Beth shouts out ahead of us. There's a crowd in the lobby, and they all stare up at her coming down the stairs. And then they stare at me.

Someone says "wow," and there's a whistle or two. I'm sure it's all just joking, but still, it feels really good to hear it. I can't help showing off, I do a little twirl at the bottom of the stairs. Why not? It's a special occasion. I'm not sure why, but it feels like one.

Beth knows it too. She winks at me, and I wink right back; maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I don't think so. I'm convinced it's more than that. This is going to be an evening to remember. I don't have a doubt in my mind about it.

Footloose

(December 1-2, 1989)

Making it downtown in one piece turns out to be quite the adventure. Five of us jam ourselves into Joe's car, which isn't a recommended number for a creaky old VW Beetle. Jackie and Fred and I squeeze together in the back seat, while Beth is driving Joe crazy in the front.

Beth can't help but give advice when she's a passenger. Usually it's along the lines of "you're not going to let him cut you off like that, are you?" Not surprisingly, that kind of thing doesn't tend to go over very well. I spend the whole drive massaging Joe's shoulders and telling him over and over that everything's OK.

Thankfully we do make it downtown in one piece, and we even find parking only a couple of blocks away from the club. That's got to be a good omen, right? So here we are. We're walking down Superior Avenue; I'm hanging back with Beth and Jackie. The boys are half a block ahead of us, leading the way. Right now Jackie's telling us that she's hoping Fred will make a move on her tonight.

"I know he wants to. I'm pretty sure anyway. I thought he was going to last week but he got nervous, I guess."

"You could just make a move on him," Beth tells her. It sounds simple enough, but Jackie's clearly not comfortable with the concept. I know how she feels, but two and a half years of living with Beth have rubbed off on me at least a little bit.

"She's right. If there's anything you can trust her on, it's matters of the heart," I reassure Jackie.

"And other organs," Beth says. "They're much more fun than the heart anyway." Well, that's settled. As usual Beth has the last word. And here are the boys. Joe's stopped to talk to someone. It's a small world, because he's talking to a mutual friend.

"Hey, Reggie!" Reggie Morton's an RA on the other side of campus. Now, anyway. Our freshman year she was our next door neighbor.

"Sara! Wow, you look fantastic!" It really is nice to be noticed like that once in a while. I could probably get used to it.

"Thanks! Where are you headed?"

"I was just telling Joe, we've got some free passes to Sharky's. You guys want to join us?"

Free is good. It'll be fun to go with Reggie, too. I haven't done anything with her in a while. "Fine by me."

"Sure," Beth agrees. Jackie and Fred nod their heads. Sharky's it is. It's just a few doors down from Checkpoint Charlie's, so it's not out of the way. This is good, because it's freezing cold and I'm not wearing nearly enough to be walking around outside for any length of time.

I feel much better. A couple of drinks and an hour of dancing were just what I needed. Right now, I'm resting for a few minutes, dancing takes a lot of energy. And it's very crowded and warm in here too. I'm enjoying myself, which is the most important thing. I made the rounds, said "hi" when I spotted a couple of folks I knew, danced with Beth a little, and I danced with Joe quite a bit.

I remember reading in a novel once how a character took a turn on the dance floor that "could've gotten her pregnant." I was never sure quite what that involved before, but now I know exactly what it means. I'm sure Joe wasn't expecting anything like that. It's good to know I can still surprise people once in a while.

Jackie catches my eye. She's wading her way through the crowd to me. It doesn't look easy, but she eventually makes it over here. "Sara!"

"Yes!" We're not quite two feet apart and we still have to shout at the top of our lungs to hear each other.

"We want to try the other club!" I think that's what she says, anyway.

I like this place just fine, but right now I think I'll do great wherever we go. Besides, I've never been to Checkpoint Charlie's and from the little I've heard it sounds kind of interesting. Why not? "I'll go get Beth! You find everybody else! Meet us outside!"

She nods her head and starts pushing through the mass of people away from me, so I assume she heard me correctly. I head back onto the dance floor; Beth is there somewhere. I'm shaking and swaying my way into the crowd and I see her. No surprise; she's dancing with three guys, all very good-looking. She finally sees me, smiles, gives me a little wave. I slide between two of her guys and grab her arm. She blows all of them a kiss as I pull her away.

"Something wrong? Or were you just jealous?" she asks me when we get off the dance floor and then to a halfway quiet spot so we can actually talk.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to spoil your fun, but we're leaving. Jackie wants to go to the other club, and I kind of want to check it out too. OK?"

Beth looks back at her suitors, shakes her head. "Oh, well. I can do better anyway," she says as she follows me towards the door. We get outside, pushing past the line of people trying to get in. Joe and Jackie and Fred are waiting for us a little way down the street.

"Is everybody having a good time?"

"I know you sure are," Joe answers me.

"And you aren't? What, you didn't like dancing with me?"

He drapes his arm around my shoulders. "I didn't say that. I just didn't expect you to be so..." he's got that lost-in-thought expression now. Joe's usually very particular about what he says and how he says it. "...friendly." That isn't quite the word I'd have chosen, but I let it pass. He goes on: "You never got that 'friendly' when we were dating. That's all I meant." Ancient history. We went out a few times last year. Nothing came of it, there just wasn't any chemistry, I guess. It never got too serious, physically or otherwise, so it wasn't ugly or awful when we stopped dating. I'm pretty sure that's why we're still friends today.

Beth is curious now. "How 'friendly' are we talking here?"

"Friendly enough to make you proud. How about that?" And I don't even blush when I say it. I think that's what surprises her the most–she's utterly speechless now. Hah! I actually managed to shock her. That doesn't happen often.

We're in front of Checkpoint Charlie's now. It's a warehouse, or it used to be one. It isn't much to look at from the outside–rundown is the first word that comes to mind. But there's a line to get in, so it must be better inside than out. I head for the back of the line, but Beth shakes her head and walks right up to the doorman. She's talking to him, pointing at us–me, I think, but I'm not completely sure.

It doesn't take long at all for her to talk him into letting us in. I'm pretty sure it wasn't what she said as much as her miniskirt. It could get her arrested for indecent exposure if it were about an inch shorter. Not that there's anything wrong with that, she wears it very well. Besides, the truth is that the whole sex kitten thing she does is mostly an act. A little bit of it is real, but nowhere near as much as she likes to pretend. Not that I'd ever say that to her. Anyway, act or not, if she can work it and get us to skip the waiting-outside-in-line part, I'm all in favor. It looks like it is working; she waves us over to her, and in we go.

The place is decorated in–well, East German chic by way of a military surplus store is probably the best way I can describe it. There's a big video screen covering almost one entire wall. It's showing one of those old May Day parades, where all the tanks and planes and missiles drive around Moscow or wherever. There are neon fighter planes hanging from the ceiling; and from the little I can see all the bartenders are wearing military uniforms.

It's a clever idea, I guess. Cold War military surplus is not something I would ever have thought of, but it is pretty funny, and it's definitely unique. Popular, too, if the line outside is anything to judge by.

Except, now that we're inside, it isn't quite as crowded as I expected. Not that it's deserted or anything, but there's room to walk without having to shove past people, and it isn't so loud that you can't hear yourself think, like Sharky's was.

So we're wandering over to the bar. I look over at a table in one corner with a red and gold neon fighter plane hanging right above it. My eighth-grade boyfriend would have known exactly what it was called and all the vital statistics about it. I just think it looks kind of funny. And...

And what?

...Sara is in the stands, watching a basketball game, watching herself down on the court cheering for a tall, dark-haired guy who's getting ready to take a shot. Watching herself, watching someone else who's dreaming about her...

It's him. The guy at the table under the fighter plane is the guy on the court. The one from the dream. It's definitely, absolutely, bet-my-life-on-it him. That's impossible, isn't it? It wasn't real, he wasn't real. It was just a stupid, weird dream. But he's sitting right over there!

And so what? I'm in uncharted territory here, but I know it has to mean something. I didn't just dream about him. I was inside his head, or he was inside mine. Whichever. There was him, and then there were the nightmares.

At least the dream with him, as weird as it felt, wasn't all creepy and horrible. Actually, if you take away the weird, it didn't feel bad at all. So if the nightmares are making me crazy, maybe this guy will–what? Make the nightmares stop? Make me sane again? I don't know, but I have to find out.

"Hey, what's going on?"

It's Beth. I assume she's wondering why I stopped dead in my tracks and why I'm staring at some random guy. "Nothing. I just need to talk to somebody over there. You go get a drink, I'll find you in a little while."

I don't wait for an answer. I head straight for my mystery man.

I've seen love at first sight happen. When I say that, I mean two people seeing each other for the first time and the moment their eyes meet there's an instant connection. It's almost like electricity, everybody in the room can feel it. I've been there when it happened, and there's no doubt at all that's what it was. Say what you want about it being silly or sappy or just plain BS, I don't care. I know it's real.

That's what it feels like when I'm halfway over to him, and he turns his head, sees me, and we make eye contact. Everything else disappears. There's me and him and nothing else in the world. We're connected. I don't know why, I don't know how, but that doesn't change the fact that it's happening.

And now I'm there and he's staring at me like he can't believe I'm real. It's OK, I feel the same way. I reach out, put my hand on his arm and I really expect to feel sparks or something, but I don't. It's just him, just the fabric of his shirt.

I slide my hand down his arm and I can feel the goosebumps as I go. I've got them too. I take his hand, and now I'm pulling him away from the table and everything else is starting to come back. It's louder than it seemed a few minutes ago, and it feels much too crowded all of a sudden, and what I need right this second is quiet and just him.

"We have to talk," I whisper in his ear, and he doesn't say anything but he does follow me. There's a back door, it looks like there's a patio for when the weather's nice. I head for it, and I need it to be open and it is and out we go.

I don't feel the cold at all. It's perfect, just the two of us, and with the door closed the noise from the club is all drowned out. He can feel it, too. He knows we're connected; he knows this is exactly where we're supposed to be the same way I do. Neither of us says anything at first. We're just looking at each other, trying to think of the appropriate words. The silence goes on for probably only a few seconds, but it feels like minutes or even hours.

Enough. I say the first thing that pops into my head: "You've been spending your nights with me. I think I deserve to know your name." No, that's all wrong! "God, did I really say that?" He nods his head. "I'm sorry, let me start again. I'm Sara, and I don't know who you are."

He looks so nervous, he's got exactly the same expression my dog Lumpy gets whenever someone starts up the lawnmower. It's a long story. He manages to shake my hand. "Brian Alderson," he says, but I guess he doesn't think that's enough. "I've been dreaming about you."

Now I think about it, I have seen him before–outside the dream, I mean. I've seen him on campus. He's–I think he lives over in Allen House, the dorm right next to mine. Which means he lives probably two or three hundred feet away from me. I never really gave him any special notice before, but now that he's right in front of me, he actually is kind of handsome. He's on the tall side and pretty slim and he's got short, dark hair and the brownest brown eyes I think I've ever seen.

And besides all that, we've got some kind of psychic connection, apparently. I can keep telling myself that I don't believe in it, but I can't ignore the fact that it's happening to me anyway. "I know. I was there, remember?" He nods. He still looks nervous, worse than poor Lumpy ever gets. I reach over and take his hands in mine. "Calm down, OK? I'm nervous enough for the both of us."

He relaxes, almost. At least he looks slightly less nervous. But to be fair, why shouldn't he be nervous, too? This has to be just as weird for him as it is for me. "You're not–not angry about it?" he stammers. "I mean, I understand if you are."

Angry? Not at all. Freaked out? Yes, very much. But not angry. "No. Why should I be? I'm–I'm flattered, I guess. I didn't think anyone dreamed about me like that." If I hadn't seen it, I never would have believed I was a part of anybody's romantic fantasies.

"You're..." I don't know what he was going to say, but whatever it was, he thinks better of it, takes a second to make sure he gets this right, "...really beautiful and smart and friendly too, why wouldn't I dream about you?"

Wow. He's got it bad. He's had it bad for me for a little while now, obviously. And he's being so sweet about it. I do the only thing that makes sense right now, without even thinking about it. I lean close to him and I kiss him, very gently, on the lips. He's really surprised at that. I am, too. "Hey, you know something? That's the nicest thing I think anybody's ever said to me."

"Then you're hanging around the wrong people."

"What?"

"Oh, God, did I actually say that?" I just nod my head. Poor Brian, he looks like he's ready to run for the hills any minute. It's all I can do not to laugh. "I thought I just thought it. But it's true. I mean, you are really beautiful."

Beautiful? He really does mean it, I can see that. Amazing. None of my boyfriends have ever been this taken with me. Not like this. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond. I don't want to scare him off–and this is incredibly flattering–and he is sort of cute. Not to mention the connection, the love at first sight thing, whatever the hell it is that's going on here. Maybe the best way to handle it is just to go with it. Why not?

"Like I said, that's really sweet. I'm totally flattered. But, you know, you should have talked to me before if you felt that way. I'm pretty harmless, honest." I think just about everybody I know would agree with that.

He doesn't know it, I guess. He's still way too nervous, he's just looking at me waiting for me to do God only knows what. I wish I knew what to do here. Here I am, with a guy who's acting like he's in love with me even though we've never actually met before tonight. And then there are the weird dreams. It's not like there's a guidebook for this kind of thing.

One of Aunt Kat's bits of advice pops into my brain: "in for a penny, in for a pound." She says that a lot and she's right more often than not. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to be doing now? "Besides, how did you expect to go out with me if you never actually talked to me?"

I don't think he was expecting me to say that. I'm not sure I was, either. "Go out? You mean go out go out? You and me?"

That could be what everything is about, maybe this really is meant to be. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"Yeah–yes, that would be great. That would be absolutely great," he says. He takes my hand, but he's holding it exactly the way you'd hold something breakable. I really hope he starts to relax, or else he's going to make me as nervous as he is.

"I just have a couple of ground rules. First, I'm not fragile. And second, calm down, please? I already told you I'm pretty harmless. OK?"

He nods; I doubt he's capable of much more communication than that at the moment. "Great, now that we've got the rules sorted out, I think you could probably use a drink and I know for sure that I can. So how about we go back inside and get one?" He's fine with it, so back inside we go.

Beth spots us heading back to the bar. She gives me a "what's going on?" look and I just smile and point to Brian. I think she gets the idea. When we get home, we'll be up for hours talking about it, I'm sure.

We get our drinks, and we find a table in a dark corner. It's not all that quiet, but we can mostly hear each other and that's good enough. We don't say anything right away; I sip my beer and he just looks at his. What I'd rather do is dance, but I'm fairly certain he's not up for that at the moment. I've got to say something, just to get things going again. "Are you here with anyone else?" Lame, I know, but conversation openers aren't really my thing.

"A bunch of us from my dorm. I wasn't going to come at all, but they talked me into it."

"Tell me when you see them, so I know who to thank," I smile, and he almost smiles back. Almost. "Look, I know you're nervous. But you have to trust me, OK?" I don't know how to make him trust me; I don't know what I can say.

Maybe it's not something I say–maybe it's something I do. I lean close, I take his face in my hands, and this time I really kiss him. He's just stunned; I swear I can actually hear his heart beating. But he recovers, he returns the kiss. I break it off and pull away, just a little. We're still only an inch or two apart. I think it worked, I can see the tension draining away from his face. Thank God. "See? Would I have done that if I didn't really like you?"

"It's just–well–I..."

"Take it easy. One word at a time."

He does exactly that. "I never thought I had a chance with you. You're–it's not just that you're beautiful. I mean, you're popular, everyone likes you. And I'm a freshman and you're a senior..."

"Junior, actually," but close enough. As for me being popular? And beautiful? Please.

But he really believes it. I do understand him worrying that I wouldn't be interested in him because he's a freshman. Personally, I couldn't care less, but a lot of people would. So I get that. The rest of it, though–it's way more than just flattery. This might be more difficult than I thought. "Don't go and put me on a pedestal like that. You won't be able to reach up and touch me. Come on, I'm not a model or anything. I'm just plain old Sara."

He rolls his eyes. I guess that counts as progress. "Did you look in the mirror before you came out tonight? You aren't plain old anything."

Well, I have to give him that one, too. I did go all out tonight, and I haven't looked this good since–well, ever. "OK, tonight's a little out of the ordinary, fair enough. This is me at my absolute best. It doesn't change what I said, though. It's really flattering that you think I'm beautiful, and I'm glad you like me. But if all you're going to do is sit there and wait for me to change my mind and decide that I can do better, tell me now, OK? Because if that's how this is going to be, I can do better." That's a lot harsher than I meant it to sound, but better to get it out there right away instead of having it blow up on me later.

He has to consider that for a bit before he answers me. "That's not me. Usually it isn't, really." He sounds more than a little desperate, but I let it go for now. It's the best I'm going to get, I think. And honestly? For right now, it's good enough.

"Good. That's what I was hoping. So now can we talk like regular people? I don't know a thing about you besides your name."

He's still a little shaky as he starts telling me about himself, but he gets progressively less so as he goes on. Better. Much better. There may be hope after all.

It's almost two in the morning and we're still talking. I was right; he does live in Allen House–if my room were on the other side of the floor, we'd be able to see each other out our windows. He thinks he wants to study mechanical engineering, or at least some kind of engineering. He's also from Pennsylvania, just like me. His house is actually less than an hour away from mine. Go figure. Things are moving along very nicely, even if I never do manage to get him onto the dance floor. Nothing's perfect, I guess.

I just thought of something. Dancing. I wonder...

"Were you at our Halloween party?" I've got a feeling he was. I'll bet he was the tall, cute guy who supposedly kept looking at me the whole time, the one I didn't notice. He nods. "And you wanted to dance with me, or at least talk to me, right?"

"By the time I'd talked myself into going up to you, you were gone," he says with an embarrassed smile.

"If it's any consolation, I wouldn't have been very good company. I was obsessing over a lab report and I snuck back upstairs the minute my roommate took her eye off me." It makes me wonder, though. What could he possibly have seen in me that night that he'd dream about me afterwards?

I realize I may not be the best judge, but I think I was pretty far from the most desirable girl in the room. If I were a guy, I don't think I would've been interested in me based on that night. "I'm curious. Why me? Out of all the girls who were there that night, I mean."

I don't really expect an answer, but he surprises me. "You–well, you didn't have this look like all the other girls did, like you couldn't be bothered to talk to some freshman who didn't even have a decent costume for Halloween, you know?"

I'm disappointed; I'd rather have had nothing than that. "That's not an answer," I say, and then something more comes into my head and straight out through my mouth. "I am not interested in what he will not be. I am interested in what he will be."

"What?"

I don't blame him for being confused; I'm sure he hasn't seen the movie. It's only because my Mom loves it and watches it every time it comes on that I remember it. "'Guys and Dolls.' The movie. Ever seen it?" He shakes he head; I was right. "OK. So Marlon Brando is the lead. He's a gambler, kind of a mafia guy. A big shot, but still basically he's just a crook. And he's trying to romance Jean Simmons, she's a charity worker, she's with the Salvation Army, OK?"

"Gene Simmons? From KISS?" I have to give him credit for feeling relaxed enough to joke. I guess that's something.

"Jean with a J. From the fifties. Stay with me, OK?" He nods. "So Marlon Brando isn't getting anywhere with her, and he asks her, what kind of man would she go for? And she says, right away, 'He will not be a gambler.' But that's not good enough. It's not really an answer at all. You see what I mean?"

He laughs. "So I'm Jean Simmons, whoever she is, and you're Marlon Brando?"

I laugh too, but I'm not letting him off the hook. "You're avoiding the question."

He takes a deep breath, gathers his thoughts. "It's hard to explain."

"Try."

"When I look at you–the Halloween party, or just when you're a couple of tables over at the dining hall, or now. Whenever I've seen you, you have this quality, I guess it is–I'm not sure if this is the right word, but it's all I can think of–you're open. Do you know what I mean?" Actually, I think I do. But I want to hear him say it, so I shake my head.

"You're open to whoever you're talking to, you're not judging, not looking down on anybody. You–when I look at you, I can see, you actually care what I'm–what anybody else is saying, what they're thinking. You're not just sitting there waiting to talk and thinking of something clever to say back. Like–like I'm–like whoever you're talking to is a real person, and not just someone who's only there because you are. Do you–do you have any idea how rare that is?"

I do. And–not to be immodest, but it's one of the things I really like about myself, now I think about it. If that's truly what he thinks, if he's not just making it all up, trying to come up with whatever answer will satisfy me...

He's not finished. "And the way you smile–it's genuine, there's something really there, and most people aren't like that. But you are."

"You keep saying I'm beautiful, but really that's what you mean by it, what you said just now." I feel a tingling down my spine as I say that. I think I'm right. It's not my body, it's not the dress I'm wearing tonight, it goes much deeper than that. I hope. I want more than I think I've ever wanted anything in my life to be right about this.

"Yes," he says. He's staring intently at me now, holding me in place with his eyes. I can't move, and I don't want to. "It's your eyes, too. They're so–so bright." There's something different in his voice now; the words are coming from somewhere deep inside, someplace that's strong and sure and confident. It's a place I think maybe he didn't even know he had inside himself until this moment. "You know that saying, the eyes are the windows of the soul? Looking at you now, I know it's true. And that's why."

"Why mine are so bright?" I can barely get the words out. Nobody's ever looked at me the way he is now. Not in twenty-one years.

"Yes." I don't know how to respond; I suddenly feel warm and a little bit dizzy. I thought that the moment I first saw him was love at first sight, but I was wrong. That was nothing. It's now, this moment. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do...

There's a voice from behind me, and the spell is broken. "Hey!"

It's Beth. I don't know whether to thank her for rescuing me or smack her for breaking up a moment that–I don't even know the words for what it was.

"Hey yourself," I say, recovering my composure a bit. "Beth, this is Brian. Brian, this is my roommate Beth."

"Her very tired roommate."

The practical part of my brain kicks in. It is kind of late, and it's not like I won't be able to see him again. "Very subtle, Beth." I shrug, trying to look apologetic. "I guess that's my cue to leave."

He stands up, reaches over to hold my hand. I feel him shaking, just a little. He's not in that strong, confident place anymore, but if he found it once, I know he'll find it again. I'm the one who brought it out in him, right? Just like he brought–something, I don't know what–out in me.

I hope he will. I hope everything he said is true. I have to take it all at face value and hope he really meant it. If I hope and wish and want hard enough for it to be true, maybe it will be?

"I'll walk you out," he says. Yes, please.

It's still really cold outside but it isn't bothering me a bit. I don't think Brian notices either. "I had a great time tonight. I hope you're around tomorrow, we can go out?"

He likes that idea. "We can meet for lunch."

Nope. "I don't think lunch is going to happen. If I'm up before noon it'll be a surprise. How about I call you when I wake up, OK?"

That's just fine with him. "There's just one other thing," he says, and the look he gives me is basically asking permission. I mouth "yes" and he takes me in his arms. I can see in his eyes–he's found that place again. As he pulls me close I find it, too. He kisses me, and...

We kiss for what seems like a very long time. I don't notice my friends or the cold or the noises all around or anything at all, just him and how he feels, how we feel.

When it's over, he turns away from me; he's heading back into the club to find his friends and his ride home. I whisper after him, "Thank you. Thank you so much," and he gives me a little wave before he disappears inside.

Wow. It's been too long; I'd almost forgotten how good it feels. Just–wow. That's the only word for it. I'm in my own little world, I don't really pay much attention to Beth dragging me back to the car, I just follow along blindly.

I'm back now, the magic has passed. We're in the car.

"Sara Barnes, explain yourself! What the hell was that?"

At least she didn't use my middle name. I don't know if I could handle that. "I was just following your advice. You told me to go out and meet someone."

"Well, fine, but that was not like you. I saw how you stared at him when we got there. What's up with that?"

"It's complicated. I'll explain it later."

"You better," Beth is not with the program on this. She clearly thinks it's just too strange, and I can't really argue that, but at least she lets it go for the moment.

I think she's mainly surprised that I kissed him like that, in public and everything. "You're not the only one who gets to put on a show. The rest of us get to have our moments too."

It's only now I notice that Jackie and Fred are doing exactly that; they're making out right next to me in the back seat. No wonder neither one of them has said anything all during the ride home.

Beth considers my words. "Fair enough. You just had a rough week, that's all. I'm trying to look out for you. That's what best friends are for, right?"

"Right."

We're back in our room and not surprisingly at all, it's three o'clock in the morning again. This is becoming a habit for me.

We've been talking for a while already, and there are moments when I'm back there in the club, with Brian looking at me, into me, and there are moments when that feels like the whole night happened to someone else, some girl I barely even know.

I didn't tell Beth that, and I'm not even sure why–normally I tell her everything. Instead, I told her about that first dream, the one with Brian, where I'm watching him watch me-as-a-cheerleader. "At the time I didn't know what to make of it. I figured it was just a weird dream, a one-time thing, and not worth talking about. And then the nightmares started the next evening." Beth doesn't think that my weird dream is the ideal basis for a relationship. Not to mention, what if he's got something to do with the nightmares?

He doesn't, though. This sounds ridiculous, I know, but I would have known if he did. I realize I sound like someone who should be doing ads for the Psychic Friends Network, but I know what I felt and what I saw. And there's so much more anyway. When I first saw him the connection was so strong, and then later...

"Do you remember–the first week we were here, remember Adam and Marie, how they met?" They're the ones I was thinking of when I thought about love at first sight. I'm trying to get this across to her without saying anything about the way he looked at me, or what I felt when he did.

"That's your ideal couple?" It's not working. Beth is staring hard at me now; I think she's more worried than she was when I woke up screaming from the nightmare. Mentioning Adam and Marie wasn't the right approach, clearly. I probably should have known that–things didn't end well for them. It was pretty ugly, to tell the truth. The details aren't terribly important right now; it's enough to say that the words "train wreck" come to mind.

I try again. "No, no, no. But you remember when they met, right? It was love at first sight, we all knew it. It was like seeing lightning strike. I felt the same thing at the club when I saw Brian. I swear to God, it was exactly the same. Like we were meant to get together. Like we're connected somehow." Wow, I do sound crazy, don't I? And that's without talking about the craziest part of all.

Beth scoffs. "You're a hopeless romantic. Behind that Little Miss Sensible face you put on, that's exactly what you are. I remember Adam and Marie too, and if it was anything at first sight, it was lust. They wanted to screw each other, that's all. Don't get me wrong, I completely respect that. I think that's probably just what you need right now, so go for it. But don't try to convince yourself it's anything more than that."

No. She's wrong. I'm no expert on the subject, but I do know myself pretty well. I'm certainly not above plain old lust, but that's not what this is. I start to say that, when something very depressing occurs to me. I know exactly what Beth thinks about Brian and why he's interested in me. I couldn't understand at first what he saw in me, but Beth–I think–has an idea.

It's not a very nice idea. It's a pretty simple one, though: that night at the Halloween party I looked pathetic and desperate and lonely enough that he thought he had a chance, and at the same time I looked–just barely–pretty enough to be worth the effort.

She would never, ever say that to me, but I know she's thinking it. Why shouldn't she? I thought it too. But Brian had an answer, and it was the right answer. I'm going to believe it because–well, I need to believe it. And also because nobody could look at me the way he did if he thought I was just barely worth the effort.

I try one more time to explain to her how I feel, without really telling her. I want her on board with this. I want her to agree with me.

No such luck. "You're scaring me," she says when I'm done. "I just want you to know that. You wake up screaming and crying because of these nightmares, and now you completely flip for this guy, you think it's one of these soulmate things like you're in a movie or something. And you've never even seen him before, except that you dreamed about him dreaming about you. Did I miss anything?"

No, that's pretty much everything so far. The only thing she missed–the one thing I left out–is those last few minutes inside the club. How he looked at me–and another thing about that occurs to me. I felt it at the time, but I didn't have the words until this moment: He was looking at me like I was the only woman in the world.

No, that's not quite right. He wasn't looking at me like I was the only woman in the world, he was looking at me like I was the only woman in the world worth looking at.

I leave that out, and I leave out what he said about my eyes and my soul and how I felt when he did. I can't bring myself to tell Beth that, even though it explains everything.

She's my best friend, and I've never held back from her before. And it's only at this moment that I understand why. It's not just that I'm afraid of how ridiculous it'll sound if I say it out loud, or at least that's only a tiny little part of the reason. I've been ridiculous in front of Beth before, and I'm sure I will be again; I'm kind of used to it by now. The real reason is because I want to–need to–keep it for myself, at least for a little while. Nobody's ever said something like that to me, and nobody's ever looked at me the way he did when he was saying it. It was just for me to hear, and just for me to remember. I can't share it with anyone yet, not even my best friend.

"I know how this all sounds," is what I say instead of what I'm really thinking. "But it felt right," I tell her. Because I do know her so well, I add, "and it felt so good. I've been going out of my mind, and now this happens and it's exactly what I need, and I have to believe in it. Can you understand that?" That ought to be enough to convince her.

I realize something more: walking him through everything, completely taking the initiative, I needed that too, I think. Maybe I can't control what I see when I go to sleep, but here's something I can control. I tell her that as well, and I look at her hopefully.

"What do you want me to say?" is her response. "You don't need my approval. I'm not your mother or anything. All I'm doing is telling you what I think." She's all serious when she says that, but she brightens momentarily, "Just enlightening you with the wisdom of my experience."

What do I want you to say? That you completely understand what I'm saying, and you don't think I'm crazy. How about that? "I don't know. You've always had good advice about men. You've always been right about the guys I date. I guess I want you to tell me if you think I'm making a mistake, but the truth is I'll feel much better if you tell me you don't think I am."

She's serious again. "I don't know. This is out of my league. I just don't want to see you get hurt. You've been a mess the last week. I don't mind helping you pick up the pieces because God knows you've helped me through enough crap. I'm just worried about you. I don't think you sound like yourself. I don't think you're acting like yourself. I hope this thing works out for you, I hope he's everything you think he is, and you have totally amazing sex and whatever else you're looking for. I really do." Her face tells me she doesn't believe that's going to happen. "If not," she gives me a huge sigh, "I'll be here and you can cry on my shoulder or yell at me or whatever you need to do. How's that?"

She's right, everything she said is right. I haven't been myself the last few days. And tonight was an applied exercise in acting as unlike myself as I possibly could. But it worked. I felt great, I didn't think about the nightmares at all, everything was wonderful. Maybe she's right to be worried; maybe it'll all come crashing down. Probably it will. But I'm going to enjoy it until it does.

"I'll be careful. I promise. Good enough?"

"Good enough," Beth says. "Can we get some sleep now?"

I've got a much better idea than sleep. I give her my biggest smile. "Actually, I feel like dancing some more. You want to go see if any of the fraternity parties are still going on?" I wish I had a camera right now. Her expression is absolutely priceless. I'm just full of surprises today.

Casual Sex?

(December 2-3, 1989)

I wake up and I'm not screaming. There aren't any horrible scenes going through my mind. If I had any dreams, I don't remember them.

So this is how it feels to have a good night's sleep and wake up normally–I'd almost forgotten. It's really nice. It's like they say, whoever "they" are, you should appreciate the small things. Waking up well rested, refreshed and definitely not terrified.

Maybe I did have a dream last night. I was at a club downtown and I met a guy, and we hit it off–no, I don't think it was a dream at all. That's a memory. That's what I did last night. At least I hope it is.

His name's Brian and he lives in the next dorm to mine. We talked and he did something to me–we did something to each other, I think–and then I made out with him in the middle of the street, in front of everyone. I completely fell for him in just a couple of hours. He gave me his phone number and we're going to–I don't know what we're going to do exactly but I have very strong feelings about what I'd like to be doing with him.

I'm fairly certain it really happened, but there's only one way to be sure. I reach over to the desk, grab the phone. I dial the number, 1550, just the four numbers because it's on campus. It rings. Once, twice, three times.

"Hello?" It sounds like his voice.

"Is Brian there?" I hope, I hope, I hope.

"Sara?" Yes! Yes, I'm Sara, and you're Brian, and you're real and everything is right with the world.

"In the flesh. Good morning," I notice the clock and I correct myself, "Oops, I mean afternoon. I hope you had a good time last night."

He hesitates. I know it's not because he didn't have a good time, but because he's trying to think of exactly the right words to say. "Um–it was–you were...yes, I had a good time," is what he settles for. "Did–did you?"

There aren't words. But I do have to say something, don't I? "I absolutely did, and I'd really like to see you today. Please tell me you don't have any plans."

"You want to go out on a date, right? That is what you mean?" He still doesn't believe it. His nerves are back; he's lost his way from that strong, confident place. But that's no problem–he'll find it again. I'll make sure he does.

"Yes, I do. So when are you going to come over here and pick me up?"

Beth walks in from the shower just as I hang up the phone. "So how's your new boyfriend?"

He's not my boyfriend!

Not yet, anyway. But I'd like him to be, if things keep going the way they did last night. I put on my best stuck-up voice: "Brian is fine, thank you very much. He's taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight, if you must know."

"You do realize I'm just teasing. Right?" She looks almost worried, as though maybe I don't realize it. I guess she thinks she was too negative about Brian last night. I don't think she was, really. She was just looking out for me. Besides, I didn't tell her everything–she'd understand if I had. Or maybe she'd be even more worried about me.

"I know you are," I tell her, and just to make it clear that I understand I throw a pillow at her. I hit her right in the face, interrupting her from the long and complicated process of drying her hair.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Nothing," I giggle. It just seemed like the only appropriate response. She throws it back at me, I catch it and lie back down on my bed. She doesn't look 100% convinced that I'm not mad at her, and she's just about to open her mouth and rehash the whole conversation again, but I stop her.

"You don't have to say it. Look, I asked you for your opinion and you told me. End of story. The truth is, if it was anybody else telling me all the stuff I told you I'd think they were a few tacos short of a combination plate too." It looks like she's going to protest that, no, she didn't think that at all, but I wave her off. "Don't. I know that's what you were thinking, and I don't blame you a bit."

I sit up, stand up, walk over to her, hug her. "Thanks," I say.

"For what?"

"For being a good friend. I'm lucky to have you worrying about me."

There, everything's all better now. I go back to lying on the bed, and she goes back to drying her hair. We're both quiet for a while. Finally, she says: "I'm thinking I should see if Ron," her boyfriend, "wants me to spend the night over at his place. I'm just thinking, since I haven't seen him all week. And you'd have the room to yourself, in case, you know, there's anything that you wanted to do where you'd need the room to yourself."

She's smiling as she says it, and I don't think she expects my answer. Neither do I. "I think that's a great idea."

"Seriously?"

Yes! "I think so, yeah."

"Sara, you've known this guy for what, twelve hours?"

Not counting last night, when it comes to my love life I have no secrets from Beth. She knows that I'm no prude or anything, but I do take things pretty slow. I've never gone to bed with someone I just met, never had a one-night stand. My last boyfriend, Thomas, we'd been dating for a month before we slept together. Before him, back in high school, it was a year and a half of dating Richard before–well, before I gave in, and I'm not going to think about that now. I put it right out of my mind. "I know. It feels weird to me, too. But–it's like you said last night, it would probably do me good."

"Wow, you are serious." She's staring at me, maybe looking for some tipoff that I'm a pod person who's taken over the real Sara. "Promise me you'll be careful."

She has to ask? I can't believe she thinks I'd be irresponsible enough to–no, that's not it at all. She shakes her head when she sees the face I make at her. "That's not what I meant! Just really be careful with him. I don't want to see you get hurt. I mean, you don't know much about him, and I know he seems harmless and all, but still–just promise me, OK?"

If it'll make her feel better, fine. "I do. I promise I'll be extra careful, and I won't let anything bad happen." There, that should convince her that I'll be fine, except it won't. But that's OK. If she wants to be concerned and nervous and everything about me, well, good. It's nice to have someone worrying about me instead of the other way around for once. Why not?

Exactly.

Here we are back at the dorm. Brian and I are standing right outside the front door. It's freezing cold, and it just a minute ago started to snow.

I've had a great time. We went to Brandywine's, one of the two pretty nice restaurants that are right near the campus. I didn't suggest the really expensive French place; that probably would have been overdoing it. Besides, I couldn't afford it without breaking out the emergency credit card, and I very much doubt he could have, either.

Dinner went very well. We talked, we ate, we had wine–well, I had a glass of wine, he had soda. I doubt they'd have carded him, they usually don't there if you're ordering a full meal, but I guess he didn't want to risk the embarrassment. Besides that, I hardly saw any nerves from him at all, and a couple of times when he looked at me–I felt it. When dessert came–we had an ice cream brownie–he moved his chair over to sit next to me and we shared it. I'm pretty sure we annoyed everyone else around us by being so cutesy about it. Not that either of us noticed at the time, and not that we would have cared if we had.

The movie was great, too. They sometimes play old movies at the campus theater on Saturdays, and tonight was "The Thin Man." It's the one from the thirties with the husband and wife detectives. To tell the truth though, I liked the dog best.

Actually, that's not even the truth. What I liked best was having his arm around me, and mine around him, up in the very back of the balcony of Strack auditorium. You don't get the best view of the screen from way back there, but there are other benefits to compensate.

Afterwards, we made our way back to my dorm, snuggling close the whole way and not really noticing the cold at all.

And now here we are, outside the front door. What to do?

Kiss him goodnight and go our separate ways for the evening? Or does he come upstairs with me? I'm calling the shots right now, that's clear. As confident as he's been tonight, it only goes so far. I know he wants to come upstairs, but I'm going to have to ask him. There's a part of him that's still trying to grasp the fact that I obviously like him as much as he does me. He's not going to push his luck. Unless I push first.

Well, what do I want to do? It's easy, it's obvious, there's no question what I want to do.

Except, if I'm being completely honest, I have to admit I am just a little bit nervous myself. If you told me last night that in less than twenty-four hours I'd be ready to go to bed with a guy I hadn't even met yet, I'd have said you were crazy. But here we are and this is so completely not me, but at the same time it feels completely right.

Besides, the truth is, unless I'm completely wrong about him we're going to go upstairs sooner or later anyway. It's just a question of when if it doesn't happen tonight.

But right at this moment, what I decide feels so important. This is going to sound totally ridiculous, but it feels like something out of a movie. You know what I mean, that moment when the music softens and the romantic leads are in the spotlight and everything else is forgotten; the whole world stops except for them.

Maybe it's only my imagination or maybe I've got an overly developed sense of the dramatic–a few days ago I would have said it's definitely that. But it isn't. It's not just my imagination. It's real. It's exactly what's happening right now.

I don't know why it's so important–no, that's not true. I do know. It's important because it's exactly what I want and need right now, and maybe I'm lying to myself about love at first sight and everything else. Maybe I'm just using him to distract myself from the nightmares and not sleeping right, maybe–well, maybe a lot of things.

You know what? I don't care about maybes, and I don't care about motives and I don't care about anything else except that he's here right now. He's looking at me, waiting for me to decide. Everything else is silent, frozen. The snowflakes are hanging in midair; the whole world is waiting for my answer.

No pressure, though. No pressure at all. Yes or no? Nothing else matters except what I decide.

Yes.

Brian's asleep, and I'm drifting in and out myself. This is so right, this is exactly how it was supposed to be, me and him here under the blankets, and I'm warm and safe and...

Sara's holding Brian's hand, they're right outside her room. Sara's just aware enough to realize this is as much a memory as it is a dream. The night is replaying itself for her, and it's better than any plain old dream could ever be.

She's holding his hand and turning the doorknob. She hears his voice, asking hesitantly, "Are you sure?" She doesn't answer with words; she simply opens the door, leads him inside, and locks it behind them.

Fast forward: she's on the bed, arms wrapped around him, kissing him and then breaking into giggles because she can still taste the chocolate from their dessert. She can feel herself melting into his arms when he caresses just the right spot on the back of her neck.

Skip ahead again: she's leading him along, encouraging him every step of the way. Unbuttoning her sweater, pulling off her top, and watching his eyes go wide when she asks him to take off her bra.

And then a little later, there's her voice, tinged with surprise: "Wow. I've never been anybody's first time before." She remembers thinking: This is how I wanted my first time to be, slow and romantic and exploring each other, really and truly making love.

The moment of truth: she lies back, feels his weight on top of her. Where he's been tentative and careful and happy to let her take the lead so far, she feels the exact instant that he stops thinking and worrying, the precise moment that he finds that strong, confident place inside himself and just loses himself in the moment.

And at the end, the feelings are all she has: his body and hers, and the sounds she makes: first gasps and then low moans, and finally a shout of pleasure.

Afterwards, quiet time, Sara drifts off to sleep, holding Brian close and feeling his heart beating, feeling it come into rhythm with hers.

She takes the pieces of memory and plays them over and over again; no room for any other dreams–or nightmares. For one night, at least, everything's right with the world.

There's someone in bed with me. Someone's holding me, someone warm and strong and I'm running my hand up and down his back and his eyes flutter open. "Hi."

"Sara?"

In the flesh, literally and figuratively. "You were expecting someone else?"

He gives me a hesitant little smile. "This is going to sound really dumb, but for a second there I wasn't sure if last night really happened or if it was just a dream."

Any other time I would be very annoyed at that, but considering how we met it's a fair thing to wonder about. "It was definitely real, but if you want more proof you can go next door and ask Kelly and Amanda what they heard. We were pretty enthusiastic, I guess you could say." If Beth heard those words come out of my mouth, she'd have a heart attack. It might even be worth it, just to see her expression before she keeled over. Honestly, I'm kind of shocked myself.

But it is true–I'll bet they heard everything. The walls are pretty thin, after all. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time someone in room 208 kept the neighbors up. From what I've heard, Beth isn't exactly shy about expressing herself when she's, let's just say, entertaining a guest in the room. Why can't I have some fun once in a while too?

He's quiet for a bit. He seems very contemplative. I ask him, "Hey, what are you thinking about?"

He looks embarrassed. I have a feeling I know what he's going to say. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Well, I know this is probably a stupid question, but–is it always like that?"

I knew it. They always ask, don't they? The phrasing varies, but the question's the same. Except I don't think it is right now. That was his first time, after all, so he's got no basis for comparison. It could be an honest question. I'm definitely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I tell him the truth: "I'm not saying this for your ego, I really mean it–it's never been like that before for me." But then again, I've never felt this way about anyone before. I've never needed someone the way I do now. And I've definitely never lost myself in it the way I did–we did–last night. I'm sure that's got a lot to do with it.

I'm glad it was like that for him. They say you always remember your first time, and–this is exactly the kind of thing Beth meant when she said I'm a hopeless romantic–it's supposed to be special and wonderful and perfect and all of that. I'd say that last night qualified on that count.

I wish my first time had been like that, instead of what it was, with Richard, the time I didn't want to think about this morning. Rotten, awful, terrible, pick your adjective. And I can't think of another time that I've ever felt worse about myself.

We lie in bed a little longer and he asks me something else. "What happened to you?" and as he asks he's got his hand on my belly. Right over my scar.

"Oh, that? You noticed it?" It's funny. The two boyfriends I've had since it happened never noticed, or if they did they never bothered to ask.

"Well, I saw it last night, and after about two seconds it went right out of my mind," he says, going quite red.

"I should hope so," I laugh. "Anyway, I had my appendix out, senior year of high school."

"Really?"

"The night before the prom."

I see a flash of pain in his eyes. I know exactly what just went through his mind–for a moment there, he experienced what he imagines I must have felt. It's extremely touching–none of my previous boyfriends would have reacted that way. "That's–wow, that's horrible," is what he finally says.

"It wasn't any fun, that's for sure." It was incredibly painful, in fact. I remember very clearly that after we got to the emergency room, I cursed at my father for the first and only time in my life. My exact words, lying there in the exam room waiting for the nurse, were: "Dad, it hurts so bad! Make them give me the damn pills! I need them to knock me the hell out!" When he heard that come out of my mouth, he knew for sure I was seriously ill.

I relate that to Brian, and he gets a good chuckle out of it. It is funny now, three years later. "But I didn't even really get my mind around the idea that I missed the prom. I was completely loopy on the pain medication for, I don't know, three or four days. By the time I was thinking straight again, I was all caught up in getting ready for graduation. Besides, it wasn't like I had a hot date that I missed out on."

I'd be happy to just lie here together all morning, but Brian's got to go back to his dorm so he's there for the weekly phone call from his parents. His mother apparently gets all agitated if he's not there and awake at exactly eight AM on Sunday morning. I guess it's a way of making sure he isn't partying too much or something like that. It sounds dumb to me, too, but like Brian said, "They're paying the bills, so I guess I have to keep them happy."

So he gets dressed and I throw on my bathrobe and walk him downstairs. The lounge is empty–it is way too early on a Sunday morning, after all–so we take the opportunity for one more kiss before he heads out the door.

I'm just standing there watching him go, and there's a voice behind me: "I didn't think you went in for public displays like that." I turn around and I see Mona Charleston, a second-year medical student and our Resident Director. She's standing in front of the door of her little apartment. She must have just come out; she looks like she's getting ready for her morning run.

I've known Mona since she was a teaching assistant in my freshman chemistry lab. I wouldn't say we're best friends or anything, but we got along well enough then and she's been a pretty good RD. And, she's been giving me and Janet and Melanie–the other two junior girls in the dorm who are pre-med like I am–all kinds of advice. How to get ready for the MCAT's, what to think about as we prepare for the application process, course schedules, stuff like that. So Mona's OK in my book.

"I didn't think it was public. It's not my fault you want to go running at this hour."

"Force of habit," she says, looking me up and down. "It sure looks like you had a good time last night. You're glowing. You do realize that people are going to talk."

I blush, even though I know she's teasing–mostly teasing, anyway. And so what if she's not? People talk all the time, who cares if anybody wants to joke about how I "got lucky." They can go right ahead. "Well, I can't complain about it, that's all I'll say."

Mona laughs. "No, from the way you look, I wouldn't think you can. Tell you the truth, I'm glad to hear it. You've been looking awfully stressed lately, I was starting to worry about you. But I suppose your new friend will help with the stress relief, so I won't worry anymore."

"That's good." I think.

"Besides, it's nice to know that someone had a good night. It sort of reaffirms my faith in humanity."

"Why? What happened to you last night?"

She shrugs. "It wasn't any one thing. I was on call, and every five minutes it was some stupid little problem. There's a car alarm going off in the Brinkley House parking lot and it won't stop, somebody's passed out drunk on the fourth floor here and he doesn't look like he's breathing right, someone's throwing stuff off the fourth floor balcony in Morgan House. All night long, nonsense like that."

Last year I thought, briefly, about applying to be an RA. It's conversations like this that make me glad I came to my senses. "So nothing really serious?"

"No. No property damage, no injuries, except to my nerves and my patience," she says, heading for the door. "Maybe a good long run will clear my head. I'd ask if you wanted to join me, but I think you got all the exercise you need already." I blush again.

"Thanks, I guess." She's off on her jog, and it's back to bed for me. Another couple of hours in my nice comfy bed sounds like a great idea. Before I crawl back under the covers, I take a good long look at myself in the mirror. Mona's right. I am glowing. And why not? Good for me.

Running Scared

(December 3-4, 1989)

The day flies by. I lie in bed until ten o'clock or so and then it's time for some work. I want to get my final paper for Science in Western Thought finished and out of the way. It's not actually due for another week, but Beth very kindly agreed to read it over for me tonight or tomorrow. She's a much better writer than I am, besides which she had the class last year so she knows exactly what Dr. Sorenson is looking for in a final paper.

It takes me a good three hours, but finally it's done, formatted, saved on disk and ready for Beth to go over it. By then I've missed lunch at Lardner Commons, and Beth walks into our room just as my stomach lets out a particularly loud growl. I talk her into taking a walk with me off campus, up Mayfield Road to Coventry for a meal and a milkshake at Tommy's, which is absolutely the best place in the whole city to go for a milkshake.

Of course, I know it's not the milkshake that convinces Beth. It also certainly isn't the half-hour walk in the cold on a day when the icy wind and solid gray sky make it feel like we're living on Ice Planet Hoth. It's only the prospect of getting a full report about Brian that makes her agree. I must still be glowing; she takes one look at me and she knows exactly what happened last night. But I know her; she wants to hear about it from my lips.

By the time we finally get there, red-cheeked and shivering, she's got her full report. She presses for every little detail as we enjoy our strawberry and vanilla (her) and chocolate and peanut butter (me) milkshakes. I finally tell her what I didn't tell her Friday night, too. I tell her everything he said, and what it did to me. "Nobody ever looked at me like that. I felt it all the way down to my toes. It–I don't even know how to describe it." As I say the words, I feel dizzy and warm all over again, and my face is flushed. Beth is looking at me like she's never seen me before.

In a way, maybe she hasn't; I don't feel like myself, and I haven't since Friday night. After a moment, Beth closes her eyes; I know what she's doing. She's calling up a mental image of Brian, and trying to square that with what I've just said and what she saw. She isn't quite managing it. "If it was anybody else saying that..."

"I wouldn't believe it either," I finish her thought. "But he–oh, my God. Maybe I am crazy, but I've never felt that before. And–I couldn't tell you the other night. I–I needed to keep it for myself. You understand?"

She reaches over, squeezes my hand. "Completely." She sighs. "And let me tell you–you deserve to feel that way. If he..." she still can't quite believe it, even though the evidence is sitting right across from her. She finally shrugs. "Well, I'm happy for you. And," she pauses, shakes her head ever-so-slightly, "maybe a little bit jealous, too, if you want to know the truth."

She says it with a smile and a laugh, but I've known her long enough to tell that crack about being jealous isn't just a crack. There's some truth there. She's never been jealous of me before–she's never had any reason to be. And I have to admit, as much as I'm not proud of saying this, I kind of like it.

I'm rescued from having to respond to her by the arrival at our table of Jane and Jessica, who live on the other side of the floor from us. They can see Brian out their window. I'm grateful for the interruption and even more grateful that they drove here rather than walked, because they very kindly offer to give us a ride home.

Once we get back, it's time to concentrate on physics. I spend the rest of the afternoon straight through dinner and until nearly midnight going over some of the (many) things I don't understand. At around nine o'clock in the evening, just after I take a quick break to call Brian, I'm reduced to going down to the lobby and pleading for someone to help me make sense of torque and all the mystifying equations that go with it. A dozen of my so-called friends let me embarrass myself for a full five minutes before Julie Paschal from the fourth floor finally takes pity on me.

We go upstairs to her room, which she shares with her boyfriend Glenn. I don't know where Julie is supposed to live, but as a practical matter she lives here, the only girl on the whole floor (Carson House is co-ed by floor–it's girls on the second, and guys on the third and fourth; obviously, Julie uses our bathroom and our showers). As far as I can tell, they might as well be married already.

Anyway, she–and Glenn, before we're finished–very kindly spends almost an hour trying to explain torque to me, with some success, although not nearly as much as I'd like.

Finally, it's time for bed, and as I get under the covers it hits me that it's now been two nights in a row without the nightmare. It's almost starting to fade out of my memory. The details aren't as distinct, and the whole experience just isn't as frightening as it was. I'm not worried about falling asleep. Not at all. Not even a little bit...

...Sara's sitting on her bed, listening to the radio. It's a pleasant, restful Sunday afternoon. The door opens, and in walks her roommate.

"So?" Beth says by way of greeting.

"So what?" Sara answers back, even though she knows exactly what Beth is asking.

"So what happened last night?"

"We had a very nice time at dinner, and we both liked the movie."

"And?"

"And we came back here, and we–well, we kept on having a very nice time." Sara's laughing, enjoying the attention.

"Details! You owe me details, girl."

"Let me put it this way. If we were talking about sports, I'd call him rookie of the year. Is that good enough for you?"

Beth considers that. "Rookie? You mean...?" Sara nods. "Wow. I hope you gave him a good introduction to the major leagues."

Sara goes serious just for a moment. "You know I'm not one to brag, but you're damn right I did. And it was exactly what I needed, you were right about that too."

They both laugh at that, and they sit there and talk. Beth manages to finally draw some of the juicy details out of Sara...

...Sara's not talking anymore. She's in a bedroom. The bedroom. The man and the teenage girl are there too; the man's carrying her limp and lifeless body out of the room. Sara is carried along; she's not walking, but she's somehow moving just the same. Following the guy and the girl–no, not a girl anymore, a corpse.

And then without transition she's in the back seat of a big tan car–a Cadillac, Sara notices. Sara knows without knowing how that the girl's body is in the trunk, and she can do nothing but sit and watch as the man–the killer–drives out of the garage, down the driveway, and onto a tree-lined street. She doesn't bother shouting or trying to get out of the car or anything else; she knows it would be pointless. She's just here to watch what happens. What finally does happen is that the car comes to a stop on Old Tree Road, and the man gets out, takes the body from the trunk. He dumps it on the side of the road and calmly drives off, as though he's done nothing out of the ordinary, as though people left corpses by the side of the road every day.

His nonchalance is what pushes Sara over the edge, and now she does begin to scream...

...I wake up to the sound of my own screaming. Again.

Goddammit!

I thought it was over with. I thought there wouldn't be any more nightmares. Obviously I was wrong. What the hell do I do now?

So here I am lying in bed but not asleep, again. I wish Brian was here, I wish he was holding me, telling me everything's OK. I'd believe it if he did. But he's not here so I guess I'll talk to Beth about it instead. She didn't wake up right away from all the noise I made, but she's stirring now.

It takes a couple of minutes for her eyes to open, and then she sits up on her bed, takes one look at me and frowns. "Don't tell me."

"I don't want to, believe me. But I had the nightmare again last night. God, I'm so sick of this!" I tell her about it, how it felt different than the previous nightmares. Neither of us has any idea what it means or what the hell I'm supposed to do about it. We stare at each other racking our brains, until Beth comes up with something. She's got an "a-ha!" smile on her face.

"Dr. Ritter! I don't know why I didn't think of him sooner!"

"Who's Dr. Ritter?" I can't place the name.

"He's the professor in my Psychology of Personality class." Right. Now I remember. "Last month he talked about his research. He studies dreaming and sleep patterns. You should go talk to him."

This idea doesn't fill me with confidence. "What's he going to do?"

Beth throws up her hands. "How should I know? If he studies how people dream, maybe he'll have some idea what's happening with you. Look, it's worth a shot, isn't it?"

She's right, I suppose. What harm can it do?

Here I am at the psych department office. Unsurprisingly, I'm very preoccupied and I almost walk right into someone. A man in a suit, very big, very tall, with a faint scar down his left cheek. It's impossible not to notice it. He's vaguely familiar, but I can't immediately place him. Did I ever have a professor who had a scar like that?

Out of nowhere, a name jumps into my head: Dr. Walters. Beth's academic advisor until he left this year on sabbatical to write a book, if I remember right. He gave a guest lecture one class when I was taking Intro to Psychology freshman year; he's looking at me very curiously right now. He can't possibly remember me out of a roomful of people from one class session two years ago, can he?

Apparently not; he mumbles an apology and continues on his way. Now that I'm thinking about it, I do remember that he had a scar. I think that at the time I thought it looked dashing, or something ridiculous like that.

Anyway, I go into the office. It's familiar territory; my work-study job freshman year was here. I recognize Ray the graduate student, buried in the Xerox machine. It seemed like that's all he did two years ago and I see that nothing's changed since then.

Dr. Ritter isn't in his office, so Ray and I chitchat for a couple of minutes and I ask him to look up his office hours. While I'm waiting I see there's someone else in the office, another student. He's obviously waiting for something or someone and reading the newspaper. I glance at the front page, and then I look again. There's a photo there. I grab the paper out of his hands, completely ignoring his protest, and I look closely at it.

I've seen her before.

No.

No. It can't be. It's not possible. The girl in the picture looks exactly like the girl in my dreams. It's not possible, except that I'm seeing it with my own eyes. I start reading the story. "Seventeen-year-old Amelia Morgan–high school senior–found murdered–body discovered on Old Tree Road..." No, no, no.

I read it again, and the words don't change. Of course they don't.

No.

Yes.

I just start wailing, shouting nonsense. I'm standing in the middle of the room screaming my head off. Ray comes out to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, starts to tell me to calm down and I push him away, shove the newspaper in his face. "It's her! It's her! It's her, and she's dead!"

She's dead, she's dead. She's dead and I saw it and she's dead and–and–that's all I know. She's dead and I saw it and it's all real and–and what?

I don't know, so I keep on screaming.

I'm sitting in a chair. I don't remember sitting down. I don't remember coming here–and I don't even know where here is. Lots of books, a desk, a computer. An office? A doctor's office? A professor's office?

Someone's office, anyway. Someone who's here. He's sitting across the cluttered desk from me, he's speaking to me. "Miss Barnes? Sara?"

Who? Who's Sara? Me, right? I think so. "Yes? I'm Sara. That's right, isn't it?" It sounds right–it feels right.

"Sara Barnes. That's what I was told, at any rate. I was also told you were here to see me."

Sara Barnes. Yes, that's me. I'm Sara Barnes, and I'm sitting in someone's office, someone I was here to see. Someone who was going to help me? "Um–I don't know. Who are you?" There's a glass of water in front of me on the desk. It's only half full. I don't remember drinking out of it, but I must have. I take another sip as he talks.

"Michael Ritter. This is my office."

Ritter. Someone told me that name. Someone–Beth! Beth, Beth is my roommate. She's taking a class, she told me about her professor. Her psychology professor. Everything comes back into focus.

"That's right. I was looking for you."

He doesn't smile. "Good, we agree on something. Can you tell me what you wanted to speak to me about?"

He's holding a newspaper–today's newspaper, with the picture, with the article that set me off. The girl, the dead girl. "Her!" I point to the picture in the paper. "I saw it! It was a nightmare, every night I've seen it. I saw her, I saw him kill her, and I saw him dump the body!"

"Calmly, please."

I take a deep breath, try to find some composure. I don't really succeed. "The girl in the article, that picture there. I've been having the same nightmare, over and over, every night. I see that girl, and this guy–he–he–he kills her, and last night when I had the nightmare it kept going and I saw him dump the body. I saw him, it was exactly where they said in the paper."

He gives me a nasty look, as though I just insulted him or something. "This isn't something to joke about, or pull some stupid undergraduate prank, Miss Barnes. Someone was killed."

You asshole! "I know that! I know it better than anyone! Do I look like I'm joking? You think I freak out and start yelling and crying just for fun? You think I'm getting a laugh out of this, you creep? Well, screw you, then!" I get up and head for the door.

God, where did that come from? That isn't like me. I never talk like that, not to anyone, certainly not to a professor! I hope I don't, anyway. That doesn't seem like something I'd want to do.

"Miss Barnes–Sara–please." He's almost pleading all of a sudden. I guess he can hear in my voice that I'm serious, that it's not some stupid horrible joke or something. I stop two steps from the door. "I'm sorry. Please sit down. You're very upset and I shouldn't have accused you like that." Well, that's something. I walk back to his desk, sit down again.

"Thank you. And I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have said–I never–this has been so stressful." He looks at me a little more seriously now. Maybe he's actually considering what I said.

I take a deep breath, and I go on. "I only came here because Beth–my roommate–said maybe you could help me with this nightmare. I didn't know it was real until just now, when I saw the newspaper. But it is, it's all really happening."

He asks me to describe the nightmares in more detail, and of course it's awful but I do. Finally: "You're sure the girl in the article is the one you saw in the nightmares? Really sure?"

I'd bet my life on it. "I know that two plus two equals four. I know the sky is blue. I know my little brother is a pain in the neck. And I know the girl I saw is the same girl in the picture! OK?"

It's OK with him; at least he says it is. From his expression, I think he at least believes that I believe what I'm saying. There's nothing else I can say anyway if he doesn't. I have no way to prove what I saw.

He is still listening. I guess that's worth something. He asks about specific details of the nightmares and I tell him everything I remember. Then he asks if I've had any other unusual experiences recently and I tell him about that first dream with Brian and then meeting him at the club a few nights later. He asks for more details, and I tell him those too, leaving out Saturday night of course.

When he's satisfied, he ticks off what he sees as the possible explanations on his fingers:

"One, nothing at all is happening. You're consciously making everything up," I start to protest, but he sighs and holds up his hand. "I don't think that's it. I'm just laying out all the possibilities." I nod my head, and he goes on. "Two, you're unconsciously convincing yourself that your nightmares have some connection to this story in the newspaper. Perhaps you read an article about the girl's disappearance, or you saw a flyer her family put up in the neighborhood and it upset you so much that it worked its way into your dreams." If it was anybody else telling all this to me, that explanation would make sense. But I know that's not it. The dreams are so real. It's not just my subconscious making stuff up!

"Three," he continues. "You saw something you don't even realize you saw. It's possible you actually saw the girl herself, perhaps you saw her getting into a car with an older man. Your conscious mind may not have registered anything odd about it, but you subconsciously knew you'd seen something wrong, something criminal. And now your subconscious is trying to get through to your conscious mind in your dreams." I could almost accept that. Almost. Except...

"But last night, I dreamed–I saw where he left the girl, and it was Old Tree Road, just like in the paper! How could I come up with that on my own?"

"Are you sure you're remembering the dreams accurately? Most people have great difficulty remembering dreams even five or ten minutes after they wake up."

I wish! "I told my roommate about it. I woke her up at four o'clock in the morning. You can ask her. And we didn't see any newspaper or TV or anything, so I don't think it's any of those explanations you said."

He shakes his head, sighs again. "Well, your roommate is correct that I do research with dreams and sleep patterns. Actually, I run the Sleep Lab at University Hospital. I can bring you in for a night, monitor you while you sleep, and we'll see what the data shows. Would you be willing to do that?"

I want these nightmares to go away. I'm willing to do whatever will accomplish that. A night at the hospital probably won't be too unpleasant. I do ask if it can be tomorrow night instead of tonight. "I'd like to spend some time with my boyfriend." Well, there, I finally said it out loud.

"I'd prefer to get you in as soon as possible, but it's obvious you're very shaken up by this experience. I can understand that you'd want to be with someone who cares for you." He finally smiles. It's not much of a smile, but it is there. "It seems there are quite a few people in this department who care for you as well, by the way. Do you remember Ray bringing you into Dr. Korben's office and sitting with you?"

No, I don't. I blush at that and look away from him. I don't want to think about Dr. Korben seeing me–well, how I must have looked. She's the department chair, I reported to her when I worked in the office two years ago. I liked her a lot. I hate the idea that she saw me in that state.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Sara." Not "Miss Barnes" anymore. I guess I made a good impression on him after all. "You had a traumatic experience, and you had a very natural reaction to it," he smiles again, and there's a little actual humor there this time. "Who would understand that better than a couple of psychology professors?"

I manage a very weak grin.

"Go home, see your boyfriend, try to get some rest and we'll plan for you to come in tomorrow night. I'll make the arrangements and I'll call you with the details." He hands me a slip of paper and I write down my phone number for him.

"Thank you." We shake hands and he shows me out. I guess it could have gone worse. I'm not really sure how, but there's probably some way it could have.

I don't remember walking home from the Psychology department, but obviously I did. I don't remember throwing my coat and scarf and everything in a pile on the floor but there it is. All I remember is getting into the bed, under my blankets, reaching up to grab the phone, and dialing 1550.

The phone rings five times before Brian answers it. "Hello?" He sounds out of breath.

"It's me."

"Sara! I'm glad I ran back to get the phone, I was just heading over to the library."

No! "Can you not go over there?"

He sounds confused. "Why?"

"Can you come over here instead? I need you to come over here, OK? Please?"

"Is something wrong?" I wonder what gave it away?

"I'll tell you all about it, just please come right over." Please? Now?

"Sure. Give me two minutes."

It feels like the longest two minutes of my life, but Brian is true to his word. "Come in, and lock the door behind you," I tell him when he arrives. I'm under the covers, peeking out at him. He looks all concerned and worried, which is entirely appropriate.

"Sara, what's wrong?"

Everything. Simple, isn't it? "I need you to hold me. Come over here, get under the blankets and hold me. Make me feel safe. Tell me everything's going to be OK."

That's exactly what he does. I only wish I could believe him when he says I'm perfectly safe and that everything will be OK, but I know he's just lying to make me feel better.

I haven't told him about the nightmares yet. He has no idea what I've been going through. I tell him now. I tell him everything, right up to my little breakdown in the Psychology department office. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry," is the first thing he says when I'm done. "What can I do?" is the second thing. It's so sweet of him. Not to mention being exactly what I need to hear.

"You're already doing it. Just you being here makes me feel better." It's true. I do feel ever so slightly better right this second. As long as I'm in his arms, things can't be that bad. What's really amazing is that he's not trying to make a move on me right now; I think most of my past boyfriends would have. I know that's not what I need at the moment, not when I'm in this frame of mind. Later, maybe. Definitely.

The words spill out from me: "You know I want to make love to you–just not right now. Not when I'm still scared and everything, this isn't the right time. But we will, you know that, don't you? It wasn't a one-time thing, we have something real, don't we?" His face lights up when I say it. He needs to hear it as much as I need to say it, I think.

He holds me even closer. "We do, definitely." The strength, the look in his eyes that I can't even describe, is there. Then, he starts to say something more and then catches himself, and it's gone again. He's afraid to say it, but I know what it was going to be. I want to hear it. I need to hear it.

"What were you going to say?"

"You'll think I'm crazy," I shake my head no, "I–I think–no, I know, it's so fast, I don't want to mess this up, but–I–I love you." I haven't known him for even 72 hours. Can he possibly mean it?

"Say it again," I whisper.

And now the fear in his voice is gone; he's back in that place–our place–again, and so am I. "I love you, Sara." Yes, he can. Yes, he does.

I kiss him, and then I'm still whispering when I tell him, "I love you too," and that's the last thing I remember before I fall asleep.

Scanners

(December 4-5, 1989)

I hear voices. Brian's, and–Beth's? Can that be right? I must have fallen asleep. Beth must have come back, they must think I'm still asleep. That's fine. I keep my eyes closed and I listen. Brian's still holding me, keeping his voice down so he won't wake me. That's very thoughtful of him.

"Don't worry about it, she sleeps like a log," Beth says, not keeping her voice down at all. "Until the last week, anyway."

"The nightmares."

"The nightmares. She wakes up screaming," Beth says in a resigned voice. "I hate to see it. I mean, obviously I don't like being woken up like that, but that's not really the problem. She's helped me out enough times, I figure I owe her, and I'm a big girl, you know? I can deal with a few bad nights. It's just–seeing her like that, it's–really horrible. It shouldn't happen to anybody. Definitely not to my best friend."

"You're very close to her," Brian whispers back.

"Let me put it this way. I've got five sisters. Four by blood and then Sara." Wow. She's never said that to my face. How do you respond to something like that?

"I think she feels the same about you." We talked a little about it on our date. I told him how close Beth and I are, how she spent a week at my house last summer, how I went on a cruise with her and her family the summer before that.

"I know she does," Beth tells him, "so you better keep making her happy, you understand me?" She doesn't need to say that, but I love her for saying it all the same. For all the crap I've been going through, I'm so lucky to have her in my life. And Brian, too, now.

This seems like as good a time as any to "wake up" and join the conversation. I let out a big yawn and Brian jumps a little. "Hi. How long was I asleep?" I ask, giving him a good squeeze. We're still wrapped up in each other's arms under the covers. Fully clothed, if you must know.

"A couple of hours," Brian tells me. "Your roommate–Beth just came in five minutes ago."

"Brian here was just telling me what happened when you went to see Dr. Ritter."

Yes, and a happy topic of conversation I'm sure it was. Also a conversation I don't want to have right now. I feel much better, at least for the moment. I don't want to go into the nightmares and what they mean and ruin my better mood. I know I have to talk about it, and Brian and Beth are going to be the two people I know I'll be able to talk about it with, but not now.

I should be studying, or doing something more productive than lying in bed, anyway, but I'm not going to. Instead, what I think I'm going to do–well, it does involve getting out of bed briefly. Just long enough to go from here over to Brian's room, and then it's right back into bed again.

I tell Brian about my plan for the rest of the afternoon, and he's fine with it–heck, why shouldn't he be? Beth, however, looks surprised. "Sara, what Brian told me, we have to talk about that, don't we?"

"Yes. We do. I need to talk to you about it, and I need to talk to Brian about it. Not now, though. I'm not scared, I'm not shaking, and I want to go and do something happy and life-affirming, and we can talk about unpleasant things later. OK?"

When I put it that way Beth–surprised as she is to hear something like that coming from me–understands completely, and off we go.

It's later, and we did something happy and life affirming. We did something happy and life-affirming twice, in fact. And then for a while we didn't do anything except lie there next to each other, and that wasn't bad either.

But I can't put off the unpleasant business forever. I call back to my room to check on Beth. I really don't want to have this conversation twice, and I definitely want to hear from her and Brian both, so we'll all get together and analyze my nightmares. She's there, so we go back to meet her.

"Sara, honey, you're not supposed to be the one making me jealous. It's supposed to work the other way," is how Beth greets me when we walk into the room. Brian goes beet red, but–from Beth at least–I'm used to those little jokes and it doesn't bother me at all.

"I told you it was love at first sight, and you didn't believe me. Maybe now you'll give me a little credit." I sit down on my bed, with Brian right next to me.

"You better watch yourself with her," she says to him. "She's dangerous when she gets this way. Trust me."

He almost laughs. Almost. "But she told me she was harmless. She wouldn't lie about something like that," he says. Ha! It's a very good sign that he feels confident enough to tease me like that–and also that he thinks I'm doing well enough that I can take it.

"She would say that," Beth laughs. "Don't worry, I'll tell you everything you need to know about her. She's got lots of secrets. Has she done her chipmunk thing? When she gets really excited, she makes these weird little chipmunk noises. I can tell you all kinds of things like that."

Brian stares at her; he's not sure if she's completely joking, or if there's a tiny little bit of truth there. Just for the record, I don't now nor have I ever made chipmunk noises. I hope Brian realizes that if I were prone to such a thing, he'd have heard it by now.

I honestly don't mind that it's two against one and they're both picking on me; I'm just glad that both of them feel comfortable enough with each other to joke around like that. That absolutely has to be a good thing.

Unfortunately, we can't just keep joking around. I have to talk about the nightmares, as much as I really don't want to. There are two things I need to figure out, as far as I can tell. First, are they "real," and second, if they are, what the hell do I do about them? After my little breakdown reading the newspaper earlier, I have no doubt at all that they're real. Call it psychic, call it supernatural, call it whatever you want, I definitely saw what that man–that murderer–did to the girl.

Brian agrees completely. He should, after I saw into his dream about me. He knows it's not just my imagination. And Beth believes me, because it's me telling her, but I know if it was anybody else at all saying it, she'd laugh in their face. And honestly? So would I.

So we're all agreed that I'm officially psychic, or whatever the right word is, if there even is one for this. I know it doesn't matter right this second, but I would like to know, why is it me who's psychic–or whatever–and not Beth, or Brian, or my brother, or whoever? There's something different about me, something real, something physical, right?

It's not like I just happened to randomly witness a crime. I'm not one of those unlucky people who sees a mafia murder or something and has to go into the Witness Protection Program for the rest of their life. They don't sit around wondering what's wrong with them. Well, OK, maybe in a Book of Job kind of way, but that's not what we're talking about here. They're just in the wrong place at the wrong time; they just have incredibly bad luck. If they lived to be a hundred years old, it might never happen to them again.

But these nightmares aren't just bad luck. I'm having them because my brain can pick them up and nobody else's can. They're going to keep right on happening, and what the hell am I supposed to do about them?

So there's the second question. At least the person who sees the mob hit, they've got pretty clear choices about what they can do. Crappy choices, granted, but even crappy choices are better than none at all. Aren't they?

We can go around and around wondering exactly what the specific physical cause of the nightmares is. I can go to Dr. Ritter and he can tape electrodes to my head and do whatever else he's going to do. He can maybe give me some technobabble explanation, and I guess I'm going to go through with that but I'm honestly not sure what good it will accomplish. Will it make me feel better about the fact that I knew that poor girl was going to get murdered and I couldn't do a damn thing about it? No. Will it help me cope when I start seeing the next girl this guy is going to go after–because there's no question in my mind that he's going to? No.

I hate this. I absolutely, completely, utterly hate this. I hate being scared all the time. I hate waking up screaming in the middle of the night. I hate having to cling to my friends to hang on to tiny little bits of sanity. I hate the things I'm seeing. And I hate the fact that it doesn't make any sense! What purpose does it serve that I can see these things if I can't do anything about them? That's not how human beings work. Everything about us has a purpose, every part of our bodies, every thought process. If I'm psychic–or whatever this is–there's a reason for it. So what's the reason? And then if there is something I can do about what I'm seeing, something I'm supposed to do, why the hell can't I figure out what it is, so I can go and do it already?

We've all just been sitting here quietly for a while now. I don't know for sure what Brian and Beth are thinking about, but I can guess. Probably a lot like what I've been thinking, maybe with a little less of the angry and scared and a little more of the "oh, poor Sara" in its place.

Actually, I can read Beth pretty well and–yeah, right there–I can see it in her eyes. Just a second ago, it went through her mind: "How would I be coping if it was me this was happening to instead of Sara?"

The answer just went right past, too, and I can guess what it was–no better than me, and probably a whole lot worse. Which would be pretty bad because I'm certainly not coping with it very well. I hate myself a little bit for thinking she's right about that, but I know she is.

So what do I do now? Call the police?

"They wouldn't believe you," Beth says. "I only believe you because I know you wouldn't lie about something like this. Besides, you aren't imaginative enough to make it up anyway." Which is maybe not exactly how I'd phrase it, but it is true. So forget about the police.

"How do you know any of the details are right anyway?" Brian asks. "I mean, if you're seeing this guy's dream, how do you know that the way everything looks in his dream is how it really is in real life?"

"But the girl in the newspaper looked exactly like the way I saw her in the dream," goes through my mind, and before I can say it, I can see that Brian's thought of that as well. "Maybe some of the things look the same. But just because he had a Cadillac in the dream doesn't mean he has one in real life. Maybe he has a crummy old car, and maybe he's really ugly and scrawny, but when he's dreaming he's this big, strong man with a really expensive car, because that's how he imagines things should be for him."

He has a point. Dreams are weird; just because part of them is very literal doesn't mean everything is. So even if I did go to the police, and even if they did somehow believe me, the things I told them might be completely wrong anyway. Great. Just great.

So apparently there isn't anything I can do about what's already happened. But what do I do when it happens again? What happens when I start having the next nightmare with this guy and a different girl? "Could you find the next girl and warn her before it happens?" Beth asks. The guy might look different in real life than in the dreams, but poor Amelia looked exactly the same in the dream and in the newspaper, so why shouldn't it be the same if–when–it happens again?

There's just one little problem with that: how do I go about finding her? There are several hundred thousand people in this city. Other than blind luck, how do you find someone with just a mental image of them? I wouldn't have a photo, and I can't draw worth anything. It sounds good in theory, but in practice I don't see any way to do it.

If telling the authorities won't work, and finding the girls won't work, there is a third possibility. Neither Brian nor Beth are willing to suggest it, and I'm not prepared to think about it myself.

Thankfully, something else, totally unrelated, pops into my head, and it's as good an excuse as any to change the subject. "I almost forgot–I bumped into your old advisor today," I tell Beth. "When I was going to see Dr. Ritter? I literally ran into Dr. Walters, he was just leaving the department office."

Beth gives me a puzzled look in return. "I thought he was out of the country. He was supposed to be doing research somewhere in England. He was going to be gone until next summer."

"Yeah. That's right. You told me that," I remember. "Well, maybe he's just back to visit family for the holidays or something," I say.

"He hasn't got any family," Beth says doubtfully. "Not around here, anyway. He lives in that big house all by himself," she goes on. "Remember, he had all of us over, everyone he was advising? He had a cookout for us at his house last spring."

Now she says it, I remember that as well. "Well, whyever he was there, I saw him."

"Too bad I missed him. I'd like to have seen him."

"Maybe you still will. He might be here until after Christmas for all we know," I say, and then, sadly, we drift back onto the topic of my nightmares.

We talk about the whole situation for a while longer, but nothing comes of it. We go around and around with the same questions, and keep coming up with the same lack of good answers. At least I'm pretty calm and rational the whole time. No crying, no screaming, no hysterics. Good for me, right?

So we're all tired of asking the same unanswerable questions over and over, when Beth happens to glance at the clock and see that it's almost six. All three of us realize at the same moment that we're very hungry, so off we run to Lardner to partake of the daily offerings.

When we're finished, Brian has to go study, for real, since finals are now only four days away, and Beth and I have to get back to the dorm because at seven o'clock we do our drawings for Secret Santa. It's a nice little distraction, if nothing else. Something fun and cheerful to think about for a little while. God knows I need all the help I can get on that front.

We do this every year. You pick somebody's name out of a hat, then you buy gifts for them for five days. At our big Christmas party next Wednesday we all find out who was giving what to whom.

So here I am sitting in the lounge waiting to pick my name. Last year I let Beth do it for me. She drew Joe Karver, who wasn't yet an RA then, and with whom I'd just broken up after a few unsuccessful weeks of sort-of dating. I was not thrilled by her pick, which I'm still not convinced was totally random. I thought it over a bit, though, and decided to try and be mature about the whole thing, and also have some fun with it.

The first gift I gave him was a can of tomato soup, which is what I spilled on him on one especially unsuccessful date. The next three gifts were all along the same lines, and the final one was a video of the old movie, "The African Queen." We were going to go see it together at the campus movie theater one Saturday night, until we officially broke up that afternoon. He didn't figure out what the early gifts meant, but he finally realized when he saw the movie. He got all upset. He was ready to make a big scene in front of everyone and I had to yell at him: "Read the card, dummy!"

I had put quite a bit of thought into what to write, which probably you can't tell from the words I ended up putting down: "So what if we're not boyfriend and girlfriend? I hope we can still be good friends! Love, Sara." Okay, it's not exactly poetry, but it did get the point across, and everything was right again with the world.

Even though that ended up turning out fine, I'd rather get someone I don't have quite as much of a history with. It finally gets around to my turn, I go up and pick out of the hat with the men's names–you're supposed to get someone of the opposite sex, at least until we run out of girls and then the remaining men get other men. Written on the little paper is "George." There's only one George in the dorm, and I got my wish–other than a few games of Monopoly, I don't have any history with him at all.

Which, I now realize, maybe isn't so good after all. I don't actually know much about him or what he liked or dislikes, other than that he's from Florida and he enjoys playing Monopoly. At least the first gift isn't until Saturday, so I have some time to try and figure out what he might like, or at least what would embarrass him.

Now that's done, it's back to studying for me. I've spent far too much time dwelling on the stupid nightmares; I've got a lot of catching up to do if I'm going to be ready for my finals.

Tuesday night. The last official day of classes went by, and I couldn't honestly describe anything I did today. I do have a few pages of notes that I took, so I assume that I not only went to my classes but paid at least some attention in them. Things get clearer around dinnertime; I had Captain Crunch instead of the fried-whatever-it-was in brown gravy, I'm sure about that. And then I spent two hours finishing up my last lab report for advanced Organic Chemistry lab, getting it ready to print out so I can hand it in along with the rest of my work and have that class out of the way.

And right now I'm supposed to be on my way to the University Hospital to be monitored. I'm still not completely clear on exactly what that's going to involve. I think it's just a few unobtrusive electrodes taped to my head while I try to sleep, but I don't really know for sure so I'm a little nervous.

"Are you sure about this?" Beth asks me. "You can cancel if you want to, I'm sure Dr. Ritter will understand."

I'm sure he will too, but I have to do this, I think. If only I could get the image of myself as a lab rat out of my head. I've got this picture of me with a little rat face and little rat legs and a cute pink bow on the little rat tail. Beth laughs at me when I tell her about it

"Oh, grow up. I'm sure it'll all be harmless and easy. And no mazes or anything either."

I hope not. "Fine, but if it is weird and creepy, I'm going to blame you and never ever let you forget it."

"OK, OK. That's fine by me, just go already!"

So I do.

It's just starting to snow as I walk over to the hospital. I'm really cold, and I wish Brian was walking with me so I could cuddle with him and he could keep me warm. But he's studying, and I think that it's probably better in some ways that I do this myself. It builds character or something, right?

Cold or not, I make it over there and I find the sleep monitoring lab without any trouble. Dr. Ritter is waiting for me. He goes over everything again, how this will be perfectly safe and harmless. It's pretty much what I expected, although it's not just "a few" electrodes, it's quite a lot of them, with wires going all over the place.

Dr. Ritter is very reassuring about the whole process, and I almost do feel reassured. The electrodes are applied to my forehead, and I'm lying here in the very comfortable bed trying to fall asleep. The EEG monitor is beeping every so often...beep, beep, beep.

Beep, beep, beep. Just like counting sheep. Beep, beep, beep, sheep, sheep, sheep...

...Sara is arguing with her brother. He sits at her desk in her dorm room while she paces around the room yelling at him. It makes perfect sense to Sara that Bob is here, even though he really ought to be back home, a few hundred miles away. It makes perfect sense that he knows all about the nightmares she's been having, even though she hasn't said a word about it to him.

It even makes sense that they're screaming at one another at the top of their lungs, though their arguing is usually low-level guerilla warfare, with metaphorical sniper attacks and the occasional bomb to liven things up. Comparatively speaking, this is nuclear war.

Still, it all makes perfect sense...

...And then, for a moment it doesn't; Sara is somewhere else, someone else's bedroom. And then it all makes sense to her again. She's been here before. This isn't just any bedroom, this is the bedroom, his bedroom.

Here he is, with another girl, another teenager, another victim. She looks familiar, Sara knows she's seen her face somewhere–the newspaper, maybe? Or on TV? Yes! Now she remembers. It was on the news a couple of nights before: a runaway girl, frantic parents, fears that the worst had happened. And here the worst is happening right in front of Sara, and just like all the other times she can't do anything except watch, and scream...

...Someone's talking to me. Trying to reassure me. "It's OK, it's OK." As if saying that over and over makes it true. When my eyes finally start focusing again, I can see who it is. Dr. Ritter. He's standing over me, and he keeps looking back and forth between me and some papers he's holding.

"Hi. So much for your experiment, I guess." I try very hard to keep my voice calm and casual. I really don't want to lose it in front of him. Again.

Strangely, he doesn't look as though this was a complete disaster; what he does look is puzzled. "I take it you had another nightmare, Sara?" He helps me sit up, hands me a glass of water.

Oh, God. I take several deep breaths, drink the water in one swallow, then several more deep breaths. I tell myself over and over: relax. Be calm. Dr. Ritter is waiting expectantly, and after a minute, or ten, I'm finally able to speak in a relatively even tone. "Yeah. It was different–a different girl, I think I saw her on the news, she ran away from home or something–and the same guy, and he..."

"Yes, I can imagine what you saw. I'm sorry." He has the decency not to look me in the eye as he says it. "But you have to see this," he goes on, giving me the papers he was looking at, printouts of–I assume–my EEG readings. I force myself to focus on it. Anything to keep those images out of my head. Calm. Relax. I can do that. I have to.

"Right there. Something happened. Your delta waves just changed–it's as though the monitor was switched on to someone else right in the middle of the session." He's pointing at a spot on the reading where it goes all of a sudden from nice straight lines to jagged up-and-down.

That's it, that's exactly it. I don't know much about brainwaves or what they're supposed to look like, but a sudden change like that has to mean something. For whatever it's worth, this is proof. I'm seeing what he's dreaming about. Somehow. "It's not me. Not my dream. It's his dream."

"This can't be right. This doesn't happen. The only possible way you would ever see something even remotely like this," Dr. Ritter says, more to himself than to me, "is if there was a sudden traumatic event, a seizure or something similar. And even then, it wouldn't be this extreme."

I agree completely. "OK, so I'm not crazy, it's really happening. Tell me what I'm supposed to do about it."

He remembers I'm sitting right here. He frowns. "Don't jump to conclusions, Miss Barnes. I'm going to have all the equipment checked over. That has to be the explanation. There has to have been some sort of malfunction, some kind of error with the computer. Otherwise, this," he waves the printout, "is simply impossible."

He's wrong. Well, it is impossible, that's true, but it's happening just the same. And his printout proves it. There's something real, something physical going on here. It's not just my imagination, it's not just my subconscious. I'm actually seeing what other people are dreaming. And honestly, there is some comfort in knowing that it is real, that I'm not losing my mind. Not a lot of comfort, but some.

Of course it still doesn't explain why it's happening to me, or how it's happening, or what I should do about it. The only thing I'm sure about at this moment is that there's no point in sticking around the lab for the rest of the night. Dr. Ritter tries to talk me into it, into staying here until he can recalibrate his monitors and reboot the computer and re-whatever some other thing that needs re-whatevering. All I want is to go back to my own bed and try to get a couple of hours sleep without anything stuck to my head.

And so off I go.

Innerspace

(December 5-8, 1989)

I make it as far as the hospital lobby. I step out of the elevator and Brian's there. What's he doing here? I run straight to him, hug him. "You're not sick, are you? You're OK?"

He's confused; he has no idea what I'm talking about. "I came to see you, I thought you would want someone to be with you." Oh my God, that's so sweet of him! I can't think of anything to say, so I kiss him instead, and I keep right on kissing him. People are staring at us, but I couldn't care less. I'm just so glad he's here. I finally back off a little and let him breathe. "I can't believe you came here for me. That's the nicest thing..."

"I love you." He says it in pretty much the same tone that you'd say "the sky is blue" or "water is wet" and that hits me even more than the words themselves. "This is where I should be." Yes, yes, yes. And yes.

Except–there is a tiny little part of my brain that isn't 100% happy. It's saying, since when are you so needy? You're such a baby running to Brian every time you feel a little bit scared. Yeah, maybe. That might be true. Right just now, though, I don't care if it is. He makes me feel better, he makes me feel safe, and that's good enough for the moment.

"Sara?"

Oh, right. "Sorry, I was just thinking. You know what, you have great timing. I was just leaving, so you can walk me home. And maybe we can go back to your room, we can spend the night there, how's that?"

"Okay."

I didn't think he'd object.

Now it's Wednesday, and I'm another day closer to finals. Biochemistry is Friday morning. There were a lot of complaints about that since nearly everyone in the class is dreading that exam, so the fact that it's on the first day of finals seems particularly cruel. Personally, I don't mind, because it's my best class; I know I'll do just fine.

Then there's Statistics for Experimenters on Monday, which I'm also not worried about. Physics, on the other hand, next Wednesday morning, has me somewhere between frightened and terrified. If anything I'm even more lost than I was Sunday night. Everything Julie tried to explain to me has gone right out of my head.

On the plus side, I didn't have any more dreams last night, mainly because I didn't get a lot of sleep. Brian and I were up until almost five in the morning talking about everything except the dreams. He was very comforting, very understanding. And it's funny; since I told him about the nightmares he's pretty much always been in his confident place. He hasn't had any attacks of nerves at all.

I know what's going on. He's so worried about me and my mental state that he doesn't have time to be insecure and all the rest of that nonsense. I just wish I wasn't having these stupid nightmares and I could be a little less nervous myself.

Whatever. Enough introspection for the moment. It's time to get up and start the day. Brian's still asleep, so I slide very slowly out of bed and tiptoe to the door. It's better this way, because if I wait until he wakes up, or if I wake him up, I know what'll happen next. I won't be able to help myself, especially since we spent so much time talking that we never got around to it last night.

Not that I don't want him right now. I do, very much. Too much. We could easily spend all day in bed, but as boring as it sounds studying for finals is more important. The world doesn't stop turning just because of my own personal needs and wants, after all.

So I spent the majority of today in the library trying more or less in vain to get a handle on physics. My only break from that was to turn in my Science in Western Thought paper–Beth just about rewrote the whole thing for me, and I have to admit it's a heck of a lot better now. And then I ran into the Student Union for a quick snack and a stop into the bookstore to find something I could use for a Secret Santa gift.

I ended up buying a slinky. I have no idea why they sell slinkys in the school bookstore, and I have no idea if George will like it. All I know is that he'll get at least one gift for Secret Santa, and I consider that a moral victory for me.

Honestly, I think the fact that I can still function on any kind of level at all after several hours of torque and rotational motion–not to mention a couple of weeks of freakish nightmares–is a big moral victory.

Of course, I still have to find four more gifts for him, and what those might end up being I have no idea. My brain really isn't up to the challenge of trying to figure it out at the moment. I need food, sleep and Brian, although probably not in that exact order.

I'm back in Brian's room. He's lying here right next to me. He just a couple of minutes ago drifted off to sleep. I can feel myself slipping away as well. It's been a long day, after all...

...She's somewhere vaguely familiar, but Sara can't immediately place herself. It takes a few seconds. It's a dorm room, that's obvious, and a guy's room, that seems pretty clear as well. It's the exact same size as her room, so it's most likely another room in her own dorm. She concentrates on the details, trying to figure out where, exactly, she is. There's a definite theme here, she notices: the poster of the Manhattan skyline, a snowglobe with the Statue of Liberty–John! John from New York, this is his room.

And just as Sara figures that out, in walks John, and he's not alone. The weird thing is, neither John nor his companion–Sara can't tell who it is yet–appear to see her. The light bulb goes on: this isn't her dream! It's like the nightmares, except it isn't a nightmare. It's John dreaming, and she's watching. Sara's not frightened, because after all, John is harmless enough, and if she's really honest with herself she has to admit that she is a little curious about all of this.

The door closes, and now Sara gets a good look at John's companion. She's stunned to see someone she recognizes. He's with a tall, dark-haired girl named Annie Sellers. Sara can't help but notice that Annie's wearing a blouse cut far too low and jeans at least a size too tight. Sara doesn't really know her, except by reputation; Sara's heard more than once that Annie "gets around" pretty frequently. She thinks to herself: why the hell is he dreaming about her? What does he see in Annie Sellers?

She gets her answer when John and Annie descend together onto his bed. Sara doesn't want to watch anymore–this isn't frightening, but it sure as heck isn't something she has any interest in seeing–but she can't turn away, can't stop looking...

... just like that, John's room is gone, and Sara finds herself outdoors. It's sunny out, and warm, and she can see green all around. The athletic fields. Intramural softball. Sara looks around, wondering whose dream this is. When she spots Jackie standing there at the plate ready to bat she knows for sure, although she couldn't say how, that this is her dream. It seems perfectly normal, a regular game of softball. Until she turns her gaze towards the pitcher, and standing there instead of another player is a giant insect. An ant, Sara thinks. Wearing a university sweatshirt, with a glove on one of its–claws?–mandibles? Whatever, Sara thinks, this is just too strange. What the heck is going on in Jackie's head? And the ant winds up, and throws a pitch...

...And she's back in another dorm room, also vaguely familiar. She's been in this room, and its occupant is a friend of hers. Mark. Mark Bainbridge. Sara remembers attending several of Mark's parties freshman year–or at least remembers not remembering some of them. She also remembers that for the first couple of weeks of that year, she had a huge crush on Mark, just like nearly all the other freshman girls. Tall, handsome, clever Mark. Mark who is just now opening the door and walking in. Walking straight towards his bed, which, Sara notices for the first time, is not empty. Someone's hidden under the covers. For one guilty moment Sara, the memory of her crush still in her mind, hopes that when Mark pulls the covers up, it'll be Sara under there, Sara that he's dreaming about...

...Before she can find out, Sara is somewhere else. A lecture hall, filled with students busily writing in exam books. It takes her just a moment to realize what's going on here: she sees that there's one student standing up, a little way apart from the rest of the class. A tall girl with long blonde hair. A tall, naked girl, and even before she turns around Sara knows that it's her roommate. Sara laughs, because this dream she understands perfectly, especially when she looks at one of the exam books. Statistics, the class Beth hates most, the exam she's most afraid of...

... Only a second or two after Sara understands what she was seeing in Beth's dream, she's gone, and now she finds herself in the lounge of her dorm, crowded with people, music playing, beer flowing. The Halloween party! She looks all around, and when she sees one of her floormates, a short, pretty brown-haired girl named Diana Filardi, she knows, somehow, that it's Diana dreaming this time. Diana's sitting all by herself on the front steps, and Sara follows Diana's wistful–again, she somehow knows that's exactly the right description–gaze to its target, who turns out to be John from New York. John was the DJ at this party, and, it seems, Diana's interested in him. Sara laughs; if only he knew that, maybe he'd be dreaming about her instead of slutty Annie Sellers...

...Once again, Sara suddenly finds herself somewhere else. This time, she's in the back seat of a car–and in the driver's seat is Brian! Sara knows who's in the passenger seat, and when she looks, her knowledge is confirmed: she's looking at herself. Outside the window, the streets are unfamiliar, but there's only one place they could be going. When the car turns a corner and slows to enter the driveway of a two-story brick house, she knows this is Brian's home.

The car is parked, the doors are opened, and Brian and dream-Sara exit, with the real Sara following close behind. They walk up to the house, and Sara sees the Christmas decorations everywhere: reindeer outside, a big wreath on the door, lights strung all around. The front door opens, and Brian and dream-Sara are greeted by what seems to be Brian's entire extended family. Sara can feel the pride and happiness that Brian is radiating as he walks in with dream-Sara on his arm. She's overwhelmed by the feeling...

...Someone–Brian–is kissing me.

That's all I know, and it's the only thing in the world that matters, being woken up by a kiss like a fairy-tale princess. We kiss for a good long while. Finally, I back off from him a little. "You were dreaming about me," I say, unable to suppress a giggle.

"And you were dreaming about me dreaming about you."

"That too," I answer, and then I go back to kissing him. It seems like the only reasonable thing to do at the moment.

Thursday morning. Brian and I walk over to Lardner, and while he goes to get his breakfast, I spot Beth and sit down next to her. "You didn't come home last night, young lady," she says to me, somehow managing to keep a straight face. "I'm shocked. Simply shocked," but she can't keep it up; she quickly dissolves into laughter.

I laugh too, but seeing her brings to mind the dreams I had–I saw–last night. Including hers. I know we don't keep secrets from each other, but she at least ought to have the choice to keep them if she wants to. How would I feel if I knew someone else was seeing what I was dreaming about?

She notices that I'm looking at her funny, and I realize I can't not tell her. "Uh–I've got something I have to tell you," I start, and she gives me a blank look. "Last night–well, last night I had more dreams. But I wasn't seeing the nightmare, I wasn't seeing that guy. And I wasn't seeing Brian–well, actually he was one of the ones I saw–but..."

Her eyes go wide; she realizes immediately what I'm getting at. "Are you trying to tell me that you...?" I nod. "Me?" I nod again. "You're not joking?" I shake my head. "I don't even remember..."

In for a penny, in for a pound. "You were in your Statistics final. Standing in the middle of the room. And you were..."

Now she remembers. "Naked. Of course." She doesn't look embarrassed, or at least she's covering it well if she is. I'd be red from my ears down to my toes. "OK. That is just a little freaky," she looks away from me, collecting her thoughts. "But it's not like you can control it. And it's not any surprise that I'm nervous about that exam. Right?"

Right. "I don't want to be seeing any of this. If I knew how to switch it off, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I don't want to know why Jackie down the hall is dreaming about giant ants, or that John from New York has a thing for Annie Sellers. I don't want to know any of it."

She looks at me in disbelief when I mention John. "You didn't know that? He's been like that all semester. It's pretty sad, really," Beth says, shaking her head as though I've disappointed her by not knowing the details of everyone else's love life (or lack thereof). "He's not her type, obviously–but you started this, now you have to tell me, who else did you see? Besides Jackie–and honestly? That's just really weird. I'm not sure I want to know about the giant ants."

Brian returns with a plate of what looks sort of like scrambled eggs as I'm telling Beth about the other dreams I saw. I told him already; we talked all about it on the way over here.

I kind of wish I hadn't told either of them about the dreams; I feel like I'm breaking everyone's confidences–but I go right on doing just that. I've just finished retelling Diana Filardi's dream when Brian sits down across from me. I look over at his plate, and at Beth's now-empty tray and I realize that I haven't gotten anything to eat yet. So I excuse myself, and by the time I get back to the table, Beth's spotted poor John from New York on his way out of the dining hall, and she's flagged him over.

She's not going to–oh, of course she is.

I'm too late to stop her, she's already advising him to think about Diana. "Don't you think she's cute?" she asks him, and he agrees that Diana is, in fact, cute. "She really likes guys who have a big..." I glare at Beth, and she finishes with a laugh, "...stereo." That's why John is usually the DJ at our dorm parties; he's always willing to lug his stereo with the ridiculously large speakers down to the lobby.

It's clear from his expression that he hasn't given Diana much thought before, and it's equally clear that he's now considering her in a new light. He leaves, with a very preoccupied look in his eyes. I'm at a loss; I don't know whether to laugh or yell at Beth. "Don't look so worried," she tells me. "It's not wrong if you're using your powers for good."

Powers? I almost laugh at that. But even though it was a joke, it's kind of true. I guess I do have a "power." Sara, the amazing psychic girl! That does have kind of a ring to it. Except...

"Sara? Are you OK?" Brian's voice brings me back to the moment. He looks very concerned. I take his hand, give it a squeeze. That seems to satisfy him.

"I'm fine. I was just thinking. First of all, I'm not sure that pimping out Diana qualifies as 'good.'"

Beth protests, "You say pimp, I say matchmaker." She doesn't give me the chance to respond. "It's in a good cause. She obviously must be interested in him, and if he had any sense he'd be interested in her instead of Annie Sellers. We're just helping nature take its course, right?"

I shrug. What can I say, really? Besides, she probably is right, at least about that little part of the dreams. The thing is, she's so interested in using my dreams to play matchmaker that she hasn't considered something else; if I can use what I'm seeing to (hopefully) help people I know, then don't I have to use what I'm seeing in the nightmares to do something about them too?

Another thought goes through my mind just now, and it throws me off track. "If I've got a power, right? I'm psychic, or whatever you want to call this, right? Well, where's my wise mentor? In every story I can think of, people who suddenly find they have a special power or something always have one. King Arthur had Merlin. Luke Skywalker had Obi-Wan. The Scottish guy in that stupid movie Ron likes, where they're all cutting each other's heads off..."

"Connor MacLeod," Brian pipes in. "And the movie is 'Highlander.'"

Beth snorts. "All you guys like that movie. I'll never understand it."

"Anyway," I say, trying to get back on track. "Connor whatever, he had Sean Connery to mentor him, right? So where's the old wise master to tell me how to deal with all this?" Brian's amused by the thought, but Beth has a different reaction.

"I'd let Sean Connery tell me what to do," she sighs. "Anytime."

So would I, although not that way. He's old enough to be my grandfather, after all. Besides, I'm taken! And I will definitely have to tell Brian that that was my first thought, once we're alone of course. But I definitely wouldn't say no to Sean Connery's advice. I bet he'd know exactly what to do about the nightmares.

When we're all finished with breakfast, we each head our separate ways. Beth has a paper to finish, and Brian's going to a review session before his calculus final tomorrow. And I agreed to go over Biochemistry notes with Melanie Vondreau, so we're meeting over at the Student Union for that.

The thing about Melanie is that, and I honestly don't know why, we've always rubbed each other a little bit the wrong way from the first time we met way back at freshman orientation. Don't get me wrong, it's not as though we're blood enemies or anything. It's just–I guess I'd call it a cold feeling towards her, which I know is reciprocated in full.

She's been having trouble in Biochemistry for a few weeks now, and it must be even worse than I thought if she was willing to come and ask me for help. Desperate times and all that, I guess.

Not that she said it that way, of course. I knew what she was asking, though. I started to come up with some excuse to say no, but then I remembered how Julie Paschal was nice enough to help me with physics when she must have had better things to do. It's only good karma to help someone else in kind, right? Besides, helping her will be a good review for me. So I agreed, and I think she was a little surprised that I did.

We find an empty study room–with a nice big table to spread all our books and notes out–and we get down to work. We start at a little after ten in the morning, and we keep slogging on straight through the afternoon until Melanie finally pronounces herself done at four o'clock in the afternoon.

Amazingly, we actually both manage to act like grown-ups for pretty much the whole time. She makes a couple of snotty remarks the first hour, and I'm snotty right back, but we get past that and we get a heck of a lot done. By the time we're finished, I'm completely confident, even more than I was before, in the A I'll be getting on tomorrow's final. She's pretty sure–I think she's right, too–she'll be able to pull out a B.

She looks at her watch as she's packing up her books. "I can't believe we were sitting here for six hours!"

I agree! "You said it, Mel," I answer, cringing as I hear the word escape my lips. I know she hates being called "Mel." I think it was literally the very first thing she said when we all introduced ourselves that first day at orientation. I really, truly didn't do it on purpose. Not this time, anyway.

She surprisingly doesn't take offense. "I appreciate you taking all this time. Really. You didn't need to go over this all day, you know it cold." Well, that's true. But it's very classy of her to say so.

"You can make it up to me sometime," I say. "But right now I want to get back to the dorm, drop everything off and get something to eat. I'm starving!" She agrees, and we walk back, chatting pleasantly enough as it just begins to snow. I'm wiped out–doing six hours of anything in one sitting is tough, no matter what it is. But I feel like I did a good deed for the day, and that thought warms me up ever so slightly on the cold walk home.

Now I'm lying in bed, at the early hour of ten o'clock. I want to be sure to get a good night's sleep so I can be at my best for the Biochemistry final tomorrow. I may know it all cold, like Melanie said, but that won't help if I'm ragged and half-awake during the test...

...Sara's in a classroom in the middle of an exam, and a roomful of students is busily writing away in their exam books, all except one of them, a tall blonde girl who's standing up in the middle of the room, completely naked. Sara shakes her head as she watches her roommate grow more and more agitated, and then the door to the classroom opens, and three women, all tall, all blonde, and a fourth, a teenage girl with dark hair, troop in.

Beth's sisters. They point at her in unison, as Beth just stands there, seemingly unable to do anything at all. Sara closes her eyes, not wanting to see any more, thinking that she knew Beth was concerned, but she had no idea her roommate was that worried about her statistics final...

...and without transition, Sara finds herself elsewhere. She's outside, on grass, trees all around, and above the trees in the nighttime sky tall buildings loom everywhere. She wouldn't swear to it, but she's pretty sure this is Central Park, in New York City. When she sees her floormate Jane, Jane Barnaby, she's convinced she's right; Jane, like her roommate Jessica, is from there. Sara follows Jane as she sits down on a bench, next to a young man who looks about her age, with the same brown hair, the same coloring, a young man who might be her brother. Yes, Sara remembers, she has a twin brother. They really do look very alike, except that while Jane is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, her brother wears a dark suit, and a cape around his neck. He turns to her, telling Jane that it's time for her to join him, he knows she wants to, and it'll be so quick and so easy, and then he opens his mouth wide, baring big white fangs...

...and now Sara is standing in a small living room. She recognizes it immediately as the apartment Mona the Resident Director lives in downstairs. Mona is sitting at a table, with a stack of books next to her, scanning pages quickly, highlighting frantically, trying to keep up as the pages begin to turn on their own. When she finishes one book, two more appear from nowhere on top of the stack, and now she opens two books at once, her eyes darting back and forth, and then another book appears, and another, until finally the table collapses under the weight of them all...

...she's back in her own dorm room, sitting on her own bed, inside Beth's head again, looking over at Beth's bed, where Beth lies seductively–it's the only word that fits–wearing nothing but a gold bikini that barely covers anything at all. Clearly her dread of the Statistics final is forgotten. There are footsteps outside the door, and Sara turns to watch as the doorknob turns, the door opens, and in walks a tuxedo-clad Sean Connery, gun in one hand, cocktail shaker in the other. Beth asks him who he is, and Sara thinks to herself that this is all her fault; she put this image in her roommate's mind. Sean Connery answers, as Sara knows he will, "The name's Bond, James Bond..."

...there's a ringing sound, ringing, ringing, ringing. I open my eyes, expecting to see my roommate in bed with a world-famous British secret agent, but it's just Beth there, sleeping peacefully. She does have a very satisfied smile on her face, though. I won't be telling her I saw that particular dream. I will take that particular secret to the grave.

Anyway, she's sleeping so deeply that the ringing–the fire alarm, obviously–isn't registering with her at all. I get up as quietly as I can, unlock the door, inch it open and sniff the air out in the hallway.

It's exactly what I expect, the stench of burned popcorn. The door to the next room over opens up, and Kelly Travers pops her head out, hair all over the place, eyes unfocused. She, too, sniffs, and then turns towards me. "Who was it?"

The horrible little stove is on the other side of the floor from us. And sure enough, just now here comes someone around the corner, as up and down the hall doors are opening one by one. Kate Billings, who's isn't even technically a student of the university–she goes to the Ohio Institute of Music and they've got an arrangement for their students to live in our dorms–has a guilty look on her face as she sees us. "Terrie and I were up late studying. We just wanted a snack. We were really careful," she says, wincing as she does. You can't be careful enough with that stove. In my three years here it's never worked right.

Behind me, I hear the voice of our floor's Resident Assistant, Melody Katz. "Go back to bed, everybody. Try to get some sleep." She glares at Kate, shakes her head, but she doesn't say anything further to her; seeing Kate's wretched expression, she doesn't have the heart to berate her. "I'll go find Rita."

Rita Danelo happens to be–as far as any of us know–the only person in the dorm who knows how to open the fire alarm panel down in the lobby and turn it off. Otherwise we'd have to wait for Security to show up. And they wouldn't turn the alarm off until they were satisfied that every single resident was safely out of their room and outside.

I'm not sure how Rita learned how to do it, and at the moment I don't really care. It's freezing outside and I don't want to wait half an hour for Security to get here. Melody heads down the hall in her ridiculous bunny slippers in search of Rita. Reassured that we won't have to trudge outside in our bathrobes or pajamas, the rest of us all retreat back into our rooms.

"'night, Kelly," I mutter to my neighbor as her door closes behind her, and then, a little more sharply, "'night, Kate." She doesn't quite meet my eyes. And then I close the door gently behind me, relock it. Beth, of course, is still smiling, and still fast asleep.

It's early in the afternoon on Friday, and the air outside is a little bit less frigid than it's been for days. The sky is–well it's still gray, but it's a lighter gray, at least. And I have only two exams left to go, now that Biochemistry is done.

How did I do? Well, I did fantastic. No question I'm getting an A. Between that and Science in Western Thought, I'm done with two classes, and only three to go. I wasn't happy with everything I've put together for the advanced Organic Chemistry lab, and I want to make absolutely sure I get an A there as well, so once physics is done next Wednesday, I can take as much time as I need to get it perfect.

I'm not even leaving until the following Wednesday–I made the reservations a month ago, before I had any idea what my finals schedule would look like. Brian's last exam isn't until Monday the 18th, the final day of exams and he's leaving the next morning, so it works out well that I'll have plenty of time with him. That's especially good since we haven't figured out how or when we're going to get together over Christmas break. We worked out that it's probably only about a forty-minute drive from my house to his, but with family stuff who knows when we'll be able to see each other.

On top of all that, there's another reason I'm glad I'm staying on campus after my last exam: I can help Beth with her Statistics. That's not until next Friday, and after what I saw in her head last night it's obvious that she doesn't feel remotely prepared for it. I'll tell her my plan as soon as I see her.

I'm on my way back to the dorm right now, and then we're going to go downtown together to see what we can find for Secret Santa. We're supposed to start giving the gifts tomorrow, and all I've got for George so far is a slinky. He'll get that tomorrow, so I need four more things. It'll also just be nice to be off of campus for a couple of hours. I think I've earned a break.

Real Genius

(December 8-13, 1989)

It ends up being more than just a couple of hours; Beth and I don't get back until almost eight o'clock. By the time we do, the temperature's dropped at least twenty degrees, and it was pretty cold to start with. The minute the train stops at the University Circle station and the doors open, the frigid air hits me. I hurry out and down the platform and take the steps three at a time until I'm out of the station, with Beth right behind me. We cover the three blocks to Carson House at a dead run, and we're both completely winded by the time we get there. I collapse onto the ugly purple couch, raising a small cloud of dust–which normally I'd find gross, but right now I'm too cold and exhausted to care.

And hungry, too, as my stomach loudly reminds me. Everyone in the lobby is already staring at me. Melody Katz laughs. "You shouldn't skip dinner, don't you know that?"

We got caught up shopping, and then I wanted to get back so I could spend some time with Brian tonight, so we ended up not eating. "We were busy," I pant, pointing at our shopping bags. I just now notice that Joe Karver is hooking up the communal VCR to the TV. I take a couple of deep breaths until I can talk in something close to a normal tone of voice. "Sorry to interrupt. What are you guys watching tonight?"

"Yeah, that is a good question," Melody says, a little too sharply. Clearly, we came in right in the middle of the regular Friday night argument over who gets to pick the movies. It's bad enough when the debate is what to rent at Vidstar video up in Coventry. It's worse on a night like this, when nobody's willing to brave the Arctic conditions outside to go there and the choices are limited to what videos the folks currently in the lobby have in their rooms. Which doesn't give them many options.

After a couple more minutes collecting my breath, I head upstairs, Beth right behind me, as the argument gets up to speed. I put my shopping down, throw my coat on my chair, and my hand's on the phone and dialing Brian before I even realize what I'm doing.

Beth rolls her eyes while the phone rings once, twice, three times until Brian picks up. "Hey," I greet him.

"I was starting to worry when I didn't hear from you all day," he answers me, but I hear more hurt than worry in his voice. I said I'd meet up with him sometime after my exam; I guess we had different definitions of "sometime."

"I lost track of time. Beth and I went downtown, we only just got back," I tell him, trying to put a bit of reassurance into it. I try to suppress the thought that I haven't done anything wrong and I shouldn't need to be doing any reassuring.

"Are we still getting together tonight?" Apparently, I do need to be doing it.

I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, and I sigh. "Absolutely!" I tell him, trying again, and this time it seems to work.

"What were you thinking?"

Considering that it's about minus two hundred degrees out right now, the options are pretty limited. He can come over here and sit on the couch downstairs with me while we watch a movie, I can ask Beth to give us a couple of hours to ourselves in my room or I can go over to him. It's no choice at all, really.

"My roommate was talking about having her boyfriend come over here," I say, looking over to Beth, and she nods, "so how about if I run over and meet you? Give me fifteen minutes or so," I say, shuddering already at the prospect of going back outside, even to run a couple of hundred feet. "I need to work up the courage to go back out into the cold."

"I'll be downstairs to let you in," he says, and the line goes dead. I can almost hear his door slamming shut as he heads for his lobby to meet me.

"That's not a bad idea, actually," Beth tells me once I've hung up the phone. "I wouldn't mind seeing Ron, so long as I don't have to go back outside to see him. Besides," she says, "it'll be better than watching Monty Python downstairs for the twentieth time this semester."

She's on the phone almost immediately, while I'm getting my coat, scarf, hat and gloves on, ready to brave the elements once more. When I get back downstairs, wrapping my scarf around my neck, covering up every possible inch of flesh as I head for the door, I see that Beth was right–it's "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" again. Somebody in this dorm really needs to stock up on some new movies.

It must be my imagination, but I swear I can feel icicles forming inside my nose, just from the thirty seconds I'm outside running from Carson House over to Allen. Brian's already got the door open, and in I go. I notice he isn't quite meeting my eyes, though. We head straight upstairs to his room, and when he shuts the door behind us, he still isn't looking at me.

I can't believe he's upset that I didn't call him earlier. I sit down on his bed, and he sits across from me, on the spare bed. He doesn't have a roommate. At least, he hasn't had one, since the one he did have, Paul, started to have crippling panic attacks and withdrew from school two weeks before Thanksgiving

Brian looks like he's about halfway towards having one himself right now. I really don't understand. Does he really think–what? I don't even know. "Brian, come over here. Sit next to me."

He does, after a minute or two. "Look, I'm sorry I wasn't around all day. I know I said we'd get together, and I should've waited to hear from you before I went downtown. Do you forgive me?" I haven't done anything that needs forgiving, but I try very hard to keep that feeling out of the words I'm saying. I think that comes across because he relaxes a bit, nods his head slightly. "So how was your first college final exam?"

That's what the problem is, right there. He thought I'd be waiting for him after he got out, to congratulate him. On top of which, he was probably terrified about his first exam, and if I'd been paying attention I'd have known that.

"Easier than I thought," he says. "I was expecting..."

Something horrible and impossible. Exactly. My first final, freshman year, was Chemistry. I knew that class backwards and forwards. I'd gotten an A on every quiz, I did every piece of extra credit offered. I could have aced that test in my sleep. And I was still frightened when I walked into the classroom and opened up my exam book. I was so relieved afterwards, so proud of myself for getting through my very first final...

Just like Brian. And he wanted to share that feeling with his girlfriend, wanted me to be proud of him.

Oh, my. I just had another thought, and now it all fits together. I wasn't just his first time. I'm his first real, proper girlfriend. Everything he does with me, he's doing for the first time. Including the first time something happens that isn't exactly how he imagines it should be–the first disappointment, however silly and minor. Like the first time his girlfriend blows him off when she said she'd be there, even if it is only for a couple of hours.

I move right next to him, touch his cheek, turn his face to me. Now he's finally looking me in the eyes, and I take his face in both hands. I pull him closer and kiss him. I'm not sure how long it lasts, but it feels like forever.

It's ten-thirty now. We've been–mostly–talking for the last two hours. I was absolutely right about him, about being the first girlfriend he's had. I can't believe I didn't realize that right away. It was pretty obvious. It's easy to forget that he's only a few months out of high school. Then again, in my defense, I have been somewhat preoccupied lately.

My thoughts are interrupted by one of the most hideous sounds I've ever heard, and what's worse is that it comes from me. Brian is so startled he backs several feet away. He's looking at me as though he thinks something's going to explode out of my stomach like the guy in "Alien."

"I'm hungry, OK?" I say, and Brian bursts out laughing. I glare at him for a moment, and my stomach rumbles, very loudly, again. I can't help it; I have to laugh too. "Wow, that was pretty bad, wasn't it?"

Brian very gallantly offers to go to the only place we can think of that's open at this hour, Little Caesar's Pizza, and bring me back some much-needed food. I don't feel right about sending him out alone into the freezing cold, and I definitely don't feel up to going out there with him. Besides, I've got a better idea. I ask him how much money he has on him, and he says "Thirty dollars." I ask him to give it to me. I pull my clothes back on–I did say mostly talking, didn't I? take his money, and tell him to wait here.

I go down to the lobby. At the bottom of the stairs, I loudly clear my throat, and call out to the small crowd gathered there watching a movie on their dorm's communal VCR (I notice they're watching Monty Python, too. Clearly the video selection here isn't any better than in my dorm. At least it's a different Monty Python, "Meaning of Life."). "I've got twenty bucks here for whoever will go to Little Caesar's, pick up a double-cheese-and-pepperoni pizza and a two-liter of coke, and bring it up to me in room 411. Anybody?"

Someone answers, a redheaded guy I vaguely remember from a couple of my chemistry classes. "That's Brian, right? 411?" I get a couple of questioning looks, which quickly become knowing looks when they–and I, at the same time–see that my sweatshirt is inside out.

Oops.

I go a little bit pink–but only a little. And–I'm kind of surprised at myself for this–I have no desire to run for it, or to try and make up some excuse and pretend that things are anything other than exactly what they appear to be. "It certainly is," I say with the biggest grin I can manage. "And we're both very hungry. Doesn't anybody want twenty bucks?" The redhead agrees to go, so I give him the twenty, plus the other ten to pay for the food. "I'll call it right now, so it'll be ready when you get there," and I turn around and walk back upstairs.

"I owe you thirty dollars. I'll pay you back tomorrow," I tell Brian when I open the door and sit back down on his bed.

"What did you do?"

I laugh. "I just did wonders for your reputation," I tell him, and he blushes a very satisfying shade of red. "Oh, and I arranged for our dinner." This time a week ago, I would never have done something like that. Instead of blushing slightly pink, I'd have been even redder than Brian is now, and I'd have slunk back upstairs as quickly as my shame would have allowed me to. But just now, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. He is my boyfriend, and I do love him. Why shouldn't everyone know it?

The redheaded guy–I finally did remember his name, Mark Maxwell, we'll see if I remember it next time I see him!–brings us our pizza a half hour later, and we have our belated dinner. And afterwards, dessert.

...Sara's sitting in a comfortable chair, looking at a painting on the wall that seems very familiar to her, although she can't quite recall why. She gazes around the room–the bedroom–and all of it seems familiar. The brass lamp on the side table, the sliding closet door that's never–it doesn't occur to Sara to wonder why "never" is the word that comes to mind here–closed all the way, the Rolex watch on the dresser. She knows she's seen all of it before, but for the life of her, she can't imagine where. And then the door opens, and a man, a large man, comes in, with a brown-haired girl who can't possibly be older than sixteen. Now Sara knows exactly where she is and what she's seeing, and she can't leave, can't look away, can't do anything except...

..."Stop! Stop it! Oh, God, oh, God, stop it!" someone's shouting, in a ragged voice filled with anger and mixed and absolute revulsion.

It's me. I'm in that bedroom–no, no, that was the nightmare. I'm in–where? Brian's room. Brian's bed. He's looking at me, eyes full of confusion. I can tell exactly what he's thinking–"why is she yelling at me to stop? I wasn't doing anything. I was asleep," or something along those lines, and then the penny drops.

"Sara, you're in my room. You're safe," he says, in what ought to be a reassuring voice. But I'm not in a state where words are any comfort. I put my arms around his neck, pull myself to him, and I squeeze, holding on for dear life. I think I'm probably hurting him, but he doesn't say a word, doesn't even wince. He just wraps his arms around me, holds on to me equally tightly. We lie there like that, not saying anything, until I can feel my heart rate start to fall back close to normal. I don't know how long it takes, but it feels like forever.

We've been talking about it for an hour. We keep going around and around. That's all I've been doing since the nightmares started, and I am so, so tired of it. "There's got to be some kind of logical way to figure this out," I say. "You're going to major in mechanical engineering, I'm in pre-med. We're both intelligent and logical and all that other crap, and we're taking all these stupid science courses and, damnit," I punch my hand into the wall, which does nothing at all except hurt, "we ought to be able to come up with some kind of answer!"

Brian's expression says very plainly that he'd gladly give everything he owns to be able to tell me something helpful right now. He starts to say exactly that, and I hold up my hand. "I know, I know. OK, one more time?" I yawn. I don't want to go back to sleep, but my body does and it feels like my body is winning the argument. Still, I'm determined to take one more stab at an explanation.

"So the first time this happened, it was you. You turned me on," I say, and I'm not sure if it's because of exhaustion or my sometimes-slow sense of humor that it takes me a good ten seconds to realize what I said and why Brian is fighting to keep from laughing.

"You flipped my switch," I try again, and Brian just looks at me, a tear starting to leak from his left eye from the effort of not laughing. "I give up," I say, throwing my hands in the air. "There's no way I can say it and not have it be a bad pun, is there?" he shakes his head. I almost smile, it's the most I can do right now. Even though, actually, it is pretty funny.

"Fine. It was you. You dreaming about me is what started this. You were close by, it's probably not even two hundred feet, right, from here to my room?" he nods. "You were dreaming about me, and you had very powerful feelings so maybe," this sounds absurd as I'm saying it but I press on, "it's all electrical signals, right? Maybe we do broadcast when we're dreaming. Maybe it's too weak to measure, or maybe we just don't know as much as we think about our brains."

"OK," Brian says. "That makes sense so far."

I'm glad one of us thinks so. "So, fine, you're broadcasting, I'm broadcasting, everybody's broadcasting, every night. And that night, you broadcasted just a little louder than usual, in just the right way, and my brain picked it up. Maybe it's like a radio," and this is starting to make sense to me too, now. "You know how, when you get really bad reception, all you hear is static, right?" He agrees. "But then you finally manage to tune in a station, and once you've heard that you get better at hearing the other stations in the static. Maybe they're not as clear, but once you hear the first one, you know what to listen for."

I'm not sure if this is actually reasonable or if I'm too tired to think clearly, but I soldier on. "So once your signal came through, the radio in my brain got better at picking up all the other signals around me. That's why I've been seeing Beth's dreams, and Jackie's, and all the other people I've seen." And the killer. Because his broadcast is coming from the tallest radio tower with 50,000 watts behind it, even if nobody in their right mind would ever want to tune it in.

And then Brian has to go and ruin my wonderful theory. "If all that's true, if you're right–does it help at all?"

No. I can't see how it helps. I start to say something nasty, but I catch myself. Barely. To be totally honest about it, if our places were switched and he'd just told me what I told him, I'd probably have asked exactly the same question.

I sigh, and I grab his arm and pull him down until we're lying next to each other, and I pull the covers over us. "It doesn't help. But you know what does? You do." I say, and I kiss him quickly. "We can still get some sleep. I'll be OK now. I'll be OK as long as you're with me," I say, and with him holding me I do feel–well, not OK, but a lot closer to it than I was. I guess that'll have to do for now.

Brian and I walk over to breakfast, but that's all the time we'll have together today. I have to keep at the physics, and Mark Bainbridge from upstairs agreed to take two hours to try and help me. Hopefully that'll get me to the point that I can go to the review session a few of my classmates are having tonight and be able to keep up. On top of that I've got some paperwork that's due Monday to finalize things for the volunteer program at University Hospital that I'm going to be doing next semester. So it's a busy day.

We chat about Christmas, and what our families will be doing. Brian just found out the other day that his brother won't be coming this year. He's got just the one brother, Jack, twelve years older than him. The story is that Jack went into the army right after high school, got sent to Germany, got married, and stayed there after he was discharged. He's got two kids that Brian's never even met. Apparently, there was some hope that Jack would bring the family back here this Christmas, but it fell through. I think it's really sad, that Brian has a niece and a nephew he hasn't ever met.

We still haven't figured out when we'll be able to meet over the holiday. I guess we'll just have to play that by ear. We've got nine days to be together before then, though, and I intend to make the most of them.

We "dilly and dally" over our food, as my Mom puts it, until I can't put off studying any more. Brian walks me back to Carson House before heading off to the library, and he kisses me just outside the front door. A girl could get used to that.

Then it's up to my room, and I get working on the paperwork for the hospital. There's a ton of it to go through, and it takes me a good hour to finish it. Just as I plop myself down on the bed for a few minutes before I move on to my least favorite course, there's a loud, heavy knock on the door.

"Hang on," I call out and I sit myself up, get to my feet and open the door. Jim Quarters, who I've known since my first day here, fills my doorway. I mean that literally; he's a lineman on the (not very good) football team. I don't think I've ever seen him on my floor in all the time I've lived here. "What's going on?"

He's looking into the room. "Your roommate's not here, right?"

He can see that, so I'm not sure why he's asking but I hold back a smart answer. "She's at the library, finishing up a paper. I can tell her you're looking for her."

He shakes his head. "No, I thought that's where she was. I wanted to ask you something without her here," he says.

I'm confused; I can't imagine what he wants with her. He can't be interested in her, can he? He's got a serious girlfriend, and he knows she's got a boyfriend. I'm pretty sure they aren't in any classes together. On the other hand, he's never been anything but decent to me, so it probably can't be anything too weird. "Come in," I say, ushering him into the room. He sits down on my desk chair and it creaks a little. "You're being very mysterious. What's the big secret?"

"It's the Secret Santa. I've got your roommate, and I have no idea what to do."

Secret Santa completely slipped my mind. I'm glad for the reminder, and I'm also glad that suggesting a gift for my roommate–unlike the dreams, or my physics final–is a problem that I can actually solve. "No problem. You want to play it straight and give her something she'll like, or embarrass her a little?" I wouldn't say that, except I know Beth wouldn't really mind an embarrassing gift, so long as it wasn't too mean-spirited. Jim isn't up for that, though.

"Straight."

The only rule is that you're supposed to spend less than $25 for all the gifts. But considering it's finals week, it's also got to be something that's relatively easy and quick for him to get. I think I can suggest something that'll cover all that, and that she'll get a good laugh out of as well. On top of all that, it's even something she's dreamed about, in a way. "OK, we can do this. Five gifts. Let's see," I've got a pretty good idea, if I do say so myself. "Can you get somebody to give you a ride up to the mall?" He nods. "You're twenty-one, right?"

"Last month." He doesn't bother to ask why I'm asking. It's nice when people put themselves in my hands and just let me run the show sometimes.

"Good. You're going to go to the state liquor store and get her a decent bottle of gin. That's the big gift. The other gifts, you get her everything else to make a martini with. Olives, toothpicks, maybe you can find one of those cocktail shakers for five bucks somewhere. Sound like a plan?"

He seems very pleased. "Nice!" which he says as though the word has four or five syllables, is his answer. But then he lapses into deep concentration for a minute. "You're missing an ingredient. Vermouth, right?"

True, I think. "But the limit is $25 and you'll already be going a little over as it is." There's a solution to that. I get my wallet, fish out a $20 bill. "Here," I say. "Buy a bottle of vermouth, too, and drop it off to me when she's not here. I'll give it to her after." I have no idea how much vermouth costs. I wonder if I'll see any change?

He looks doubtful, but he takes the money just the same. Then he peers at me more closely. "Are you all right?" he says with some concern in his voice. I guess that means he's noticed the circles under my eyes and the hollow, lifeless stare that's been looking back at me in the mirror far too often the last couple of weeks.

"I haven't been sleeping all that well the last few nights," which is as much truth as I'm interested in telling him.

"I know what you mean," he says knowingly, even though he doesn't have the slightest idea. "This semester's been brutal. These group projects are killing me; I'm up until two in the morning every night trying to get everything done." I wish schoolwork was the only reason I'm up until two in the morning. I'd trade with him in a heartbeat.

"Yeah. Exactly," I say. "Anyway, do what I said, Beth will love it." He gets up, starts to head for the door. "Oh," I stop him, remembering something else. I take the box with George's slinky in it and hold it out to him–I don't even remember when I put it in a box and wrapped it, which I think is kind of a bad sign. "Here. Can you put that by 418 when you go upstairs?"

He takes George's gift. "Sure. And thanks!" he says as he goes, closing the door behind him. Well, I've done another good deed, and now I get my reward. Several hours of studying physics. That seems very unfair somehow.

At about five o'clock or so, after Mark graciously spent not two, but nearly three hours trying to force my protesting brain to understand some of the things it's refusing to grasp about physics, Beth tries to get me to take a break. I refuse.

Brian calls at seven-thirty, after two and a half more hours of working on my own–I didn't feel up to the review session with my classmates after all–to try and tempt me out of the room. I refuse again.

It's almost nine o'clock now, and I don't think I can stand to look at my notes or that textbook for another second. I feel like my eyes are about to start bleeding from the strain. I turn my attention to a small, very nicely wrapped box, my Secret Santa gift. I tear open the paper, open the box, and find–nothing. It's an empty box. Someone went to all the trouble to do a professional wrapping job, with a bow and everything, for an empty box. Why would someone give me an empty box? What does it mean?

There's a knock at the door, interrupting my questions. I get up to open it, and Mona the RD is standing there, with Melanie Vondreau and another of my floormates, Janet Black, right behind her. "Get your coat," Mona says. "You're coming out with us."

I just stand there. I'm not sure what's going on. "Come on," Janet pleads.

I'm still looking blankly at the three of them. "Where?"

"I'm taking you girls out to the movies," Mona says.

But the campus movie is usually at seven and nine o'clock. We already missed it. I don't know what Mona's talking about. "I'm not taking 'no' for an answer. Now get your coat and your hat and whatever else, we need to get moving," Mona demands.

With the three of them all glaring at me, I don't feel like I have much choice. I grab my coat, scribble a quick note to Beth and leave it on her bed, and follow them out. Mona leads us downstairs and out the back door of the dorm as I button up my coat. Her old, beat-up Jeep is parked right there and we all pile in.

She's a much more aggressive driver than I'd have imagined. She's laying on the horn, passing people in what doesn't seem like a very safe manner and not even worrying about the patches of black ice that I'm sure are out there on the roads. Despite all that, we manage to get where we're going in one piece.

Where that is, is a second-run movie theater about ten minutes away from campus. As we walk past the posters outside the theater I realize why we're here, and why specifically it's me, Melanie and Janet that she took. "Four for 'Gross Anatomy," Mona tells the pimply boy in the ticket booth, and she sends me and Melanie in to get seats. She and Janet join us a couple of minutes later, passing out drinks and popcorn to us as they do.

Then the lights go out, the projector whirs to life, and for the next two hours, I watch a pretty good story about a plucky group of people struggling through their first year of medical school.

In the car on the way back to the dorm, Melanie asks Mona how accurately the movie portrayed life as a medical student. "It's pretty close," she says. "It brought back a lot of memories."

Janet, shaking her long red hair out of her eyes, asks about something that had struck me as well. "Matthew Modine's character said they had to do 3,000 pages of reading a week. That can't be right, can it?"

"It's not far off," Mona answers, and while I can't see Melanie's expression from the back seat, I'm willing to bet it's exactly the same mix of surprise and terror that's on my and Janet's faces. Mona scoffs at our fear. "You'll get used to it. Believe me. You'll be amazed when you see what you're really able to do, once you're in the middle of it."

I don't find that nearly as reassuring as Mona probably intends it to be. Still, despite the high probability of more answers we don't really want to hear, we keep asking her about the movie and how it compares to her actual med school life the rest of the way home.

"Thanks, Mona," we say in unison as we get out of the car once Mona's back in her space behind the dorm.

"Don't mention it. I figured my pre-med girls could use a little treat. Besides, I didn't feel like going alone," she says, heading for her little apartment in the lobby. "Now go get some sleep," she tells us as she disappears inside.

I go upstairs, and the note I left for Beth is still on her bed; I have no idea where she is, although I can make an educated guess. I think about calling Brian, but he's probably asleep and we did say our good-nights earlier, before I was abducted out to the movies. I don't want to wake him. After last night and me keeping him up, he can use some restful sleep.

For that matter, so can I...

I open my eyes. Through the cracks in the blinds, I can see a light-ish sky. Which means I actually slept through the night, with no interruptions, no nightmares, no anything.

Beth is in her bed; she's just starting to stir as I quietly sit up and look at the clock. It's almost eleven o'clock. We got back from the movie last night at eleven-thirty or so, and I fell straight asleep, and that means I've slept for nearly twelve hours. I don't know the last time I've slept that long.

I hear mumbling from Beth. I tiptoe over to listen more closely. "Stop poking me! Can't you see I'm taking a test? Chrissy, leave me alone!" Then she rolls over, facing me, and her hand waves out; I'm so surprised I don't step back and she connects with my elbow. She lets out a yelp, her eyes open and she's staring at me with utter confusion on her face. "Chrissy, I told you–oh–Sara? What?"

"Morning, Beth!"

She rubs her eyes, blinks several times and then, slowly, sits up. "I must have been dreaming."

I nod. "And talking in your sleep. I've never heard you do that before. You were yelling at your little sister."

"There's a surprise," she says getting her feet on the floor and unsteadily standing up. "I'm not going to get back to sleep. You mind waiting so I can take a quick shower and then we can get some breakfast?" Sounds like a good plan to me.

"You mean lunch. But, yes. And I could use a shower, too, before I venture out among the living." It's nice to feel like I belong among them, for a change.

Beth showers, I shower, and we go over to Lardner to eat. I call Brian to see if he wants to meet me there, but he's already eaten and he was just heading to the computer lab to finish typing up his final assignment for Expository Writing. We plan to get together for dinner, though.

After a lunch of cold cereal, Beth and I go back to our room. We're both going to review statistics. My exam is tomorrow and even though I'm very confident about it, a little more studying can't hurt; her exam isn't until Friday but she needs all the help she can get.

As we study, Beth keeps telling me to worry about my own exam, but I tell her that helping her is helping me with my own review. Which is–well, it's not completely a lie. Besides, I owe her. Aside from the fact that I'd help her because she's my best friend, I owe her for getting me through two semesters of French (which she speaks nearly fluently thanks to her grandmother) last year with my grade point average still intact.

About four o'clock in the afternoon there's a noise right outside our door, and by the time I get over there and open it up, there are two boxes sitting there on the floor–our Secret Santa gifts. Beth opens hers to reveal a jar of olives. She's not much more impressed by that than she was by yesterday's box of toothpicks. I avoid her eyes and mumble something about how I agree that her gifts have been really inadequate so far. Mine is another very well-wrapped empty box, which isn't so much inadequate as frustrating. There must be a good reason for it, but I can't imagine what it might be.

I had Beth drop off my gift for George earlier–it's a Frisbee today, and tomorrow it'll be a little wind-up robot that walks along your desk. I realize that's not very impressive, but at least children's toys are a theme. If nothing else, the final gift is halfway decent. I remembered that I did know at least one vaguely personal thing about him. He was very vocal in his disappointment when it came out that his favorite comic strip, Bloom County, was going to end this last summer. And completely randomly I saw a nice big stuffed Opus the Penguin doll when Beth and I were downtown yesterday. In the display he had a baseball cap on, so I bought the cap as well.

Anyway, opening our gifts seems like as good a reason as any to take a break for a little while. A little while stretches out until dinnertime, and at five-thirty I meet up with Brian for dinner. I invite Beth along, but she says she's going to skip the dining hall tonight. "You two lovebirds go have fun," she tells me as she shoos me out the door.

We have a very pleasant dinner. Well, the company and the conversation are pleasant, anyway. The actual dining, as usual, isn't quite as good. We linger there until Lardner closes at seven o'clock, and then even though it's freezing out we walk slowly around the back of the building. We go past the other three undergraduate dorms out behind Lardner and the ten-story building that's for grad student housing before we loop around and come back to the front door of Carson House. He doesn't seem to mind the cold, and with his arm around me I don't either.

He's got exams Monday and Tuesday, so I won't be seeing much of him until after physics on Wednesday. I can see in his eyes that he's thinking exactly the same thing. It hits me that this is the exact spot we stood in a week ago Saturday, after our first date, when it felt like the whole world was waiting to see what I would decide.

Right now, standing here in the same place there isn't a world at all. There's just him, and just us, and I pull him close and we kiss.

It's not until I've watched him walk back to his dorm, watched the door close behind him, that I go inside myself. I can feel goosebumps all over my body, but they've got nothing to do with the cold. "That was some show you just put on," Melody Katz calls out to me as I'm unbuttoning my coat. I guess we had an audience.

"A lady doesn't kiss and tell," I say, laughing.

Mark Bainbridge and his roommate Allan are on the couch next to Melody. Allan answers me. "No, you don't really have to, not with a performance like that!"

I'm still laughing. This is just teasing; I've known all of them for my whole time at school, I'd call all of them friends. You know what, though? It wouldn't matter to me right now if they were being mean.

Still, I feel like I ought to give a little something back. "You're one to talk, Allan. I remember you and Rita," Rita Danelo, queen of the fire alarm panel, was his girlfriend until last summer, "going at it in the produce aisle of the supermarket that time. I thought somebody was going to have to hose you two down."

I can see by the nodding of heads and the silence from Allan that I've scored a point. I think I'll leave on a high note. I wave goodbye and head upstairs to my room. I can probably get a couple more hours of studying done and still get to sleep early so I'll be ready for my exam tomorrow.

The next three days pass by in a blur. I don't have any nightmares, for which I'm very thankful. I take my Statistics for Experimenters final on Monday and I'm pretty sure I ace it. I spend Monday night and all day Tuesday working on physics.

By Tuesday night I'm pretty much going out of my mind, until Beth forces me to close my book and listen to her for five minutes. She reminds me that I did get an A minus on the first exam, way back in October before I stopped understanding anything. She adds that I've done all the homework and that as long as I just show up for the exam and write something down for each question, there's no way I can score badly enough to actually fail the class. She asks me, "Doesn't that ease your mind?"

It's a mark of how much I value her friendship that I don't dump on what she said. I don't point out that while I might not fail, if I do badly enough on the final I could end up with a D for the course. I don't add that that would look just as bad as an F on my med school applications. Instead I thank her, hug her, and tell her with as much conviction as I can muster that, "Yes, it eases my mind a lot."

Finally, Wednesday arrives. The exam is at one in the afternoon. I try to cheer myself up by telling myself that at least it's not at high noon. Beth forces me not only to walk over to Lardner for breakfast, but to put food on my tray and actually eat it. When we get back, I make sure my calculator, several pens, and the two sheets of notes we're allowed are all in my purse. Then I repeatedly go back into the purse to check that they're still there. I turn the calculator on to be sure it's working. I fret about whether I should stop by the bookstore and buy an extra battery for the calculator just in case, on my way to the exam. I think it's probably a mark of how much Beth values my friendship that she doesn't strangle me to death.

At noon, I'm sure to Beth's great relief, I start to head over to the exam. It might be the cold air calming my mind, or maybe just knowing that in three or four hours it'll all be over with, but by the time I get to the exam I feel–well, not confident, exactly. Maybe "accepting" is the best word. Whatever will happen will happen.

It's over. The exam was bad, but not nearly as awful as I imagined it would be. The hours and hours of beating my head against the wall going over and over everything did some good. I'm pretty sure I didn't merely pass but–hopefully–managed at least a C on the exam.

I walk out of the exam room and all thoughts of the test are banished; Brian's outside, waiting for me. I run to him, hug him so tightly that he winces and I know that, for me, for this minute anyway, everything is right with the world.

Close Encounters

(December 13-19, 1989)

I completely forgot that Brian's got another exam tomorrow, so I don't want to distract him tonight. He walks me home, though, keeping me warm and contented all the way. I give him a quick kiss when we get to the front door, and then, as he's turning to leave, I pull him back for a not-so-quick kiss. But then I really do have to let him go so he can get back to studying.

I also forgot about the dorm Christmas party tonight, but I'm immediately reminded when I walk in the door. Joe and Melody are stringing tinsel up all around the lounge, and there are a bunch of gifts already under the Christmas tree in the corner. I wave to them, head upstairs to drop off my coat, and return with my gift for George.

"You guys got everything under control?" I ask. I've got some free time, if they need help.

"The eggnog is in the fridge. Julie Paschal's got a bottle of rum she promised to bring down to spike it with. And Mona's going up to bring food from Hunan Coventry, so I think we're all set," Melody answers. I guess they're covered, so I go back upstairs for a much needed and well-deserved nap...

Someone's got my arm, they're shaking me–my eyes open slowly–it's Beth. "Up you get," she orders. "It's almost seven." The party. I could use another hour or ten of sleep, but I do as I'm told and get on my feet. I look down: still dressed, even my shoes are still on. I must have gone out the moment I sat on the bed.

We go downstairs, and most everyone in the dorm is there. The food's here and I help myself to a couple of egg rolls and squeeze in between Jackie and Kelly Travers on the couch. Joe Karver is playing Santa. He's by the tree handing out gifts one at a time, making sure to give the recipients enough time to open them and be either pleased or embarrassed at what they got and who they got it from.

There's a cute moment when Jackie gets her gift, a pair of tickets to the Symphony, from Fred. "Yeah, that was random," her roommate Carolyn yells out. The next gift turns out to be to Fred, and it's an autographed baseball card. From Jackie, of course.

Beth opens her bottle of gin to much ooh-ing and aah-ing. When she asks him if it was all his idea, Jim Quarters proves to be incapable of lying with a straight face, and admits that he had help. Beth doesn't need to ask who from. "We'll be opening this Friday night," she promises.

George gets handed his gift, and opens it up. He seems very pleased by his Opus the Penguin, and especially taken with the Cleveland Indians cap it's wearing. But then he looks around blankly, trying to guess whose gift it is. "There was a card!" I say, rolling my eyes at him. "Not that you need it now," I add, with a sigh. He thanks me; I have to say I did good.

Finally it comes around to me, and I'm handed a rectangular box. There's definitely something in it this time. I do open the card before tearing into the package. "Paging Dr. Barnes," the card reads, "You might find these useful in the future. Merry Christmas, Mark."

I open it up, and it's light-blue scrubs, the same kind they wear at University Hospital. "These are great!" They really are. I'm thrilled. "But what the heck was up with the empty boxes?"

Mark shrugs. "I thought they were funny. Didn't you?" No, but there's no point saying that, is there?

I'm back in my room now, and I'm not sure how I've managed to stay awake this long. The party went on until almost eleven. By popular request, I put on my scrubs and modeled them for everyone. A good time was had by all, but as soon as things started to wind down I went straight upstairs, got ready for bed and here I am, drifting off...

...Sara's in the pool, the giant Olympic-sized pool on the other side of campus, swimming laps. She wouldn't call herself a great swimmer, but she's OK in the water, and she can't figure out why she's having such trouble now. Or why the water seems to be hurting her; she feels as though she's getting paper cuts all over her body. When she opens her eyes, she sees the answer: the pool is filled, not with water, but with books. Textbooks...

...Without transition, she finds herself in the lounge of the dorm. The usual dusty purple couches are there, but where the TV should be there's nothing, not even the faded old carpet. Just open ground with rocks strewn about. There she sees two familiar faces: Allan, who'd been teasing her the other night, she remembers, and another fellow resident, Jake. Jake, Sara recalls, is now dating Rita Danelo, who had been Allan's girlfriend. They're both dressed as though they ought to be in a swashbuckler movie, and they've both got swords. When Allan raises his sword towards Jake and calls out to him, "My name is Allen Irving. You stole my girlfriend. Prepare to die," Sara knows that it's Allen's dream she's in. She also knows that it's at least partly thanks to her that he's having this particular dream...

...Sara's in a dorm room now, but whose? It's very neat, with the two twin beds pushed together to create a single makeshift queen-sized bed. She recognizes the occupants from a photo on the desk; dark-haired Julie Paschal, and her boyfriend, short, sandy-haired Glenn. Sara notices the mail on the floor by the door, and then the door opens and in walks Julie. She picks up the mail, examines it carefully. Sara knows despite never having seen it that the logo on the two clearly not identical letters is that of the American Plastics Corporation. She needs no special knowledge to guess that both Julie and Glenn have had on-campus job interviews with them. Sara watches Julie as she examines the thicker letter, addressed to her, and then the thinner one, the rejection letter, addressed to Glenn. Sara sees the conflict in Julie's eyes as she grasps the two letters in both hands as if to tear them up...

...the room vanishes, replaced by the back seat of a car. A very nice car, a Cadillac, Sara sees, as she looks out the window, watches as the car turns on to Old Tree Road, then continues on for a few more blocks. When it finally stops, Sara doesn't need to see the driver's face to know what it looks like; she doesn't need to see what's in the trunk to know what's there; doesn't need to watch to know what will happen next. She watches anyway, she can't turn away no matter how much she wants to...

I'm–where am I? In a car, out by Old Tree Road. He did it again. He–no, I'm in my room. In my bed. My left hand is aching–there are teeth marks. I can't believe I—God, I must have stuffed my hand in my mouth while I was asleep, to try and keep from screaming, so I wouldn't wake Beth up.

I guess it worked; she's sleeping soundly, not a care in the world. I look at my hand more closely. I came very close to drawing blood. It's almost funny–for a minute I'm distracted by wondering what would have happened if I had? I would have needed stitches. How would I have explained such a severe bite, obviously by a human? Would I have needed a tetanus shot? Almost funny.

But it isn't, really. Because I know what the dream meant. I know that the girl is dead for real. Another girl. Two, now. I knew it would happen again, I said it, and now it's happened. And I know there'll be more.

The tears are flowing, and it's taking every ounce of strength I have to keep quiet, to let Beth sleep. I want to scream my lungs out. I want to call Brian and have him come and rescue me, even though I'm only the witness, and the one who really needed rescuing is beyond any help now. I want this to end.

But I don't do what I want or get what I want. All I do is clutch my pillow tightly and cry silently and beg for God or someone to help me, but nobody does.

I might have drifted back to sleep for a few minutes here and there the rest of the night, but mostly I just laid there and cried. Beth is still asleep but she's starting to stir, she'll be up in a few minutes. I have to try and put the nightmare out of my mind, to be in a better state for her today. I told her I would spend as much time with her going over statistics as she needed, and I just have to keep my promise, that's all there is to it.

I take a deep breath, and another, and a third, and then I slowly sit up and even more slowly stand. I put on my slippers and my bathrobe; maybe a hot shower will clear my mind a little, get me ready to help her.

It doesn't really work. My mind is not any clearer, and it isn't eased at all. At least I'm clean, and maybe–if Beth even notices how bad I look–I can pass it off as a bad night's sleep thanks to too much eggnog. Maybe she'll even be too worried about her exam to remember that I didn't actually have any eggnog.

"Don't tell me you had another nightmare," she says when I walk back into the room. So much for making up a story. She knows me too well, and I didn't give her nearly enough credit. I should have known she wouldn't just let it pass.

She hugs me, and I hug back. If I don't break any of her ribs, it's not for lack of effort. "We don't have time for it today," I say when I–finally–let her go. "Let's get you ready for your exam. We can talk about it tomorrow. Afterwards." I gesture towards her Secret Santa gift, "We can do it over a couple of martinis. Fair enough?" I don't even like martinis, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to drink my share of them tomorrow night.

She seems doubtful, but either I look much more resolute than I feel, or she doesn't have the heart to argue with me, because after just a moment she gives in and agrees with my plan, such as it is.

As much as I had a mental block about physics, Beth has one with statistics. It's frustrating to watch, because she's this close to getting her mind around it. She just can't make that last jump to the place where it all makes sense to her. About the only thing I can say for sure we've accomplished today is keeping my mind off of the nightmare. I didn't describe it, so she doesn't know how bad it was, and I don't intend to tell her. At least, not until after she's done with her exam, and then done celebrating being done with it.

Actually, I'm not giving her enough credit again. She probably already knows. She kept looking at my hand, and even though they've faded you can still see the bite marks. I think she knows exactly what I saw and what it means, but I'm simply not going to talk about it right now.

It's dinnertime and we've been at it all day, except for a short break a couple of hours ago for her to get a snack and me to check in with Brian and see how his exam went. "I'm putting too much pressure on myself," Beth says, stepping away from her desk with a defeated expression.

"You just figured that out now, Miss Psychology Honors Student?" I get up from the desk as well. "Remember what you told me the other night? Even if I failed the final, I'd still done enough to at least pass physics anyway? You realize the same goes for you."

"I'm not taking physics," she shoots back.

"You used to be funnier. Is that the best comeback you've got?" is my reply. "Come on, let's get some food in you, maybe it'll start to make sense with a full stomach." Probably not, but anything's worth a try at this point.

We meet up with Brian at dinner. Beth looks over at me, a question in her eyes, and I answer with a quick shake of my head. Brian doesn't notice any of it. I don't want to spoil dinner–well, spoil it any more than the cooks who made it already have–so we're not talking about the nightmare now. Beth goes along with it, and we talk about how finals have been going, and Christmas plans, and a lot of other things that don't seem all that important in comparison.

The three of us walk back from dinner together, and when we get to Brian's dorm I tell Beth to go on ahead, and I'll catch up with her. Brian and I go upstairs to his room, and my hand automatically goes to lock the door behind us but I catch myself.

I want to. I need to, frankly. But if I do, I won't leave this room until morning and I promised Beth I'd stick with her as long as she wanted to keep going tonight. Now that I think about it, though, that's not really such a good plan for either of us.

She is putting too much pressure on herself and if I leave it up to her, she'll be up all night driving herself crazy. She'll get no sleep and be worse off than when we started this morning. I've got a better idea. I pick up Brian's phone and start dialing.

I call Beth's boyfriend. He's surprised to hear from me. "We're having a statistics emergency. We've been having one all day," I tell him. He's not surprised to hear that. "We're going to keep at it for a while longer, but I need you to come over and distract her. Can you do that?" He asks what I mean by "distract her," and I say, "I'll trust your judgment. Can you be over to us at nine or so? I'll head over to my boyfriend's room, and you'll have her all to yourself." Brian blushes a bit as I say it. Over the phone, Ron gladly agrees. "But no spending the night. She needs sleep. Distract her all you want, but only until midnight at the latest, OK?" He agrees; it's a plan.

I realize that I didn't even ask Brian; I just assumed he'd be fine with me coming over tonight. But looking over at him, it's obvious that he's not bothered by my failure to ask; he was hoping all along that I'd want to come over. I kiss him, much too quickly. "I'll be back at nine," I say, and I can see in his face that his answer is something along the lines of "I'll be counting the minutes."

Who was it on TV who said "I love it when a plan comes together?" Was it Mr. T, maybe? He ought to see me...

I come back to our room and Beth isn't at her desk; she's sitting on her bed looking at last Friday's edition of The Observer, the school newspaper. I was too caught up in–well, everything, I guess–to even glance at it at the time.

"Well, now we know what Dr. Walters was doing when you ran into him last week." She tosses me the paper and I quickly read the short article.

"He resigned? That's weird–you said he was on sabbatical, why would he do that?"

Beth shrugs. "The article doesn't say. But it is weird, and it's even weirder that I haven't heard anything from anybody else in the department about it. Even Ray didn't say anything about it, and he knows everybody's business. I don't know how everyone kept so quiet. They must have known he was leaving." She looks a little put out by it, which I guess makes sense. He was her academic advisor, after all, and she liked the two classes she took with him.

"It's a mystery, I guess," I say. "I'm sure the dirt will come out soon enough, though. But in the meantime..."

Beth frowns, but she knows I'm right, and we have to get back to statistics. So back to studying we go. It's slow and difficult; was I this bad before physics?

I don't want to admit it, but yes, I guess I was. Still, by nine o'clock, I think we've made–well, not a breakthrough, but at least some progress. I feel pretty safe in saying she won't completely bomb the exam, and maybe she can even scrape out a C.

Ron shows up right on time, and Beth is surprised for about two seconds, until she looks over to me and I can't keep a straight face. She doesn't even protest; she knows she's crammed as much as she can and she needs to try and relax. "I'll be going now," I say. "Remember what I told you, Ron," I remind him from the doorway. "At midnight the ball's over. She turns back into a pumpkin and you get back into your carriage and go home."

I close the door behind me, and I can hear Ron asking, "Wasn't it the carriage that turned back into a pumpkin?" and Beth answering, "Who cares! Get over here," and then I'm gone. I run down the stairs, through the lobby, across the quad over to Allen House and Brian's waiting in the lobby there to let me in.

We go upstairs, and this time I do lock the door behind us. Before Brian can say a word my coat's on the floor, I've kicked off my shoes, and I'm on him, shoving him down onto his bed. All I know is that I need him, need this, need to keep...

And then I feel the tears coming, suddenly, in a flood. Poor Brian doesn't know what to think. I get off him, and he sits up, breathing raggedly. He puts his arm around me, looking at me with both confusion and concern in his eyes.

"I–I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I've never..." of course I have, but never quite like that. I don't want to talk about it; I've been mostly keeping it locked away all day. But he knows.

"You had a nightmare," he says very gently, his face only a couple of inches from mine. "Was it like the other one, where he was in the car?" I nod; that's all I'm capable of at the moment. "You think it happened again for real." That wasn't a question; we both know exactly what happened. "And you haven't told Beth, because she needed your help today, you've been carrying it around with nobody to tell."

He pulls me very close, caresses my cheek. "You really are amazing," he says after a long time, after I've stopped crying. "I wouldn't be keeping it together half as well as you are. I don't think anybody else would be." The tears start flowing again at his words, and he doesn't say anything more, he just holds me, and we stay that way until I fall asleep.

Sara's in a dorm room, identical to her own except much neater, and with the two beds attached together to make one queen-sized bed out of two twins. There's a man sitting on the bed, a short, sandy-haired man. Glenn, from upstairs. He's reading a letter, and without seeing it, Sara knows it's from the American Plastics Corporation, inviting him for a follow-up interview, offering to fly him out at their expense. There's another letter, in a much thinner envelope on the desk, also from that company, addressed to his girlfriend, Julie. Glenn reads his letter over and over again, and then he looks over to his side of the desk, where there's a receipt from Levine and Son Fine Jewelers. He stares for a while at the receipt, then retrieves Julie's letter, takes his letter, and holds them as if to tear them both up...

...without warning, Sara finds herself somewhere else. It's a bedroom. All it takes is a moment's glance to know that it belongs to a teenaged boy, a high school boy. There's a varsity letterman's jacket draped over the back of a chair, a Remedial Algebra textbook on a desk, a poster of three bikini-clad models posing on motorcycles hanging on one wall, and dirty clothes piled halfway up the wall in the corner next to the closet. Loud music throbs through the walls; this is the biggest party of the year, Sara somehow knows.

The door opens, and a girl who, except for her long blonde hair might be Sara, is pulling someone into the room. Before she gets a good look at who it is, Sara already knows it's Brian. The girl, not-Sara, is wearing a too-tight Central North High School t-shirt and a too-short skirt, and she pulls Brian over to the unmade bed, pushes him down onto it.

Sara knows that this isn't a fantasy, this is something that happened, something Brian hasn't yet told her about. As Sara watches, the girl who isn't her is all over Brian, and at first, he appears fully involved in the proceedings, but Sara catches his eye wander over to the jacket hanging on the chair. The girl tries to recapture his attention, and almost succeeds, but Brian keeps coming back to the jacket, and Sara can feel the fear coming from him, and something more, too. She hears a voice, but it isn't coming from anyone in the scene; it's just in her head, and it says: I'm glad this didn't happen. I'm glad I waited for you...

My eyes open and I feel Brian all around me, his face is only an inch or two from mine. I'm still processing what I just saw.

"That was two years ago," he says, and he's blushing redder than I've ever seen him. He begins to tell me about it, but he doesn't have to. I know the whole story. How, though? How could I possibly know it?

"She was somebody's girlfriend, they had a fight, she was drunk, she grabbed you..." I feel like I'm describing one of my own memories instead of one of his.

He scoots back a bit from me. "She didn't actually look like you. My brain must have mashed some things together. But otherwise it happened like you saw. You're right. Her boyfriend was on the football team. A linebacker. Nasty temper. I remember thinking if he ever found out he'd rip my head off," he says, spilling the words out, and then I pick up the story. I'm not at all sure where my words are coming from.

"She was just being spiteful towards him, she didn't even know you..."

"No," Brian shakes his head. "Not really. I was just the first guy she saw who wasn't a complete mutant or too drunk to walk three steps in a straight line, and that was good enough," he says. Even though it's two years later I'm angry on his behalf. He deserved better than that.

"You didn't have a girlfriend, and you just went along." How do I know that? Not just the fact, but the feelings?

"If it wasn't for her boyfriend, if I wasn't afraid of getting killed when it got around, because it would have, right? It was high school, it totally would have. If not for that, I probably would have done it. Just to–just to have done it, to know what it was like."

I know exactly what he means. I start to tell him my version of a very similar story, but I catch myself. This is his story to tell and I have to let him, if he wants to finish it. "What you saw, that was pretty much how it went, but you didn't see the end," he says

I didn't see it, but as he says the words, the rest of the story is somehow in my memory anyway. I remember it as though I'd been there. Not just in a dream, but actually in that room two years ago. It's enough to say that nothing happened and the girl was far too drunk to remember, let alone tell anyone, what hadn't happened and why.

It explains so much, about his nerves, about how hesitant he was our first time together. But how do I know it?

It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I'll never say a word about it to him, or to anyone. "Don't," I whisper, putting my finger to his lips. I don't need to hear it, and he doesn't need to say it aloud. "It's enough that you trust me to want to tell me."

He looks both relieved and pained at the same time. I understand completely. I know what he's afraid of right now, and I would feel exactly the same. But he doesn't have to be afraid. I run my hand through his hair, and I hold his eyes with mine, not wavering an inch. "It wouldn't matter anyway. It wouldn't change how I feel about you, or what I see when I look at you. The only thing I'll take away from it is that I heard you say that you're glad you waited for me." I pull him to me, and I kiss him, and I go right on kissing him. Finally, much later, I tell him, "I'm glad, too."

And then we show each other how glad we both really are.

I wake up in Brian's bed, in his arms, and right at this moment the nightmare seems very far away. I know it won't last, but I'm going to enjoy this as long as I can. Still, I can't help thinking about the other dreams I saw last night. I know I keep saying this, but I don't want to know everyone's secrets. I don't want to see what they're preoccupied with or afraid of.

It's one thing with Brian; he knows, even though he's unconscious, that I'm there. He opened himself up to me last night in a way that's just mind-boggling. And I think that he could probably kick me out of his dreams, if he wanted to. I don't have any reason to believe that, but I know it just the same.

Everyone else, though, they don't know I'm there. I saw Glenn last night, and he's afraid he'll get a job and Julie won't. I saw her a couple of nights ago, and it was the same in reverse. It's all very "Gift of the Magi" and it really is sort of touching. And honestly, I probably could have guessed they were both worried about that without seeing their dreams. But it's still not my business, and I don't have any right to know it. It isn't fair to them, even though I have no intention of saying a word about it to anybody.

There's got to be something I can do about the dreams. I tell Brian what I'm thinking, and he doesn't have an answer. I guess I could start sleeping with a tin-foil hat, like the crazy people who believe in UFOs and mind-control beams or whatever. I'm sure my brother would be able to tell me all about that. If I had the slightest confidence it would work, I would do it, no matter how ridiculous I'd look. But of course I don't.

Neither of us have any better ideas all morning. We don't even leave the room until lunch. After a quick and totally unsatisfactory meal, Brian heads over to the library and I go back to Carson House. It's a quarter after twelve as I'm heading in the front door and Beth, completely in a world of her own, plows right into me, knocking me right on my behind.

She starts to curse me for getting in her way, before she realizes who she's yelling at. She grins in a very embarrassed way and helps me up. "I'm sorry, I was..."

"Yeah, I know," I answer. I hug her. "Good luck!" I tell her, and give her as serious a stare as I can manage. "You're going to be fine."

She shakes her head, but I keep on staring. "Listen to me. If you can't trust yourself, trust me. I say you're going to be fine. OK?" She hugs me back, hard. "I'll take that as a yes."

She lets me go, and hops down the two steps to the sidewalk. "Make sure you're here when I get back. We'll be opening that gin," she reminds me, and she's off.

Beth is as good as her word. It's five o'clock when she gets back from her exam and the bar is immediately open. She passed; she's sure of that. "It really did start to make sense," she says. "You got me through it," she says, clinking her glass to mine.

We're on to our third round before we get around to my nightmare. I read the story in the newspaper earlier today and I already knew everything in it, except the girl's name: Katie Barnett. Knowing her name makes it much, much worse.

I don't really want to talk about it but Beth wants to know and I guess I do need to tell it. It's definitely easier after a couple of very strong drinks. Beth is properly horrified, and she doesn't have any better ideas than Brian or I did about what I ought to do. I'm sure the martinis aren't helping us think clearly; it might be easier to talk about all this, but it certainly isn't more productive.

She lets me off the hook, finally, but she's still curious if I saw anybody else's dreams the last couple of nights. I flatly refuse to discuss it. She plays the "best friend" card, but I'm not having it. "I already told you way more than I should have the last time," I say.

"But we don't keep secrets!" she protests.

No, we don't. She's right. But, "They're not my secrets. If it was somebody else this was happening to, say it was Jane down the hall, would you want her telling Jessica what she saw in your head?"

She considers that. "No," she answers halfheartedly. "I guess not."

Thank God.

God–that's it. Maybe she'll understand it better that way. "Think of me like a priest taking confession. I can't tell anybody except God, right? 100% confidential."

Beth finally, if somewhat reluctantly, accepts that as an answer and drops the subject. She then pours us each another drink. We're both feeling it now, and it hits us at the same time that we've been doing this on empty stomachs. We really ought to know better.

It's ten-thirty, and the impromptu party we started is going strong. We moved down the hall from our room to the little study area in the corner between Melanie Vondreau's corner room and Tishy Mccall's large single. We brought the remainder of Beth's gin and the vermouth. Jackie popped her head in and contributed a couple of bags of potato chips. Tishy had half a bottle of rum. Melanie had a bottle of peach Schnapps and three cans of orange juice. Her roommate Marcia Goldstein stuck her head in, surveyed the scene, ran out, and came back ten minutes later with several bottles of ginger ale and three boxes of microwaveable mini bagel pizzas.

Then Jane and Jessica heard us from all the way over on the opposite corner of the floor, and they immediately went upstairs to bring Mark and Allan down, along with two bottles of vodka, another bottle of rum, some instant margarita mix and a blender.

By now, I think nearly everyone in the dorm has at least dropped in and had a drink or two. We had to open the door to the little balcony that adjoins the study area to cool things off, with so many people packed in and warming the hallway up. I've lost track of how much I've had to drink, which I don't think has happened since sometime freshman year. I'm not sure how I'm still on my feet at this point. But, you know what? This is exactly what I needed tonight.

I need aspirin. And then I need to vomit. And then I need to die. That might not be the right order.

This is why I haven't gotten drunk like that since freshman year. It was a great party. Everyone was there. Unfortunately for everyone, if the sounds I hear from the bathroom are any indication they all feel pretty much the same as I do. Beth certainly does; "death warmed over" would be about ten steps up from how she looks right now. I don't even want to imagine how I look.

I–very slowly–walk to the bathroom. I keep my eyes closed as much because I don't want to see my reflection as because the light is so painful. I stick my head in the sink, turn on the cold water and splash my face.

At some point later, I cup my hand under the tap and try to drink a mouthful of water. It takes several tries before I can manage it. I'm not sure how I keep the water down. It seems like this task takes a good half hour.

I go back to my room, find my aspirin, open it, get three pills out. It seems like this also takes a good half hour. I take the aspirin, and thankfully they go down. Maybe they'll even stay down. I slowly, carefully sit back on my bed and, an inch at a time, I get myself lying flat on my back.

I can hear the wind blowing against the window. There's a small part of my brain that knows it's just a light breeze, gently rattling the screen. But what I'm hearing right now is hurricane-force winds slamming against the window, shaking the entire building right to the foundation.

What did I tell myself last night? We really ought to know better.

I'm at Lardner, one zombie among a table full of them. The day was a complete loss. I didn't get out of bed until an hour ago. I talked briefly to Brian, who spent last night studying and then went to bed at ten o'clock. He doesn't feel like the living dead today; he was able to spend a productive day preparing for his last final on Monday. In my defense, if I had a final on Monday, I'm pretty sure–even with how I've been feeling–I wouldn't have let go like I did last night. But I don't have a final on Monday, so there.

Even with the lost day, I'm fine, schoolwork-wise. I do still have to finish my portfolio of lab reports for Advanced Organic Chemistry, but I got a lot done yesterday waiting for Beth to get out of her exam. All I've got left to do now is an hour or two of work, a quick proofread, and then print the whole thing out. I ought to be functional enough by tomorrow to do that.

As for Beth, she's here, in about the same condition I'm in, halfheartedly pushing her food around her plate just like everyone else is. She's got an early flight home tomorrow, back to Cincinnati. She already asked me to make her get to bed by nine o'clock, and somehow I don't think she's going to be fighting me on that.

When we're done not eating, a group of us walk back to the dorm together. I think we've all got the same thought–if we walked back alone, we might slip and fall and not be able to get up and then we'd die of exposure. Beth is hanging onto my arm, which is probably a mistake because I don't feel any steadier than she does. But we make it back to Carson House in one piece, we don't lose anybody.

As I collapse onto the couch in the lounge, I feel stupidly proud of myself for surviving the trip to the dining hall and back, as though I've just returned from an expedition to climb Mount Everest or something. I'm not the only one; Mark Bainbridge plops down next to me, laughs weakly, and says "Does anybody else feel like they've been to Antarctica and back?"

"I was thinking the North Pole," Kelly Travers pipes up from across the room. Just about everyone mumbles in agreement. Well, we may all look and feel like crap, but at least we lived to tell the tale.

It's Sunday night, and I'm sitting in the lounge watching TV. Brian's studying, still. I'd be spending the night with him, but I don't want to risk having a nightmare and waking him up in the middle of the night, messing him up before his exam tomorrow morning. I'm lost in my own little world. I'm not even sure what I'm watching on TV when there's a tap on my shoulder. John's standing behind me. "Did your roommate leave already? I knocked on your door and she wasn't there," he says when I turn to face him.

"Yeah, she flew home this morning. What's up?" I've got a good guess.

He's not quite smiling, but he is standing straighter than he normally does. "I wanted to thank her. For telling me about Diana." I was right. I catch myself from blurting out that he's thanking the wrong person.

"Really?" is what I say instead.

"She was right about her." I was right about her.

"And?"

He walks around, sits down on the couch. "We sat together at the movie last Friday. And we walked back together, just by ourselves. And," his eyes don't quite meet mine, "that's it."

"No, it's not," I say. A couple of weeks ago, I don't think I would have realized that, and I definitely wouldn't have said anything about it.

"Well, OK, I kissed her," he says, and now he is looking at me again, "But that was it. Seriously."

He leaves out the "so far," but I can see it's there. Well, good for him. Good for Diana. And I guess good for me. I still don't want to see anybody else's dreams, but I am glad to know that something positive has come from them.

Later, we're still in the lobby when Diana comes in, and after she pulls down the hood of her parka and takes off her woolen hat she smiles at John as she walks past. She also casually but very deliberately runs her hand up his arm as she does. Seeing that, I can honestly say that Beth was right. I do feel more like a matchmaker than a pimp, and that's definitely a good thing.

Monday night. I'm in Brian's room, sitting next to him on the bed, staring across at the spare bed that's just wastefully taking up space. "Why haven't you gotten rid of it?" I ask. Then out of nowhere Glenn and Julie come to mind, the way they put their two beds together.

Or maybe it's not out of nowhere that they come to mind. What was I thinking about them the other day? They might as well already be married. And I saw Glenn dreaming about an engagement ring. Was there a reason my brain picked up on that particular dream?

I take a deep breath. That can't be it. I've known Brian for a grand total of seventeen days. I'm just being silly. Right?

"Sara?" I must have been lost in thought for a while; Brian looks worried.

"I'm fine. I was just..." I can't tell him what I was really thinking, can I? It's too much, too soon. "I was just thinking, if you don't want to get rid of the extra bed, you could put it together with yours and we'd..." There I go again. I really did mean to say "you" instead of "we." But "we" is better, and I'm not sorry I said it. And Brian didn't even blush anyway; he obviously agrees. "Well, there'd be twice the room. I think it's a good idea."

"I thought about it," he says, but then he lowers his head a bit as he goes on, "I–there's a reason I haven't. But it's stupid. You'll laugh."

I take his hand. "No. Just tell me."

"It is stupid," he insists. "I've been afraid to do it. I feel like, the minute I did it they'd replace my roommate. They'd know I was pushing my luck, and they'd have somebody new in here five minutes later."

I do laugh, but not because it's stupid. Well, actually, it is. But it's also exactly what I might think in his place. "Can we call it superstitious instead of stupid? Because I'd kind of feel the same way if it was me."

He's not totally convinced, but he lets it go. "Great minds think alike?" he finally says.

"Something like that," I answer, leaning over to kiss him, and then there's nothing else either of us need to say.

A buzzing sound stirs me awake. An alarm. Brian's alarm clock. But he's not in the bed with me. He's sitting on the spare bed, already dressed, watching me. He was watching me sleep. That's one of those things that could either be creepy or incredibly romantic, and here, now, I vote for romantic.

"How long have you been up?" I mumble, yawning and stretching.

"A couple of hours. I slept like a log. How about you?"

I did, too. No nightmare, nobody else's dreams either, as far as I can remember. Just good, solid uninterrupted sleep. I look at his clock. It's eight o'clock. His flight is at–when was it? Ten-thirty. "Fine. Really great. But I have to get dressed, we have to get you to the airport."

I throw my clothes on and I know I must look like a complete mess; clothes wrinkled, hair all over the place, but there's nothing to do about it. Luckily, he's ready to go. His bags are all packed; his ticket is already in the pocket of his coat, everything in its place. And so we're off.

When Beth left on Sunday, I only walked her over to the train station and helped her up the stairs with her luggage. We hugged, and she reminded me that she was leaving Tuesday–today–on a Christmas ski vacation with her oldest sister, so she'd be out of touch until after New Year's, and then she was off.

But for Brian I get on the train with him, all the way to the airport. I go through the X-ray machine and stay with him all the way to the gate. I curse myself for not changing my ticket so I could be on the same flight with him–we're both flying into Philadelphia, after all. I guess that's what I get for booking my flight too early.

So this is goodbye, for now. Who knows when or if we'll be able to get together during the holiday? I am pretty sure we won't be able to get together the way we were together last night until we're back at school in January. I can't believe I've known him less than three weeks; it feels like I've known him my whole life, and, yes, I do know how that sounds.

Anyway. We're at the gate, and they start boarding his flight. I throw my arms around his neck, and I kiss him. I put everything I'm feeling into it. He does, too. It feels like the moment in one of those old movies where the girl is sending her guy off to war, and she kisses him like she knows it might be for the last time.

They call his row, and he breaks the kiss. He heads for the jetway, but he's looking back at me the whole time. I stand there, exactly in that spot, until his plane is in the air and out of sight.

I can only imagine what Beth would think of all that. She'd say that it proves I really am a hopeless romantic. Maybe even a world-class hopeless romantic. You know what? She's absolutely right. And I don't care one bit.

Family Ties

(December 20-23, 1989)

I wish I could say I'm surprised, but honestly, I'm not. I'm barely off the plane before I have my first argument with my brother. It's a new argument, at least, not one of the usual ones, but I'm sure we'll hit all the old favorites before too long.

Bob just got his full unrestricted driver's license two months ago, and he came out to the airport to pick me up, which I honestly do appreciate. I suppose I could give him some credit and assume that his skills have improved since the summer, but–no. I don't feel quite that generous. Or lucky.

"No, Robert, you're not driving. What part of that do you not understand?" I only just noticed, I do the same thing that my parents do–when I'm annoyed with him, I call him Robert instead of Bob. I'm sure I've been doing it for years, but this is the first time I've ever been conscious of it. At least I never use his full name. When Mom or Dad were really angry at me, that's what I'd hear. "Sara Katarina Barnes, come downstairs this instant!" is usually how it went.

"Like you're so much better," is his witty reply.

"Well, yes." The truth hurts sometimes. "You remember, I'm the one who mostly taught you, and I remember exactly how well you did. I'm not getting in the car with you driving, simple as that."

"Yeah, and since you're the oldest, what you say goes, is that it?" He makes a face.

"I hate to pull rank," I say, but obviously that's a lie. I do it all the time with him. It might be a crummy way to treat my little brother, but it does have one advantage–it usually works. "Basically, yes. I'm the oldest, and I said so."

He grumbles while we walk to get my bags and he grumbles while we go out to the car, and he grumbles all the way home, except for asking me if Beth will be visiting for a few days like she did over the summer. It's funny, that was the first time in his life he ever called himself Robert. I assume he thought it sounded more grown-up and mature, for all the good it did him. At least Beth was nice about it. She didn't torment him too much, even though he gave her every opportunity to.

I actually do almost feel vaguely bad about dashing his unattainable adolescent fantasies concerning my roommate, but she won't be visiting for the holiday. Once I break the bad news he resumes the grumbling, and he keeps it up all the way home. When we finally get there, I park the car, and Bob's out the door and on the way up to his room to do whatever it is that he does in there before I've even turned the engine off.

I bring my bags up to my bedroom, and then I head for the kitchen, fix myself a sandwich, settle down and wait for Mom to get back from the vet with Lumpy.

Even though I've been away at school for the last two and a half years, Lumpy is still definitely my dog. Mom and Dad gave him to me when I was twelve–he was my big Christmas present that year. It was a huge surprise. I'd always wanted a dog, as far back as I can remember. Right after my brother was born, the day Mom and Dad brought him home from the hospital, I have a very clear memory of asking if we could take him back and exchange him for a puppy, because a puppy would be much more fun to play with. I kept pestering my parents for a while but I'd pretty much given up hope, and then that Christmas morning there was a huge box under the tree. It was shaking and there were yelps coming from inside it. I opened it up and there he was–a beautiful golden retriever puppy.

He didn't have a name at first. Dad told me that since he was my dog, it was my responsibility to name him. I couldn't think of anything right away and obviously naming him was a really important job–who knows how he'd turn out if I gave him a bad name? It took almost a week, and how he finally got the name Lumpy is, he liked sleeping in my bed during the day when I was at school. When I came home, he'd still be there and I thought to myself that with him there the bed looked all lumpy, and there it was, that was the perfect name for him.

Everyone else thinks it's an appropriate name because he sits around a lot and doesn't do all that much and they think he isn't very smart, but they're wrong. He's definitely smart–he understands everything I say to him, and he does whatever I tell him to do and he plays with me all the time when I'm home. I think the reason he doesn't respond as well to anyone else is that he can tell they don't love him the way I do. At any rate, it's an hour later when they finally get home. I hear the car coming up the driveway, and I run out to meet them. I hug Mom, and I go and let Lumpy out of the car.

Just like always when I come home, he's happy to see me. He jumps on me, he licks my face, he wags his tail frantically. He doesn't do that for anyone else. And I have to tell him how wonderful he is, "Lumpy, you're such a good boy! Yes, you are!" and so on. After a couple of minutes of that, he finally calms down enough that we can all go inside. "What did the vet say? How is he?"

Mom answers, "He's fine, honey. We have to give him the new worm pills and they recommended we try this new food for him, but he's perfectly healthy otherwise." Mom told me a couple of weeks ago that he wasn't eating as much as usual, and he'd mostly stopped barking at the squirrels outside. So I was concerned about him.

"Good. You had me a little scared." I notice that Mom seems a bit distracted; whenever I come home from school she usually spends ten minutes hovering over me, telling me how much she missed me and all of that. But not today. Once the subject of Lumpy is done, Mom moves on to the question of holiday plans and I learn why she's not her usual self.

She's got a surprise for me. Apparently, she got a phone call last night from someone called Helen Alderson. It takes me a minute to process that. Alderson is Brian's last name–Helen must be his mother. Mom tells me that she called to invite all of us to dinner on Christmas Eve. Mom patiently explains to me how very confused she was; she had no idea why some strange woman was inviting her family to dinner. It took her a while to realize what was going on. It wasn't "some strange woman," it was my boyfriend's mother. Obviously, it didn't help that I haven't mentioned Brian to my parents yet.

The truth is, I haven't mentioned him because he's all wrapped up with the nightmares. I still haven't decided what–if anything–I want to tell them about that. It's not that I don't think they'll believe me; it's just that I can't imagine what good could come of it.

And I am a little bit afraid of what they'll think about how fast things have moved with me and Brian, and how hard I've fallen for him. Probably because I have moments where I'm a little afraid of how fast things have moved, too. Even though I've been the fast one.

Maybe especially because of that.

Anyway, I tell her about Brian. I give her a heavily-edited version of the story. I leave out any mention of dreams or nightmares at all; I tell her we met at the nightclub, something about him caught my eye, and we hit it off immediately. I tell her that Brian's a freshman, he's two years younger than me, that he hasn't had a real girlfriend before and I'm the one setting the pace on, well, everything. I tell her how thoughtful and kind he's been to me, how I've been feeling very stressed out with final exams and thinking about the MCATs in the spring and how he's helped me so much.

As we talk, I can see her relaxing a little on the whole subject; I'm not sure how good a job I'm doing convincing her about Brian–I think it's more that she's putting herself in my shoes remembering times when maybe she didn't tell her parents right away when she had a new boyfriend.

She also knows I'm not telling her everything. I can see in her eyes that she has a very clear idea of what I'm leaving out–and obviously the dreams aren't the only thing I'm editing when I talk about Brian. I can also see that she's perfectly happy not to hear the things she thinks I'm leaving out. I'm glad we agree about that, anyway!

I was able to sleep peacefully all night long. Maybe it was just being in my own familiar bed at home, or being a couple of hundred miles away from the people whose dreams I've been seeing. I don't know, and as long as it keeps up I don't really care why.

I take my time getting around in the morning; the house is very quiet. Thankfully, Bob's still in school most of this week, so I don't have to fight with him about who gets to use the car today. Not that it would be much of a fight anyway, but it's easier if I don't have to argue with him over every little thing.

I need the car today because I'm meeting Aunt Kat for lunch. I find what seems like one of the very last parking spaces at the mall, and I make my way over to the restaurant. It's precisely 12:05 PM according to my watch, and since we were supposed to meet at noon, Kat's probably already been here for twenty minutes. I wander into the restaurant and I spot her right away.

There's the obligatory hug and kiss on the cheek, of course, followed by a little bit of small talk before we get to the important stuff. I see that she's got a bottle of wine on the table already–I'm sure Mom's talked to her and given her instructions to find out more information about Brian.

Aunt Kat–Katarina Wells to be exact–isn't actually a blood relative. What she is, is my mother's best friend, my godmother, and also one of the very few people in my life who I can tell absolutely anything to. There's Beth, and now there's Brian, and there's always been Aunt Kat. My whole life I've gone to her first for advice, before any of my friends and definitely before my parents. And she's always, always, always been there for me.

The thing about her isn't just that she's there for me, but she's there with exactly the right thing to say. Like the night I lost my virginity. It was awful, I've said that before. When it was over Richard drove me home, and I managed not to go all hysterical until I got out of the car and he was gone. But between the driveway and the front door, I totally lost it.

Aunt Kat just happened to be over at our house; she was sitting with Mom in the living room having coffee. I opened the door, took one step in, and I think they both knew more or less what happened as soon as they saw me. I was a complete disaster: clothes all wrinkled, hair a mess, crying uncontrollably.

They sat me down on the couch, got me a big glass of water, and I told them everything that had happened. Any other time, I wouldn't have told Mom any of it, but at the moment I wasn't thinking rationally, if you could call it thinking at all. I'm sure she was surprised, disappointed, upset, take your pick, but she didn't say anything about that, she just comforted me and held me and told me it was going to be all right.

Kat did the same thing for a little while, and then she took me upstairs to my room. She sat next to me on my bed, and then proceeded to tell me how disappointed she was in me.

Not because I had sex, not because I was stupid or careless or anything like that. She was disappointed, she said, because I didn't listen to my instincts. I'd told her a couple of weeks before that I was having some doubts about Richard. I couldn't say why, there weren't any tangible reasons, just a gut feeling.

That's something Kat always said, for as long as I can remember: always trust my feelings. And I completely ignored them; she was absolutely right about that. We talked all night about it, and by morning I was feeling much better.

I just realized that, to the casual observer, I must sound like quite the fragile little mess. Always crying and screaming and running to the nearest available help when anything bad happens. I don't think that's really fair, though. The whole thing with Richard, for example. I was seventeen, I thought I was in love, and I was pretty delusional about him. So what? Who isn't, at that age? Looking back it's easy to say, "what did you expect from him?" and looking back of course I was crazy to imagine it could have been anything like my romantic fantasies. But that's the whole point: at the time, you don't know–at least I didn't. I made a mistake. I trusted when I shouldn't have and said yes when I should have said no. I don't think I'm the first girl in history to do that.

And of course, I was horribly upset and I thought the world was going to end, or at least my little piece of it, because that's how everything feels when it's happening to you. I still feel bad about it, because I was so stupid, but I learned from the whole experience so it wasn't a total loss in the end. And as for running for help, isn't that what your friends and family are for?

With these stupid nightmares, well, I won't apologize for freaking out about them. I'd like to see what anybody else who starts seeing psychic visions of a serial killer would do. I don't think there's an instructional pamphlet for that anywhere.

I've gotten a bit off track here, I suppose. The original point was that Aunt Kat's probably the person I trust more than anyone else, and we're about to get to talking about what's been going on with me recently. I go through the whole story–well, the most important parts, anyway–and she's surprised, frightened and appalled by turns. I tell her about the dreams, about the articles in the newspaper, all of it.

"Do you believe me?" I ask her when I'm finally done with it.

She answers immediately. "Yes." Then she stops to think for a minute. "Of course, I believe you. Your brother, if he told me something like this, I'd think it was just one of his strange little things, some sort of odd fantasy. But you, no. I know you're telling me something true." She sort-of frowns. "Or at least something you believe is true."

I don't say anything. I had this exact same conversation with Dr. Ritter and I don't want to explain myself all over again. I want her to accept it at face value, but I guess that isn't reasonable. Would I accept it at face value from someone else? Probably not.

"You have to admit, what you told me is pretty far out there, Sara," Kat finally says, more because one of us has to say something to fill the silence than anything else, and it clearly wasn't going to be me. "Like I said, I do believe you, but it's pretty hard to wrap my mind around it."

"I know." I wish I didn't, but, boy do I know. "I've tried to think about it logically. I mean, I'm going to be a doctor. I'm training to be a scientist. I know how things work, physically. This–this doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit anything I know, or anything I've read. It shouldn't be happening. This isn't how people's brains work." That all sounds great, and it's all true, but my brain doesn't seem to know that.

Kat empties her glass of wine before she answers me. "That doesn't matter, Sara." She pours herself another glass. "Should and shouldn't don't matter. Sense doesn't matter. What matters is that it's happening, and you have to figure out how to cope with it. And it's all on you because it's in your head, nobody else's."

She's absolutely right. When I close my eyes, when I'm asleep, I'm alone. Whether I'm at home and Mom and Dad are just down the hall, or I'm in the dorm and Beth is six feet away, or I'm with Brian and I'm in his arms, I'm still alone inside my head. Nobody can make the nightmares stop, nobody can turn off whatever switch got flipped in my brain that's making me see them.

But I notice that she looked away from me for a moment there. She didn't say anything about the fact that what I'm seeing in the nightmares is really happening out in the world. That two girls have died already. That I'm the only one who knows what's really going on. She still won't look me in the eye. She's waiting for me to say something about it, because she can't bring herself to. Well, neither can I.

She's known me my whole life, and this is the first time she's ever held back on me. It's also the first time I'm glad she did. She finishes her second glass of wine in one gulp, and pours a third. She looks back at me, and for a long time, neither of us says anything. Finally she can't stand it anymore and she asks me, "So tell me more about your boyfriend?" and I'm more relieved than I can say that she's changing the subject.

Just like that, it's Friday–another night without nightmares, too!—and Christmas is three days away. After lunch with Kat, I was able to get most of my shopping done. There's just one person I don't have something for, but he's the most important one of all and I've been having no luck thinking of the right gift.

We've only known each other for three weeks. There's so much I don't know about Brian, and I want my first Christmas gift for him to be special, something he'll always remember. I've been getting more and more worried that I won't be able to think of anything.

But last night I found inspiration–in the sports section of the newspaper of all places. There was an ad for a big memorabilia show today, in Philadelphia, at the Spectrum. There'll be pro athletes there, players from the Phillies and Eagles and Flyers, signing photos and all that sort of thing. Brian's not the biggest sports fan in the world, but he does follow them, and of all the local teams, he follows the Phillies the most. And he's got something in common with my father–they both have the same favorite player, Mike Schmidt, who just retired this past season. And who, conveniently enough, will be at the show.

So I decided to take the car and go there, and wait in line however long it takes, and get Mike Schmidt's autograph for Brian. He'll love it. He has to, right?

I was going to try to get one for Dad as well, but he saw the ad too, and since he's off from work today he was thinking of going himself. So we'll go together, just me and Dad. My brother couldn't care less about sports, and Mom wasn't interested in waiting in line for hours.

Right after breakfast we get in the car and Dad is as excited as I think I've ever seen him. He's a huge sports fan. I remember back in 1980, when the Phillies won the World Series. They had a victory parade the day after, and Dad took off from work. He kept Bob and me home from school, and he dragged Mom along too. We all went to Philadelphia and spent the day watching the parade. The whole time he was weeping, tears of joy, literally all day long. It's the only time in my life I've ever seen my father cry.

The entire ride up, Dad is reminiscing about that, going on and on how he can't believe he's going to actually get to stand two feet away from "Mr. Schmidt" and maybe even–perish the thought! –shake his hand.

It's a very long ride.

We finally get there, park the car, and Dad goes to the trunk, opens it up and pulls out a box. He takes out his official replica Phillies uniform and puts it on, and then he hands me a Phillies cap to wear. Now that we're properly outfitted, we start walking into the arena. I've only ever been here once before, to see the circus, and in my opinion this is kind of a circus all its own. Most of the people around us are wearing jerseys for the Phillies, or the Eagles or one of our other teams. And most of them have this distant sort of look, just like my father does now. As though they're on a pilgrimage or something. All I want is a nice Christmas gift for my boyfriend.

For the two hours we wait in line, Dad acts like the people waiting all around us are long-lost relatives. They're rehashing every play from the World Series. It's amazing. Most of them, my Dad included, start to get less talkative and more nervous as they get close to the front of the line.

Finally, we arrive. There's a table piled high with photos of Mike Schmidt in action and behind the table, the man himself. My first impression is that he seems smaller in real life than he looked when he was playing. And it's weird to see him in a suit instead of his uniform. But it's definitely him.

He looks at Dad, waiting for him to say something, but in the presence of his hero my father has lost the power of speech. I forcibly grab Dad's arm and shove it towards Mike Schmidt, and Schmidt dutifully shakes it. "You're his idol, sir," I say for him, and it's obvious from Schmidt's bemused expression that this is far from the first time today he's encountered a scene like this.

"Who do I make it out to?" he asks, taking a photo from a stack on the table by him.

"Could I have two? One is for my Dad here. Howard Barnes," I answer, and the great man quickly signs a photo of himself. "The other one, it's for my boyfriend, I wanted him to have something really special for our first Christmas together," I babble, and then realize I haven't said his name. "It's Brian, please," and he signs a second picture while the people behind us in line glare at me for wasting so much time. I grab the pictures, mumble "Thank you, sir," and drag Dad away.

He recovers his wits a few minutes later, and we wander around the show some more. He gets a couple more autographs, and then we–finally!—head out of the arena. When we're back at the car he carefully and reverently takes off his replica uniform, folds it neatly and puts it back in its box along with my Phillies cap, and then we're off.

We stop at McDonalds for a quick bite on the way home, and we just sit for a few minutes after we've eaten. Dad is staring longingly at his autograph. "This is beautiful," he says, a faraway look in his eye. I look at Brian's gift. Mike Schmidt signed it, "Brian–Go get 'em, slugger!–Mike Schmidt, #20."

He's going to love it. How could he not? I just stare at the words, picturing Brian opening up his gift, imagining his reaction, feeling him holding me, kissing me...

There's a sound, my Dad clearing his throat, and I'm back in the here and now. He looks at the picture in my hand, and then, with a very odd expression on his face he wags his finger at me. "I think I need to meet your young man."

"You're going to, Dad. On Sunday." What's going on?

He's still got that expression. He's looking at me as though he's noticing something he's never seen before. "I see so much of your mother in you. I don't think you realize how like her you are," he says, finally.

I do, actually. I look a lot like her. I've seen pictures of her when she was young, and if you didn't know it you might think you were looking at me. I start to say that, but he shakes his head.

"It's not just that you look like her," he says, reading my mind. "It's–well, I was watching you just now. I saw how your eyes lit up when you were thinking about your Brian." How long was I staring at that picture?

"Nobody else has eyes like yours. Nobody else's are that bright. Nobody else's light up the way yours did just now. Except..." and now he chokes up a bit, and he has to have some water before he can go on, "Nobody except your mother. How you looked just now, that's how she looks sometimes, when she's looking at me."

Oh.

Oh, my.

I didn't expect that. "Um–I–I don't know–Dad, I'm not sure what..." As I'm babbling, it hits me. I've heard this before. From Brian, the night we met, at the club. He said something very similar to me, and suddenly I'm feeling dizzy, and warm. I have to hold on to the edge of the table to steady myself.

"I saw it, honey," he says with a gentle smile. "I see it right now. You're done for. This Brian, he's in your heart. You can't hide that, and you can't fake it, either."

I can't believe I'm having this conversation with my father. But he's right. Brian's in my heart, that's exactly how it is. There's no point pretending it's not true. And it's such a relief to have someone really and truly get what I'm feeling. Even if it is Dad.

"Can I ask you something?" My voice is very small and very far away. I still need to hang on to the table for support.

"Always. Anything. You know that," he says.

I already know the answer, but I want to hear it anyway. I let go of the table and my hands are shaking. "Sometimes when I look at him, when I look into his eyes, I mean really look into them, and he catches mine, it's like everything else just disappears. Like we're the only two people in the whole world. Even if we're in a crowd, or at the movies or wherever. Isis it like that with you and Mom?"

He reaches across the table, takes my hands in his. "Boy, you do have it bad. Worst case I ever saw. Or the second-worst, anyway." He lets go of my hands. "It was. It was exactly like that."

"Was?" What does that mean? Why not "is?" That's not what I was expecting to hear at all! Dad reads my mind again. "I can tell you the exact day that it stopped being like that. October 12th, 1968."

Wait. October 12th. That's my...

"What? I don't understand. October 12th is my birthday. 1968, that's when I was born. I don't..."

He rolls his eyes, laughs. "For a girl who's got a 3.7 grade average in pre-med, you're pretty slow on the uptake." I still have no idea what he means. "Before we had you, it was just how you said it. When we were together, when everything was right, there was nobody else in the world but us. And I know it was the same for her."

He has to take another big gulp of water before he can go on. "But from the minute we first saw you–perfect beautiful little you–after that, I couldn't ever imagine the whole world disappearing. Because if it did, then you'd disappear too. And I never want to imagine a single minute without you in it. If you ask your mother, she'll tell you exactly the same."

I feel tears running down my cheeks as he says that, and I'm out of my chair and hugging him. I can't get any words to come out, but they're not necessary.

We don't talk much on the ride home. We're both lost in thought. When Dad parks the car, Mom is there, opening the front door, and she starts to ask how our day went. I don't give her the chance to talk; I run to her and throw my arms around her, and I hold on tight. I don't let go until she makes a sad little moan and wheezes, "Sara, honey, I can't breathe!"

I let her go, and she grabs my arms, stares hard at me. "What happened to you today?" I don't say anything right away, I'm concentrating on not crying again, but it's difficult. I feel a single tear roll down my cheek, but then I'm able to get control of myself. I'm just looking into her eyes, trying to see what Dad was talking about, trying to see in her what he saw in me today.

"I love you, Mom. That's all. I just wanted to make sure you knew." I can see it. It's there. It's always been there, I just never paid enough attention to really notice it in her before. "You do know, right?"

Now she hugs me back, just as tightly as I did a minute ago. "Oh, Sara. I know. Of course I know!" Out of the corner of my eye I see my father, standing by the car, and I don't think I've ever seen an expression quite so full of contentment as he's got right now. He watches me and Mom for a while, then, just when we let each other go, he comes up and grabs the both of us. We're there for what seems like a long time, holding each other and not noticing the cold at all.

Finally, after what might have been a couple of minutes or maybe an hour, I've lost all sense of time, Dad lets us go. He asks Mom, "Is Bob upstairs?" and she nods. "Sara, go get your brother. We're all going out to dinner. My beautiful family deserves a treat tonight."

It is a treat, too. Dad takes us to his favorite not-quite-fancy Italian place, he orders wine for everyone–even Bob is allowed half a glass.

I have to admit, it feels very strange to be drinking wine, like an actual adult, with my parents. When I'm at school, obviously, I don't have these thoughts. I'm twenty-one years old. I'm in charge of my life, making real, important choices. I'm working hard, making serious progress on as adult a goal as I can think of. I'm in a real, serious relationship with a man I love. Then of course there are the damned nightmares, and the fact that I'm still even close to being in one piece after several weeks of them qualifies me as a functioning grown-up for sure.

Still, something happens to me when I come home from school, even now, even though rationally I should know better. It's not that Mom and Dad do anything, really, to make me feel that way–it's pretty much all in my head.

I realize that partly it's just the fact of sleeping in the same bed I've slept in since I was in kindergarten, and looking at the picture of Kermit the Frog that's been on my wall since 1977 or so as I fall asleep. Everywhere I look in my bedroom there's a reminder of my childhood. Especially the poor ratty, dog-chewed stuffed rabbit that's sitting on my bed right now. Good old Mister Pennington.

But right now, my father is looking at me very differently. He's been ever since lunch and I just now realized that's why. I guess he was right, when he said I'm slow on the uptake. What it is, is he's seeing me as really and truly an adult for the first time. Well, if he thinks I am, I certainly ought to be able to believe it myself.

I get more proof when we get home. Mom and Dad don't know it, but I learned years ago, when the conditions are just right and the heating vents in their room and my room are both open but the heat isn't actually blowing in either room, I can hear them quite clearly.

What I hear tonight, as they're getting ready for bed, is Dad telling Mom about his day with me. Then he tells her that he's thinking about putting off the big kitchen renovation they've been planning for the last year. He wants to save the money for something much more important that he thinks might be coming a lot sooner than he expected.

My wedding.

I don't know what to say to that.

I'm willing to bet that Mom and I have exactly the same expression on our faces right now, and that we both just went precisely the same shade of white. I don't know how I keep from fainting at the shock of hearing those words.

There's only one reasonable thing to do then. I jump out of bed and over to the thermostat, crank the heat as high as it will go and with the blast of hot air out of the vent, the voices of my parents are gone. I lay back down on my bed, grab Mister Pennington to me in a death grip, and try to put my father's crazy words out of my mind and fall asleep.

Two hours later I'm still clutching Mister Pennington, and Lumpy is snoring at the foot of the bed. I'm finally just now drifting off to sleep. The last thing that goes through my mind before I'm out is that, maybe, my father's crazy words might not be quite so crazy after all.

A Christmas Story

(December 23-25, 1989)

I wake up thinking of the color white. All I can figure is that I must have been dreaming about–well, what I overheard my father say last night. I can't remember precisely what was going on in the dream, but it's really not that hard to guess.

It seems unfair that I have to see everyone else's dreams whether I want to or not, but I have so much trouble remembering my own. I still haven't had any of those dreams since I've been home. I'm sure I'm not lucky enough to be done with them, but I am very grateful that I'm not seeing what Bob or my parents are dreaming about. I don't think I could handle that.

Speaking of Bob, when he sees me walk past his room on the way to the bathroom, he sits up on his bed, snorts, and starts humming "Here Comes the Bride." I freeze in my tracks. I'm completely at a loss–why would he be doing that? How could he know what I was dreaming about? He isn't having the dreams too?

I'm looking at him in total shock, and he's looking back at me like I'm from Mars. "What?" I growl at him.

He shakes his head in mock sadness. "You're not the only one who knows about the heating vents," he tells me. "Give me a little credit." Well, that's a relief. Sort of. I'm glad he's not having the same dreams I am–although I guess it would make sense in a way if he was. It would definitely be a genetic thing, then, something inherited. It would even–in a way–be comforting somehow to know I'm not the only one going through this. But on the other hand I wouldn't wish it on anybody, even my little brother.

Of course, now I'm wondering how long he's known about the vents.

At eight o'clock, Dad calls everyone into the living room. He's got the fire going nicely. The pizza he ordered got here a couple of minutes ago. And the VCR is warmed up with the annual triple-feature: Charlie Brown, the Grinch and then Year Without a Santa Claus. This is one thing Bob and I do agree 100% on–it wouldn't be Christmas without them.

It's a perfect evening. We watch Charlie Brown pick out his sad, scrawny little tree and learn the true meaning of Christmas; we watch the Grinch plot and scheme and then have his epiphany; we watch Heat Miser and Snow Miser do their big musical numbers, which is my favorite part from any of the shows.

Afterwards, we all drink hot chocolate and, following longstanding family tradition, we each open one small present. Dad makes out the best; his gift is from Mom, and it's a book-on-tape for the car. It's one of those Robert Ludlum spy novels he likes so much. Bob's is the most oddly appropriate, from me: a Crewe University t-shirt. Mom's isn't too bad, a woolen hat that Bob picked out for her. And I think mine is the most sentimental: Mom had a great picture of Beth and me at the beach last summer that she put into a cute little frame for me.

We won't open the rest of the gifts until Christmas morning, but it's nice to get just the one early. And now that we've done everything according to tradition, it's time for bed. It's going to be a big day tomorrow.

Sara is in a window seat, looking out over the wing of the plane. She's barely awake, watching the clouds fly by, looking forward to seeing her family, but missing Brian and wondering if she'll be able to see him over Christmas.

There's a sudden jolt; it must be turbulence, she thinks. Perfectly normal. Then another, and another and then the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign comes on. Sara wonders why there's no murmuring from any of the other passengers, until she looks around and sees that there aren't any. No flight attendants, either. The plane bucks up and down, and there are no announcements, no anything.

She unbuckles her seatbelt, and, hanging on to seats for balance as she goes, she makes her way up the aisle towards the cockpit. She can see all the way up there; the curtain that separates First Class from Coach is drawn aside, and the door to the cockpit is wide open.

As far as she can tell from her vantage point, there's nobody up there, either. She continues on, barely keeping her feet, until she's at the door and she can see there is no pilot, no co-pilot, no anybody. Apparently, she's all alone on the plane, all by herself at 35,000 feet.

It makes perfect sense to Sara that she should sit herself down in the pilot's seat and put on the headset. It doesn't seem odd to her that when the radio crackles to life, it's Beth's voice she hears. Sara asks for instructions, advice, directions, but over the radio Beth has nothing helpful to tell her. "You've got to land that plane on your own!" is Beth's last word before her voice dissolves into static...

...she's still sitting, still looking out a window, but now Sara is in the back seat of a car. She runs her hands over the leather seats; she feels the warm air blowing from the heater. The car is very familiar, as though she's been in it before, and the driver is familiar as well–even only seeing the back of his head, she knows she's encountered him before. Outside the window, she recognizes the athletic complex on the South side of campus, and now the car's turning and then at the next block turning again. She follows the driver's head, knowing somehow that his attention is focused completely on the bus stop on East 107th street. Sara sees two people there, and she knows that the driver only expects, or wants, to see one.

She knows which of the two it is. She's a pretty girl with black hair, about Sara's own height or maybe an inch shorter, slim, no coat despite the cold outside, just a school sweatshirt. She's jogging in place to keep warm, and then she's past. Sara thinks she knows the girl, but she's not sure. The car makes the block again, and again the girl isn't alone, and the driver speeds past. Sara still can't be sure about the girl. The third time past, finally, she's alone, and the driver slows. Sara stares hard, not believing what she's seeing, not wanting to believe it...

I can't breathe. My eyes are open, but I can't see through my tears and I can't breathe. I'm coughing, my throat is all scratchy, I'm trying to get something up. I spit out–I don't even know what, something disgusting. I keep coughing, and finally with one very painful effort, the rest of it, whatever it is, comes up.

I can't see what it is, I can't really see anything. I try to wipe the tears out of my eyes, try to breathe deeply, try to block out the pain in my head. I get my feet under me, and I can barely stand. I don't feel steady at all; I hang onto the bed for support. I take one step and trip on something soft, and I'm just able to grab the bedpost and keep my balance. I look down, and through barely-open eyes, I see Mister Pennington on the floor.

His right arm has been nearly ripped off.

Bitten off, I realize suddenly, and not by Lumpy. By me. While I was sleeping. Because I must have stuffed Mister Pennington's arm into my mouth to hold back a scream.

No. God, no. Please. Please let it not be.

I don't know who I'm begging to, and they're not answering me anyway. I know exactly what I saw. Who I saw. It was Jackie, from the dorm. The guy is after her. He's picked her out for his next...

No. I have to do something. If it isn't already too late.

It can't be too late. I have to talk to her. I have to warn her. But how? My head is throbbing, and it's hard to think. I've got a phone in my room. I can call her. But I don't know her number. I don't even know how she spells her last name.

I need a moment. I open my bedroom door and walk out, right past Lumpy. He's staring up at me with what I think is worry. He rubs his nose up against the back of my leg, and the cold, wet feeling is a tiny bit of comfort.

I walk to the bathroom, drink a cup of water in one gulp, and with a painful retch I cough it back up, splattering all over the mirror. I try again, one sip at a time, and this time I keep it down. I don't think I can keep aspirin down, though, so I'll just have to live with the pain in my head for a little while.

Back to my room. The phone is right there. But how do I get her number? Who would know it? Would Mona? She's the RD. She has emergency contact numbers for everyone in the dorm. Will she be there? I hope so.

The phone rings ten times, and I'm just about to hang up when it's answered by a groggy voice. "Hello?"

"Mona?" I try to force my voice down, but I don't really manage it. I can hear how hysterical I sound.

"Who is this?" Her voice sounds a bit more alert.

"It's Sara. Sara Barnes. I need you to give me Jackie's phone number. Jackie, freshman Jackie, in room 201."

"Sara? What's going on?" I hear concern in her voice now. I've got her worried. Good.

No. Not good! What am I going to tell her? "I–I only just realized this morning," I start, trying to think of something that will sound reasonable. "I'm–I'm missing a pair of jeans. I had my credit card in the front pocket, and I don't have them now. I think I was packing, and I left them in the laundry room and she was the next one there. I think she just took them and packed them by mistake. I wanted to ask her, before I go and cancel the card."

Now she's annoyed. "And you need to know right now, at seven-thirty in the morning on Christmas Eve?"

Yes! "I'm sorry about that. I just–I had a dream," well, that much is true, anyway. "I dreamed that somebody stole my card and ran up ten million dollars in charges and then the Visa people came and kicked us out of our house and repossessed my dog. I was pretty freaked out, and then when I couldn't find my card, well..." And Beth said that I wasn't imaginative. If only she could have heard that.

Mona sighs, and almost laughs. "You still could have waited an hour. But I understand. Let me go and get her number," she says, and a minute later she's back on the line. I make her repeat it twice, just to be safe, and I thank her. We wish each other a merry Christmas, and she hangs up.

There's a knock at the bedroom door, and then a moment later it opens. Mom and Dad are both standing there. Mom says, "We heard your voice. Are you OK?" From their expressions, somewhere between worried and annoyed, they heard most of what I said. Great.

"If you lost your credit card, it's not that big a deal. We'll just cancel it. You don't need to track down the girl from your dorm," Dad says. "Unless you think she stole it on purpose?"

"Oh, God, no! It isn't even about the credit card at all, I just didn't want Mona to think I was crazy," I tell them, my voice shaking. I'm not sure why I don't just keep on with the lie. "I've got the card, look," I say as I go over to my purse, on the floor next to my desk. I pull out my wallet, show them the card there all safe and accounted for. "See?"

"So what is it about?" Mom asks, looking much more worried now. Actually, I do know why I didn't let them think it was the card. Because they're not idiots, and they'd realize that there's no way I would be this upset, this much of a mess, over a stupid credit card. And then I'd have to tell them it was a lie anyway.

"I–I didn't want to say anything, but since you know–look, there was a girl who got abducted, it was in the paper and everything, it happened right near campus. This was a couple of weeks ago. And Jackie, the girl from my dorm..."

It comes back to me in a rush. I know she'll be on campus over the holiday. I overheard her talking about it. She wanted to keep up with her swimming, and her family lives nearby, only twenty minutes away from school, so she was going to take the bus over to campus during the break.

My parents are looking at me like they think I'm crazy. "Anyway, Jackie's going to be on campus, all by herself, right near where the girl got abducted. And last night, I dreamed–I dreamed that it was her."

Dad looks almost relieved at those words. I can tell what he's thinking: the dream upset me, but that's all it is, and now that I've talked about it I'll see how silly I was to get all worked up and I'll calm right down. "It was only a dream, honey," he says in what would normally be a soothing voice. Not now, though.

"No!" I shout it with so much force that even I'm freaked out. Mom and Dad look at me in shock. They've never heard that in my voice before. Neither have I. "It's not just a dream! I have to tell her, she can't go around by herself where somebody could hurt her, don't you understand?"

I should probably tell them the whole truth now, all of it. But I don't. What I did say is enough, though. They can see that I'm deadly serious about this. "Go ahead, call your friend," Mom says, avoiding my eyes. "I'll get breakfast going in the meantime."

They leave me to it. I close the door, and sit on the bed, staring at the phone. What do I tell Jackie? I think that what I told my parents is probably best. I stare at the phone some more. What if she's not there? What if...

Enough of this. I pick it up and start dialing. Four rings before a man's voice answers. "Merry Christmas!" is how he greets me. There's no grogginess in his voice; clearly Jackie's family are early risers.

"Hi. Is this–are you Jackie's father?"

"I certainly am," he answers. She's alive! She's OK! Thank God! He wouldn't answer like that if anything had happened to her.

"I'm Sara. I'm a friend of hers from school, I live right down the hall from her in the dorm. Is she around?" Please be there. Please.

I hear him calling out, "Jackie, pick up the phone. There's a Sara from school for you!" Yes. I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Maybe it's my imagination but the headache seems to have disappeared, just like that.

A few seconds later, another phone clicks on the line. "Sara?" Jackie says, and there's a second click as her father hangs up. "What's–why are you calling?"

It is pretty out of the blue for me to be calling, as far as she knows. "This is going to sound strange," and she's getting the heavily edited version, "but, did you see in the paper about the two girls who they found?" It'll be so much easier if she has.

"Ugh. That was horrible," she says. Yes, it was. Yes, it is.

"Well, it's been on my mind, I guess, and I remembered that you said how you're going to take the bus over to campus to do your swimming over the break," I tell her.

"Yeah," she answers, very hesitantly.

"I had–a nightmare, I guess you could say. I saw you, waiting at the bus stop there on 107th street, and a car came by and a guy just opened up the door and grabbed you right off the street." Please just buy that, don't question me about it.

"Seriously?" I can picture her rolling her eyes as she says it. I don't blame her.

"I know how it sounds." Believe me, I know. "But there is a guy who took those two girls, and they haven't caught him, and you probably will be all alone waiting for the bus. I just–I know what you're probably thinking, but I had to warn you before–if anything bad happened."

"You said it was just a nightmare." She doesn't sound quite as sure about it as she could be. That's something. But I haven't got her totally convinced yet.

She has to believe me. I don't know what else to say–and then it comes to me, out of nowhere. "Look. I never remember my dreams. I know this sounds like superstitious crap, but one of the only ones I do remember is, a couple of years ago I had a dream about my brother breaking his arm, and the very next day he got in a fight and, I'm not making this up, he got his arm broken." Not true, not one word of it. But I'm emotional enough, worried enough that she's got to believe it anyway. "Maybe it's nothing, but you read about those girls in the paper just like I did. There really is somebody bad out there." Bad isn't the word, but it'll do for now. "Please. Just promise me you won't go alone. Get somebody to go with you, borrow somebody's car and park right by the pool instead of waiting for the bus. Please?" Come on, Jackie. You have to listen to me!

"You're really worried I'm going to get hurt if I go by myself?" I've got her. I'm sure of it now. I did it!

"I am. Swear to God."

"OK. I promise. Tell you the truth, my mother wasn't thrilled about it either, but I blew her off. I thought she was just being silly."

"Maybe it is silly, I don't know." Even though I do know. "But better safe than sorry, right?"

She agrees. "Right. You know, it is nice that you were worried about me. Not everybody would have taken it so seriously." Yes they would, if they saw what I've been seeing. "Hey, Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you, too. See you in a couple of weeks." She hangs up, and I just sit there holding the phone for probably five or ten minutes, trying to wrap my mind around what just happened.

I saved her. I saved Jackie's life! I made something good come from these hateful goddamned nightmares!

What could be merrier than that? Now I'm ready for Christmas.

Despite my relief, I'm still shaky when I go downstairs for breakfast. I lost control in front of my parents, even if it was only for a minute, and that scares me–both because it's frightening on its own and also because of what they might think. I don't want them to spend all of Christmas wondering what's wrong with me.

I walk towards the wonderful smell of bacon and pancake syrup. Mom's got everything all ready and dished up. Bob, barbarian that he is, is already eating. I sit down across from him, but like a civilized person I wait for Mom to join us at the table before I pick up my fork.

"Mom, Dad, I'm really sorry," I say when she does. The pre-emptive approach seems like a good idea. "I–I know I kind of freaked out. But that nightmare, it was so real. I saw–Jackie's my friend, you know?" They're listening intently. "She lives twenty feet down the hall from me, I see her every day, and seeing–I don't even want to say it out loud. I've never been that frightened, I don't think."

Dad pats my hand. "I know. I saw on your bed, it wasn't Lumpy who bit your rabbit's arm off, was it? Did you even know you did that?"

"I did it in my sleep. That's how horrible it was. And it's been in the news, there really is somebody out there who kidnapped a girl, not too far from school. I felt like I had to warn her. And anyway, she told me her mother didn't want her going alone during the break, she was worried too."

Mom and Dad both nod at that. They wouldn't want me waiting alone at a bus stop in–well, definitely not the best part of town. Our campus itself is safe, but you only have to go a couple of blocks off in the wrong direction and it gets a little bit sketchy. And that's pretty much where I saw Jackie in the nightmare.

I wish I could tell them the rest of it. All of it. But what could they say? What could they do? Kat didn't really have anything helpful to say, and I've been wondering if I should have even told her.

If I were in Mom and Dad's place, what would I do? I'm not sure, but based just on this morning I think I might take me out of school and send me to as many doctors as it took to get some kind of answer.

I don't need that.

"I won't deny you gave us a good scare, honey, but I'm glad you warned your friend. It sounds like you did exactly the right thing."

"Thanks, Mom." I'm a lot less shaky now. I–finally–settle into breakfast, and with a stomach full of good food, I feel almost 100%. Which is good, because I want to be better than 100% when we go over to Brian's house later today.

We're in the car, on the way over to Brian's house. I've only talked to him once since the airport, and that was for maybe five minutes Friday night. I wish he'd been there for me this morning. I wanted him there, wanted him next to me, holding me. I wanted him to listen to me about the nightmare, to believe me, to know what I saw and how much worse it was than my parents or anybody else can imagine.

I have to tell him about it today. I don't want to spoil Christmas, but I need him to know. I need to not be the only one going through this. And I know exactly how selfish and childish that sounds, but I can't get through this by myself.

Something pops into my head; I had another dream last night. My own dream. I don't remember what happened, just the feeling. I was all alone, and I had to do something. I don't remember what it was, but it was something difficult, something I didn't know at all how to do, and there was nobody around except me to do it.

I know what my subconscious was trying to tell me, the same thing Kat told me. I believed it then, but it isn't true. I can't do it alone.

I need someone beside me–someone like–I don't know, maybe a co-pilot, I guess. And Brian is mine.

Brian's house is in a quiet neighborhood, maybe five minutes from the ridiculously huge Galleria at Forest Glen. We drive past the mall, and at one in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, the parking lot is full. Are there really that many people who wait until the absolute last minute to buy their gifts? Apparently so.

Brian's house, on Maplewood Street, is maybe a little bit bigger and, from the outside at least, maybe a tiny bit nicer than ours. It's two stories, brick, with a neatly-kept front lawn. At first glance, it looks like a good place to live. Dad heads up their driveway and parks next to a blue station wagon; I see two more cars parked in the open garage.

Just as I open the door and step out of the car, lights flicker on. They've got the whole front of the house decorated with tiny white lights. It's really pretty, but I can't help think that something's wrong, something's missing. I've never been here before, so I don't have any idea why I feel that way.

But then the front door opens, and I couldn't care less about what's wrong with the decorations. Brian's there. God, he's so beautiful! If his smile were any bigger, the top of his head might fall off. It's only with great self-control that I hold myself back from running over to him. I wait for my parents and Bob to get out of the car and we all walk up to the door together.

I can't believe what I see, as I walk up to him. He's wearing the loudest, most awful Christmas sweater I've ever seen. It's green with a big brown reindeer pattern. I can only hope that it was a handmade gift from an elderly relative and he's wearing it out of obligation. His eyes follow mine, and when I look back up his expression says very clearly: "I've already heard everything you could possibly say about this hideous sweater!" Which is probably true.

We're all dressed–at Mom's insistence–like we were going to a fancy, formal dinner. I'm wearing a long, dark green skirt that goes down nearly to my ankles, and a (surprisingly stylish) sweater Mom dug out of her closet because nothing else I own went with the skirt to her satisfaction. The only sign of the season is my earrings, tiny crystal Christmas trees, handmade by Mom's mother–my grandmother Lucy.

I throw my arms around Brian, but with my parents right behind me all I do is kiss his cheek and let him go much too quickly. My father extends a hand and Brian shakes it. "You must be Brian. Sara's told us–well, almost nothing about you," Dad says, but he's grinning as he says it.

"Yes, sir," Brian answers, keeping his calm. I feel Dad's hand squeeze my shoulder, and when I look up at him he looks back from Brian to me and quickly nods his approval.

A man and a woman who have to be Brian's parents welcome us into the house. Mom shakes Brian's hand. Bob shakes Brian's hand. Dad shakes Brian's father's hand ("Ben Alderson, good to meet you."), Brian's mother hugs but barely touches Mom ("Helen Alderson, we spoke on the phone?").

Brian's looks come mostly from his father; same nose, same brown eyes, same build. His father's wearing, if you can believe it, an even worse sweater–maroon, with a red-and-white Santa knitted on the front. He sees me staring in morbid fascination and shrugs.

"My eldest sister has far too much time on her hands since she's retired. But you have to admit they are festive." That's not the first word that comes to mind, but I smile and he shakes my hand. "Sara, I presume?" I nod. "Thank you for joining us. We're so glad you could make it" he says.

Brian's parents ask if we want anything to eat or drink. Bob, on his version of "best behavior," says, "Yes, please, thank you," and follows Brian's mother into the kitchen. His father ushers the rest of us into the living room, but Brian takes my hand and holds me back.

"I'll give Sara a quick tour of the house," he says.

"A quick tour. Your aunt and uncle will be back soon," his father tells him.

Brian mumbles something that might have been "Yes, Dad," and leads me up the stairs.

It's all I can do to peel myself away from him. Even with the mood-killing presence of his parents, not to mention mine and my little brother right downstairs, I've missed him so much, needed him so much. But I do, somehow, manage it.

I look around at his bedroom. It's about what I imagined. Very neat, no dirty clothes on the floor or empty soda cans in odd corners. There's a Phillies pennant on one wall, and a movie poster for "Star Wars" on another. He's got a little desk with one of those big "portable" computers with the tiny four-inch screen on it. It must weigh thirty pounds.

"It's from my father's office," he says when he sees me looking at it. "You can't do that much with it, but it was kind of useful in high school."

"And you can use it for weightlifting practice, too." He gets a good laugh out of that. "You have no idea how much I missed you." That's not true; I think I made it pretty clear just a minute ago.

"As much as I missed you. Have you been OK? Have you..."

My face falls; he doesn't need me to answer. "It was bad. The worst." He pulls me back to him, and just holds me. This is what I needed when I woke up today. I say, right into his ear, "It's OK. There's a lot I have to tell you. But this isn't the time." I was all ready to tell him, but suddenly it doesn't seem as urgent. "We can talk about it after. Let's enjoy Christmas. It's our first one together, we deserve it. Both of us." My heart skips a beat when I realize what I said, without even meaning to, but he doesn't seem to catch it.

I kiss him, and it's almost enough to make me forget about who's downstairs. Almost. I very reluctantly let him go. He straightens his horrible sweater, leads me out into the hallway. I stop in my tracks, pull him back into his room. I've just remembered what was bothering me about the house. "Where's all the decorations outside? The reindeer and all of that?" It was in his dream. I saw it all.

He knows instantly what I'm talking about. It's not a happy subject; I hear the dejection in his voice. "Dad used to put it all out before my brother went into the army. We haven't decorated like that since then. I guess I was just picturing it how I wanted it to be, instead of how it really is."

That's so sad! "I'm sorry," I say. "I really am." I grab his hand and squeeze it, and he seems to take heart from that. After a minute, we head back downstairs, still hand-in-hand.

His aunt and uncle have returned, and I'm introduced to them. There's Ken, the uncle, and Tamara, the aunt, and Bianca, their daughter, who looks to be about Brian's age.

I notice that my brother has noticed her. It quickly comes out that she's also a high school senior; she's only a month younger than Brian, but he started school a year ahead of her. Bob's attention perks up even more at that; it immediately gives him something in common with her. It doesn't hurt that she's very pretty; nearly as tall as Brian, long brown hair tied in a ponytail, cute figure. Luckily for her, she was spared a dreadful handmade sweater; her father was not so fortunate.

Brian's mother is thanking Mom for the gifts she brought. There's a good bottle of wine–or at least an expensive one. I don't really know much about wine, and I don't think Mom does either. And then she also brought a three-layer chocolate cake, from the fancy bakery that she only goes to for special occasions.

All of his family seems very friendly, and genuinely glad to meet me. They ask me lots of questions, but politely, and they seem to actually be interested in my answers. All except his mother. She keeps looking over to me, but never quite meeting my eyes.

Dinner is served. It's fish, fish, fish and more fish. Calamari, shrimp, crab legs, salmon, even lobster. It's kind of overwhelming. And Brian's mother still keeps looking at me. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. I haven't spilled on myself. I'm not talking with my mouth full or chewing with my mouth open. I'm being polite and friendly to everyone. I don't know what's bothering her.

Bianca asks me about being in pre-med, and I tell her a little about my classes and how I'm getting ready to begin the application process for medical school. "So you'll be in school another four years, and a resident for four years after that, before you'll have any time for a social life," Brian's mother says, with a definite edge to her voice. I'm not sure what she's trying to say.

"I hadn't thought of it exactly like that," I answer. "It'll be hard work, but I'll keep up with everything. And I've been talking with the Resident Director in my dorm all about it. She's in medical school now, and she's able to balance all the work with the rest of her life. I'm not worried."

She seems very unsatisfied with that. She makes another comment a little later about how people go to college and all the parties and activities distract from schoolwork and their grades suffer, and how it's easy to get "led astray." This, I only now realize, is what she thinks I'm doing to Brian. "Leading him astray." My Dad really was right about me being slow sometimes, wasn't he?

Brian's on a partial scholarship; he told me all about that. He needs to maintain a 3.0 grade point average to keep it. I've got exactly the same scholarship, so I understand why his mother is concerned about his study habits. "I don't think you need to worry, Mrs. Alderson. Brian's working as hard as anybody I know." I say it as respectfully and calmly as I possibly can.

"Well, he needs to keep that up, and not let himself get off track," she says, and now, finally, she does stare directly at me. I stare back, with what I hope is a polite face.

"My grades are fine," Brian speaks up. "They're better, actually, since–since I met Sara. She helped me get ready for finals. I would have been a lot more nervous without her," he says. Both his mother and I turn to look at him, and I see shock on her face. As mild as that was, I would bet real money that's the first time he's ever talked back in any way to his mother.

She looks like she wants to say something more–probably a lot more–but then she gazes around the table, and she goes a little bit red. I think she tuned out the fact that there was anyone at the table but her son and his distracting temptress of a girlfriend, and she's just now remembered she's hosting a tableful of guests. "I'm sure you're right," she says, standing up and picking up a couple of plates to take away. "Let's just clear the table. It's about time for dessert," she says, on her way to the kitchen.

Brian's mother doesn't really warm up to me during dessert. The wine–which I don't try even though it's offered to me repeatedly and I am really curious to know what a $120 bottle of wine tastes like, in the hope that not drinking will help to show what a sober, responsible young lady I am–doesn't do anything to relax her. I don't think anything will at this point.

It probably should have occurred to me much earlier that Brian almost certainly didn't have much of a social life in high school. I think it's safe to assume he never got into trouble, never stayed out too late, never did anything to alarm his parents. That party he dreamed about, he didn't tell me but I'm absolutely sure that he was "studying for the SATs with a friend" that night. I'm also sure that the party was a very rare event for him; it might have been the only one. It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Knowing all that doesn't really help much, unfortunately. I don't want to come between him and his parents, and if I'm thinking rationally about it, no matter how I feel about him we have only known each other for a few weeks. I can't expect him to turn his whole life upside down just for me.

We get through dessert, and coffee, and another hour of getting to know Brian's family. My brother has made a surprisingly good impression on Brian's cousin; he's managed to keep his weird side almost completely under control. I'm impressed. My Dad and his father seem to be getting along famously. They're ignoring everyone else and watching the Eagles game, talking back to the players on TV as though they were coaching the game. It's funny and sort of pathetic at the same time. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.

Brian and I sit next to each other in the living room, holding hands, trying not to draw his mother's attention to us more than it already is. We end up staying until the game is over; his father insists that my Dad can't miss a play. "They're trying to clinch a playoff spot!" he says, as though that explains anything.

The game finally ends. The Dads are thrilled that the Eagles won, and even Brian's mother has calmed down a little bit. We all get up to make our goodbyes, and I excuse myself–I have to run out to the car, I left Brian's gift in there. When I get back, he's got a gift for me, too. It's a very small box.

For just a moment, and I know how utterly crazy it sounds, my father's words–the ones I overheard through the heating vent–go through my mind. I wonder if–no. That is crazy. Beyond crazy.

We hand each other our gifts. I let him open his first. I put the Mike Schmidt photo in a frame, and he's speechless when he rips the wrapping paper open. He embraces me, but holds back from kissing me with his parents watching.

His father is in awe. He takes the picture from Brian, very gently, holding it the way you would hold a priceless relic. "Is that real? He really signed–you met him?"

My Dad gets that faraway look in his eyes. "We were two feet away from him. He's such a great man." The two of them are quite the pair. They're both staring lovingly at the photo; I think you could drop a bomb outside and they wouldn't notice it right now.

Brian takes a deep breath, and then looks down at the box in my hands. I tear off the paper, and it's a jewelry box. I slowly, carefully pull it open, and inside it—oh, my God.

It must have cost a thousand dollars. It's a necklace, with a very fine gold chain and–at one glance I know it's real, not just costume jewelry–a small, beautiful emerald. I don't believe he–I can't–it's the most amazing thing. My legs are shaking; I don't know how they're holding me up. My heart is racing, and I feel short of breath. I have no idea what anyone else is doing. His mother is saying something, and so is mine, but that's just noise.

"I thought it would set off your eyes," Brian says, and his is the only voice I can hear. He takes the necklace out of the box and I don't even realize I'm turning my head so he can put it on me until I've already done it. He drapes it around my neck, and I shudder at his touch. He closes the clasp, and the emerald hangs down, and I look at it.

It's perfect. He's perfect.

I turn back to him, look up into his brown, brown eyes, and I throw my arms around him. I feel the tears start to flow for the second time today and I bury my head in his neck. I'm not sure how long we're there like that. It could be forever. There's nowhere else I want to be.

My brother's voice brings me back to Earth. "Let us get a look at it," he says, and I very reluctantly let Brian go and turn to give everyone a better look at his gift. There's much ooh-ing and aah-ing, which is only right.

I turn back to Brian, and I whisper so only he can hear, "I love you!" Holding myself back right now, not kissing him for all I'm worth in front of God and his family and everybody, is the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and that's not an exaggeration.

I'm in my own little world for most of the ride home. It's only when we're back in our neighborhood, maybe five minutes from the house, that I check back in. I catch myself playing with my necklace; I've probably been doing it the whole time.

"Glad you decided to join us," Dad says when he notices me finally sitting up and looking somewhat alert. "That was some gift he gave you."

Then I'm lost again, back at Brian's house, opening the box, seeing it for the first time. "It was," I sigh. "I guess I'm in his heart, too. I mean–I knew how he felt, but..."

"He certainly made sure there was no doubt, didn't he?" Mom says. There's something in her voice. She's never seen me how I was today, and it's got her worried. I doubt it would be any comfort to her that I'm pretty rattled too.

"His mother didn't look too thrilled," Bob pipes up. She really didn't like me at all. I don't know what's going to happen with that. I feel so bad that I've made things difficult for him with his parents, or at least one of them.

"She was probably just surprised," Dad says, trying to be charitable. "His father liked you fine, honey," he tells me.

"Dad, I could have had three eyes and broccoli growing out of my ears for all he noticed, once you started talking about the Eagles with him!" He doesn't answer because he knows I'm right.

Mom laughs. "Well, I was impressed with your Brian. He was very polite, well mannered, and he obviously knows how to treat our only daughter. I don't think we could ask more than that." I couldn't ask for more, I know that.

If I dreamed last night, they were pleasant dreams. I wake up smiling, and when's the last time that happened? I wore my necklace to bed, and I don't envision myself taking it off for the foreseeable future.

I'm still so lost in memories of yesterday that it takes me fifteen minutes to remember it's Christmas day. Before I go downstairs–I'm sure Bob and my parents are already up and around–I pick up the phone and call Brian.

He must have been thinking of me, because he answers it on the first ring. "Sara!" It's not a question.

"Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you, too!" Then I hear him talking to someone else, saying, "It's for me."

"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever gotten. And the most special," I blurt out. "And you were right. It does set off my eyes." I take a deep breath. "I hope–your Mom didn't give you too much grief about it, did she?"

He laughs. "Yeah, she did. But it's my money, and I wanted you to have something–like you said, special." More special than you could possibly know. "I'm glad you called–I mean, I'm always glad, but we're visiting my aunt and uncle for a few days, we'll be back Friday night, and Saturday–you know–it's..."

I hadn't even thought that far ahead. But he's right. And I can't imagine a better way to ring in the new year than with him. "New Year's Eve. It's a date. Let me make the plans. I'll take care of everything."

"That's great–anything you want to do, it's fine with me. Just–my parents are going to want me home right after midnight, so whatever we do..."

I figured that. Home by twelve-thirty or one o'clock, no doubt. "No problem. I'll work it all out. You go open your presents, have a great Christmas–you deserve it. You already made mine the best one ever."

"I love you, Sara Barnes," is all he says to that, and it's all I need to hear.

"I love you too, Brian Alderson," and it's all I need to say.

I'm sitting in the living room looking over the carnage. There's wrapping paper and ribbons and bows all over the floor. Lumpy is on the couch next to me, happily chewing on a brand new plastic bone. Everything is right with the world.

Everyone was very satisfied with their gifts. Bob got the single biggest item, a new computer which he'll be taking to school with him next fall–and which I may try to pull rank and steal from him once he's there, since it's better than mine. Mom got a gift certificate for a day of pampering at the ritzy day spa at the Galleria. She was pretty thrilled with that. The best thing Dad got was a new golf bag, which Bob and I picked out and we split the cost on (with a little help from Mom).

As for me, I didn't get any one really big thing but I had a very nice haul of presents. There were books, as usual. There was a portable CD player, which was the real treat, and to go with it, a $50 gift certificate to Sam Goody. I guess Dad didn't trust himself to guess my musical tastes of the moment, which was probably the right decision.

I thought the gifts were done, but as we're all just sitting quietly, digesting our dinner and watching the fire dancing in the fireplace, Dad delves into the drawer of the side table. He pulls out an envelope, hands it to me. There's–wow–I have to count it three times to make sure I'm not seeing things$500 in it! What was I saying about not having a really big gift?

There's a note as well. A slip of paper, anyway. It's got an address, and a date and time on it–December 31st, eight o'clock in the evening. "I don't suppose you recognize the address?" Dad asks me.

No, I don't.

"You've been there before. I guess you didn't remember the address, you had a lot going on that night."

What night? From the house number, the address looks like it's pretty far out. Where would I have gone that I ought to remember? Then it hits me. "You're kidding, right? You don't mean the Blue Duck Inn?"

The Blue Duck Inn is a very fancy, very expensive restaurant about a half-hour drive from us. They have a full seven course meal; you're there for probably three hours eating all of it. It's–"extravagant" is probably the best word to describe it. Mom and Dad took me there for my high school graduation. I still think about that meal sometimes.

"Your reservation is at eight o'clock, for two." I'm speechless. But they're not done. Mom pulls a box out from under the side table that I somehow failed to see earlier.

"One last gift for you," she says. I open it up and–my God.

It's a dress. But not just any dress–it's absolutely gorgeous. I can't believe my mother picked this out for me. It's silvery-gray, shimmery, and I can tell at first glance that it'll fit me perfectly. As I stand and hold it up I can see it'll look–well, I'm too modest to say how I think it'll look on me.

"I guess this means you really do approve of Brian," I say, my voice cracking.

"Yes," Dad says. "But it's more that we approve of you." I can't think of the right words to properly express my feelings. I'm not sure there are any. I hug them both, and I don't let go for a very long time. Maybe I don't need words after all.

Some Kind of Wonderful

(December 26, 1989–January 10, 1990)

The morning after Christmas I wake up refreshed. I didn't have the nightmare; I didn't have any dreams at all as far as I can remember. Just peaceful sleep. But there is something nagging at me, and when I go down to breakfast I have to ask.

"I love it–don't get me wrong. But that's a big deal, the Blue Duck Inn." $500 is a ridiculous amount of money to give me to spend on a date. And also, in the back of my mind, I wonder how jealous Bob is about it. Not that I'd ever tell him that.

"To tell you the truth, honey," Dad says, "The reservation was for four originally. I made it months ago. But after our little talk on Friday, well, I discussed it with your mother and we agreed..."

Mom picks up where he left off. "We wanted to take you back there for your twenty-first birthday, but you were away at school. And I don't know what got me thinking about it, but you never got to go to your prom, remember?" Do I remember? I give her a disbelieving look as I rub my belly. Dad grimaces just a bit–he remembers as well as I do–but then he presses on.

"So we thought you ought to have the chance to dress up, have a classy night out with your boyfriend," he says. I'm pretty lucky, aren't I? How many other parents would do that?

"Thank you," is all I can think to say, and it seems very inadequate but it's the best I can do. "What are you guys going to do?"

"The McGuires are having a party," Mom says, "and they've invited us," That sounds pretty good. Mom is friends with Mrs. McGuire so she'll be happy. They've got a big-screen TV in their basement rec room where Dad and Mr. McGuire can watch whatever game is on and yell back at it, so he's set. And they've got three teenage daughters still living at home, so Bob should have someone to talk to. It seems like everyone will be having a good time New Year's Eve.

The rest of the week seems to pass by incredibly quickly. I don't really do much. I sleep late every day. I spend hours by the fireplace reading. On Thursday at the supermarket I run into a high school friend, Belinda Montgomery. We spend an hour catching up, which is very pleasant. It's the most restful, relaxing week I've had in a long while.

The very best thing of all is, I don't dream.

And now it's Saturday night. Mom took me out to get my hair done and for a manicure. I feel a little ridiculous being fussed over all day, but I have to admit that the end result is worth it. At six-thirty I'm finally dressed and all made up. Obviously, I'm wearing the emerald necklace; I haven't taken it off except in the shower since Brian gave it to me. I've put on the diamond earrings that Mom forced me to borrow from her, there's nothing else left to do.

I take one final look in the mirror. I don't recognize the person looking back at me. "Who are you?" I ask her, but she doesn't answer. She looks like the older, prettier, more sophisticated sister that I don't have. I turn my back on her and go downstairs. I wonder if I'll see her again.

Mom and Dad are waiting for me, and they're both speechless. Mom looks like she's about to cry. I see that they've got the camera out; I should have expected that. Bob comes down the stairs, and he looks at me. He seems confused. "Who's she?" he asks Mom and Dad. Then he looks back at me again, really stares. "Holy crap."

"Thank you, Bob," I answer. I take it as a compliment, even if it really wasn't. After that, nobody says anything for a couple of minutes, until the sound of a car rumbling up the driveway breaks the silence. Headlights shine in the window. Then the car goes quiet and the lights go out, and a moment later the doorbell rings. Dad opens the door, and Brian's there, flowers in hand.

Roses, of course. Red, of course.

He sets eyes on me and his jaw drops. He keeps opening his mouth to try and say something, but nothing comes out. It's all I can do to keep from running over to him. This moment is what I've been thinking about all week long.

I'm not sure how long we all stand there with nobody speaking or moving. Finally, Mom breaks the spell. "Brian, come over here, I want to get a picture of you two looking so nice."

Brian comes over to me, and I put my arm around him as Mom fiddles with the camera. I realize this is the first time I've seen him properly dressed up. He's very handsome in his dark blue suit and his yellow tie. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the only tie he owns.

Mom ends up taking what seems like a whole roll of pictures before Dad mercifully steps in front of the camera. "Betty, they probably want to go already."

I hug Dad, kiss him on the cheek. "Thanks, Dad. For everything."

Brian shakes Dad's hand. "Yes, thank you, Mr. Barnes. Sara told me..."

Dad scoffs. "It's our pleasure. "You just go out and have a wonderful time tonight," he says.

"We will, Dad," I assure him. "And don't worry, I'll be home by one at the latest." That isn't my choice; Brian has to be home by one-thirty. If it was up to me–well, I don't know when or even if we'd get back tonight.

"We probably won't be," Mom says with a laugh. "Not if tonight is anything like Juliet McGuire's parties usually are." I wonder if Mom would be telling me that if I hadn't told her that Brian absolutely had to be home by one-thirty? On second thought, I'm not sure I want to know!

Brian walks me out to the car–a dark blue or possibly black Volvo–it's hard to tell in the dim moonlight. He opens the passenger door for me, and as soon as he's in the driver's seat and his door is closed, I lean over and kiss him.

It doesn't go on nearly long enough; I very reluctantly pull back, and we drive off. He's still unable to find words to tell me how he thinks I look tonight. In the end the best he can do is "I thought you looked beautiful the night we met. But right now, you..." before he trails off.

"You don't look so bad yourself," I tell him, and then we chat about what we've been up to the last few days. It's not until we're nearly to the Inn that I broach an unpleasant subject. "Your Mom still doesn't like me, does she?"

He sighs. "It's not you. She wouldn't like anybody, I don't think. I mean, you could be..." He lapses into thought. I can almost hear the wheels spin as he tries to think of someone his mother would consider an acceptable girlfriend. "You could be," he finally says, after much consideration, "I don't know, Princess Diana, and your Dad could own ten castles, she'd still find something wrong with you."

I burst out into giggles. Princess Diana? How on Earth did he come up with that? I can't stop laughing. "My Mom has a videotape of her wedding," he says defensively.

"Well," I say when I finally settle down. "She's married and she's got two kids. And she's ten years older than you. Of course your Mom would have a problem if you brought her home." That sets Brian off, which gets me giggling again, and neither of us can stop until we've gotten to the Inn and parked the car.

The Blue Duck Inn used to be a farmhouse, years ago, but it's been a restaurant since at least before I was born. Dad's been taking Mom here for their anniversary every other year or so. From the outside, it doesn't look like the fanciest restaurant for a hundred miles. The moment we walk in the front door, though, it's like stepping into another world.

The lighting is dim, but somehow warm at the same time. The waiters are all in tuxedos, the waitresses in long black dresses. There are paintings along the walls–landscapes, mostly, in muted colors. And the smells–there are a dozen aromas that seem like they shouldn't go together, but they somehow do. I realize that I'm salivating.

We step up to the Maitre'd. He takes one look at us. "Miss Barnes?" I nod. "Please give my regards to your father," he says as he leads to our table.

"You remember him?"

The Maitre'd looks scandalized that I asked. "I remember every patron who honors us with his custom. Especially those who do us the honor of doing so regularly" he says. I guess for a place like this, a visit every two years or so probably does count as "regular."

He pulls out my chair, and I sit. Brian waits until I do to sit down, and the Maitre'd hands him the wine list. There are no menus at the Blue Duck Inn–I'm glad I told Brian what to expect on the way here. It's very simple–you eat whatever the chef has decided to serve.

Brian hands the wine list over to me, but I don't need it; I wouldn't know the first thing to look for anyway. Dad told me what wine to order. I assume that when he called to change the reservation, he must have spoken to the–whatever they call the wine expert. I know there's a fancy word for it, but I don't have any idea what it is.

I look around, but it's difficult to really see any of the other tables very clearly. I don't know how, but they've done some real tricks with the lighting and the acoustics. You can see and hear everyone at your own table perfectly, but you can barely see or hear anything else. It's easy to imagine that Brian and I are the only ones in the whole place.

For a while we just stare at each other. He's overwhelmed, and I can't really blame him. After a while, I order the wine, exactly what Dad told me, and then the first course arrives: vanilla sorbet with mint. "To properly clear the palate," the waiter explains as he sets it down.

We clear our palates and then the wine comes, brought not by the waiter but by–if I remember right–the wine steward. He opens it very efficiently, and sets the cork down atop a napkin on the table. Brian and I both look at it and then at each other–neither of us know if we're supposed to do anything with it, so we just sit there and wait for the steward to do something. He comes over to my side of the table. "Would the lady prefer to sample the bottle?"

Yes, the lady would.

He holds the bottle to me so I can see the label. It looks like what I ordered, and I nod. He pours just a swallow into my glass, and–even though I feel ridiculous–I do what I've seen a hundred times in movies and on TV. I swirl the wine around in the glass, sniff it, and only then take a tiny sip.

And now I know what a $120 bottle of wine tastes like. It's very good. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it any better than that. The steward asks, "Shall I?"

I answer, "Yes, please," and he fills my glass and then Brian's. He then pours the remainder of the bottle into a crystal decanter and leaves it for us.

I raise my glass. "Here's to dreams coming true," and in the instant before he clinks his glass to mine, I add, "the good ones, anyway."

We both sip our wine. I don't have too much to compare it to, but it really is excellent. Brian's smiling at me. "If you're going to be making the big doctor money, you'll have to get used to this," he says.

"It's like your mother said on Christmas Eve," I say. "It'll be nine or ten years before I'm making any kind of doctor money at all, and that's if everything goes perfectly from now until then," I answer. He gives me a blank look; he doesn't recall that part of the conversation. I can't blame him; there was a lot going on that day!

"It's not just med school. That's four years, is that what you're thinking?" He nods. "There's residency after that. Usually it's in a hospital. You get to work eighty hours a week, maybe more, for not much money. That's three more years, maybe four depending on if I want to go into a specialty. It's a long road."

Wow. I didn't really give it much thought when Brian's mother talked about it, but it feels so much more real hearing the words come out of my own mouth.

The last few weeks I've been thinking one night at a time, just trying to get through finals and cope with the nightmares. But even before that I've always thought one step at a time: finish this paper, meet that deadline. I haven't been looking at the big picture. "It's kind of a lot to think about, when I put it that way, isn't it?"

Brian agrees. "I guess we better enjoy tonight, then." Fair enough. I'm all for that!

Our first course arrives. It's caviar, which I've never had before. I have to admit that I close my eyes as I take the first bite, but it's–well, surprisingly good.

That's followed by a whole succession of things I never imagined I'd eat, or never heard of before, period. There are oysters, there are truffles, there are more kinds of mushrooms than I knew existed, and that's the less exotic portion of the meal.

Brian is very game; he follows my lead and eats everything put in front of him. He honestly seems to be enjoying it, too. As the escargot is cleared away, I finally tell him what happened the morning of Christmas Eve. "You saved her life," he says in an awed voice. "You really did." And he takes my hand and stares at me with wonder in his eyes for the longest time. A girl could get used to that.

Dessert comes and goes so quickly I almost don't notice it. The waiter is still clearing it away–a honey and apple tart with handmade cinnamon-ginger ice cream–when the lights brighten, and suddenly we're surrounded by twenty other tables.

The Maitre'd wheels out a cart with a small TV set on it, turns it on, and the voice of Dick Clark counting down the final minutes of 1989 fills the room. I had no idea it was almost midnight. Another waiter deposits two tall, fluted glasses on our table, and whispers, "The Governor's wife was very insistent," nodding towards the TV. Over across the room, I can see–it definitely is the Governor!

At two minutes to midnight, our glasses are filled with champagne, and I get up, walk over to Brian's side of the table. He stands as well. Dick Clark counts the seconds, and we join the toast with everyone in the room as the New Year arrives. And then, finally, I do what I've wanted to do, needed to do, since Christmas Eve. I throw my arms around Brian's neck, and in front of God and the Governor and everyone, I kiss him for all I'm worth.

Brian has to be home on time, under pain of–he's not sure exactly what, but he doesn't want to find out. So, very reluctantly, we request the check and we're back in the car by twenty minutes after midnight. As we drive away from the Inn, I have a brilliant idea. The McGuires live about halfway between my house and Brian's. My parents and Bob will almost certainly still be there, so I can go home with them. And Brian and I get an extra half hour together.

We enjoy our extra half hour, although not as much as we might have done if the car's windows were tinted. At just after one o'clock, we very reluctantly make our goodbyes. Brian walks me to the door, which is unlocked, and sees me inside. I kiss him one more time, and then I stand in the doorway and watch him back to the car and until he's driven out of sight.

I stand there a few minutes more, completely lost in thought. "Hello in there!" my Dad's voice says from behind me. "I wondered if you might have him drop you here. Come on, I want to show my beautiful daughter off," he says, and he leads me into the still-hopping party.

"Juliet, look who decided to join us!" Dad says to Mrs. McGuire, a very tall, dark-haired woman whose actual age I can't begin to guess. Considering her oldest daughter is thirty, she's got to be at least fifty herself, but she definitely doesn't look it. She gives me a good once-over.

"I don't think I've met her before. I thought you only had the one daughter, Howard?" Well, I didn't really recognize myself in the mirror earlier tonight, did I? And to be fair, she's had more than a few drinks. Dad, though, doesn't want to play fair. He catches my eye, and he's got a playful look in his.

"Oh, no. But we don't usually like to talk about Gretchen," he says, giving me a quick wink. I almost lose it on the spot. Gretchen? If he's going to pass me off as my nonexistent older sister, at least Dad could have come up with a better name than Gretchen! But I play along for a few minutes until Dad finally takes pity on Mrs. McGuire and tells her the truth.

It is a compliment, I guess, to be mistaken for someone older and more mature than I really am. Right?

It's noon on New Year's Day, and I'm the only one in the house who's awake. Bob was just tired out, but both Mom and Dad are suffering the effects of the McGuire family's liquor cabinet. I don't expect to see them until dinnertime.

I call Brian and we talk for half an hour about nothing in particular; just hearing his voice makes me happy. Then I call Beth, in hopes that she's home from her ski trip. She isn't. Her mother tells me that she won't be back until Friday. I tell her mother to tell her that I'll try to call back over the weekend, and that I've got plenty of news for her.

I'm bursting to tell her about last night, about my necklace, about what happened with Jackie. There are moments when I want to just start shouting about everything that's going on, everything I'm feeling, to whoever will listen. I can honestly say that's something I've never felt before.

I'm right; it's dinnertime when Mom and Dad make their first appearance of the day. I took the initiative and ordered pizza, and they're very grateful. Dad thanks me for the brilliant idea of going over to the McGuires last night, and for driving everyone home safely. Mom thanks me for the foresight to order food. Bob doesn't thank me for anything, but he gives me a quick look that I interpret as thanks, whether or not it really is.

I go to bed early, around ten o'clock. I'm out almost the instant my head hits the pillow...

...Sara is standing in a dining room; she recognizes it immediately. She was here only a few days ago. Christmas Eve.

She recognizes the three people at the table: Brian, and his parents. Their faces are all red; they've been arguing for a while already. Sara needs no special knowledge to guess what the argument is about. "You were going to buy a car this summer!" his mother shouts, pounding the table with her fist.

"I'd rather see her face like it was on Christmas Eve than have some stupid used car!" Brian shouts right back, and Sara feels her heart skip several beats...

...she's no longer in the dining room, but in the back seat of a very familiar car. The driver, too, is familiar. Sara recognizes the neighborhood outside the windows; it's on the edge of campus, near the swimming pool. The bus stop on East 107th street looms up and then is past in a moment, and there's no one waiting there. Again and again the car makes the block, and again and again the bus stop is deserted...

I wake up with a feeling of–is it relief? Definitely. Jackie really did listen to me, didn't she? She hasn't been at the bus stop. She's safe. I got it right, I did exactly what I was–supposed to do? Meant to do, maybe?

I float through the day, and the next. I have another dream, just sitting in the car circling endlessly, on Thursday night, and the feeling of relief from that takes me straight through the weekend. The only complaint I have is that I haven't been able to talk to Beth yet. It turns out that she was only home for an hour on Friday before she left again. She went to visit her sister Maggie, who just had a baby in October. I give up on the prospect of talking to her before we get back to campus next week.

On Sunday, Brian comes over for a couple of hours. We take Lumpy out for what's probably the longest walk of his life. Of course Lumpy loves Brian; he jumps on him the minute he steps out of the car. I knew he would.

We walk all around the neighborhood, neither of us feeling the cold. I tell him about my dreams. I ask him if what I saw was true, that he took the money he was saving up for a car of his own to buy my necklace.

"Yes," he answers simply. I kiss him in the middle of the street and I don't let him go until Lumpy nearly pulls me off my feet chasing after something that almost certainly isn't a squirrel.

"You know you're going to have to top that for Valentine's Day," I say with a laugh when he catches up with me and Lumpy. I can see from his expression he knows I'm joking, but I don't want to just leave it at that.

What he did was extravagant, and I love it, but I don't want him feeling like he has to do that at every occasion. "Seriously," I say, "I don't expect anything for Valentine's, or my birthday, or next Christmas either. You're set until 1991, OK?"

The look he's giving me right now–he's stunned. I don't know why–oh.

Oh.

I realize what I said, and how I said it. So casually. I said it without thinking, like I just assumed we'll be together not just a month from now, but a year from now. Which–well, I do. I did the same thing Christmas Eve; he didn't hear it then, but he certainly did now. I'm glad he did, too

Sunday is the last time I see Brian over break; I've got to spend Monday and Tuesday getting ready to fly back to Cleveland, back to school. Wednesday morning isn't very far away. And anyway, according to Brian, he pushed his luck about as far as it would go just borrowing the car to come see me for part of the afternoon.

I have another one of the car dreams Sunday night, but nothing else remarkable happens over break. I fight with Bob most of the day on Monday. My grades arrive in the mail Tuesday morning, and they're pretty much what I expect–straight A's, except for a B in Physics, which I'm thrilled about. I get overly emotional with Mom and Dad at dinner that night when it hits me that it'll be the last dinner I'll have with them until May. Wednesday morning Mom drives me to the airport and sees me off.

As I settle into my window seat on the plane, I think it's been, hands down, the best Christmas and the best New Year's I've ever had. I can't wait to see what comes next...

Back to School

(January 10-13, 1990)

It's two o'clock when I walk into my dorm room. I think I might be the only person on the whole floor right now. Beth is coming back tonight, though, and I recall a few of my floormates talking about coming back from break today as well, so I won't be alone for long.

I leave the door open so I can hear any signs of life down the hall, and I unpack my suitcase and shove it in the back of the closet. Then I lie down on the bed and stare at my necklace. The whole flight back I was thinking about it, and I came to the conclusion that I needed to do something more to properly thank Brian for it. He comes back Friday, and I've got a little plan to surprise him when he does.

It's going to involve a quick shopping trip downtown tomorrow, and it's also going to require some help. And down the hall I can hear the voices of the two people who can provide it.

I walk all the way around the floor, over to room 220, and I poke my head in to see Jane and Jessica unpacking. It really is uncanny. Except for their hair–Jessica is very, very blonde, while Jane's hair is maybe a shade darker brown than mine–they look so much alike that they could be sisters. I ask them about their holidays, they ask me about mine, and then I get down to business. There's something they know how to do that I need to learn for my little plan to work. I put my hand on their doorknob, and with my most innocent smile I ask, "Can you show me how to pick these locks?"

After a surprisingly small amount of teasing Jessica teaches me how to do it, using only a credit card. She watches me practice a couple times until I've got it down. It's disturbingly easy. She wishes me luck using my newfound skill. Jane warns me that if I ever decide to use it to play a joke on them, I can expect "massive retaliation."

They don't need to worry. I'm not the practical joking type. Besides, I've seen their idea of retaliation–they were responsible for all of Mark Bainbridge's possessions ending up on the roof of the dorm last spring. I'm not messing with them.

I take a walk over to the bookstore and pick up some of the textbooks for this semester, but other than that it's a very quiet afternoon. I'm just sitting on my bed, flipping through the text for Vertebrate Biology when Beth arrives. She drops her luggage on the floor and announces to me that she's starving, she's buying me dinner at Brandywine's and we're leaving right now.

It takes Beth barely ten minutes to hit all the highlights of her holiday; she's done by the time we sit down to eat. She leaves a lot out; she's clearly burning to hear my news, almost as much as I'm burning to tell it.

It takes me the entire meal and two bottles of wine to get through everything. She's blown away by my necklace. "I have to admit it, that first night after you two met, I was dead wrong," she tells me. When I mention what my Dad said about saving up for my wedding, she nearly spits out a mouthful of wine. She laughs at Brian's mother hating me and she demands to see photos of me from New Year's Eve.

"Don't worry," I assure her. "My Mom took plenty. She said she'd make copies for me and send them as soon as she gets them developed."

After all that I tell her about Jackie, and I'm glad I waited until the end for it. Between the wine and all the good news, she doesn't freak out nearly as much as she would have if I'd told her that part first. She's still rattled by it, though, and the fact that I was able to warn Jackie doesn't seem to ease her mind nearly as much as it did mine.

"It's too close. That means he's here, he could be outside right now, driving past us." I feel like the room just got about twenty degrees colder. "Doesn't that bother you? Doesn't it scare the hell out of you?" Well, it didn't until just now.

I take a big sip of water to give myself a moment to think. Then I tell her the truth. "I was so focused on Jackie herself, I didn't think about it past that." What she said should have been obvious all along, but until she said it, I honestly didn't give it a thought.

"Yeah, I can understand that. You must have been going out of your mind when you woke up." She's looking at me a little warily now, as though she expects me to have a meltdown right in the middle of the restaurant. I can't really blame her.

And she's right–"going out of my mind" is a pretty accurate description of how I felt. "I bit the arm off of my stuffed rabbit in my sleep, that's how freaked out I was." She doesn't seem surprised. She looks like she's got something more to say, but she catches herself. "What? What are you thinking?"

She won't say. "It was a stupid thought, it's not worth mentioning."

"I thought we didn't keep secrets?" As soon as I say that, I wish I hadn't; I'm not at all sure I do want to hear what she doesn't want to say.

She drains the last of her wine in one swallow. Now I know I don't want to hear it. "I don't want to spoil our evening, but–have you thought–if he gives up on Jackie–what's he going to do then?"

Oh, my God. There's something else I haven't given a thought to. "I should have, but–no, I haven't." I realize that I'm holding very tightly onto the edge of the table and I'm not meeting her eyes. I take a deep breath, and then another, and I drink more of my water. I feel slightly calmer and I tell her about the dreams I've had since Christmas Eve, the car driving around endlessly, round and round the bus stop.

"Maybe," Beth says in a very careful tone, and now she's the one not meeting my eyes. "Maybe he can't give up on her. Maybe he'll just keep driving by that bus stop every day because he can't bring himself to change his pattern. Maybe he's stuck."

I'd love for that to be true, and I'm trying to put it out of my mind that if she really believed it she'd have looked me in the eye while she said it. I just nod along with her. I take a long time to answer, and there's no confidence at all in my voice when I finally do. "Yeah, that could be. That could definitely be."

Thankfully, neither of us says another word on the subject after that. In an effort to put it out of my mind–and hers–I tell Beth about my plan for surprising Brian on Friday when he comes back. It seems to work.

"That's something I would do. I'm glad I'm finally rubbing off on you," she tells me, and she sounds genuinely impressed. "I'm so proud of you!" I thought she might be.

...Sara is standing in a dorm room, which she instantly recognizes as her own. She sees herself standing in front of the closet, looking at herself in a mirror. Dream-Sara is wearing a skirt several inches shorter than anything the real Sara owns or has ever contemplated owning, and a sweater at least two sizes too tight. "Come out with me, you need to get out more," dream-Sara says, and the real Sara sees she's speaking to Beth. Who's sitting at the desk, hair unwashed, wearing a shapeless sweatshirt and banging away on an old manual typewriter.

"I can't. I've got to finish this paper. It's supposed to be five to ten pages, and I've only written twenty so far," Beth says, turning her attention back to the typewriter...

...and then Sara finds herself in the back seat of a car, driving up to the bus stop on East 107th street. The driver parks just beyond the stop and gets out. Sara watches as the man, so very familiar to her, examines the area around the stop. He peers into trash cans, carefully studies the bus schedule on the pole mounted by the curb. He looks in all directions, searching for something that isn't here. Something Sara knows isn't going to be here. Something that, Sara knows, he knows isn't going to be here...

"He knows. He knows," someone is muttering. It's me. The words are coming out of my mouth. But who knows? What do they know?

It comes to me all at once. It's exactly what Beth said at dinner last night. What happens when it gets through to this guy that Jackie's never going to be at that bus stop? I'm afraid to find out, but I'm much more afraid that I'm going to.

I don't have the heart to tell Beth about what I saw–and if I'm being honest I don't want to think about it myself. I don't know what I can do about it right now anyway, so my plan is to keep my mind on things I can control. And at the moment that's a short list: breakfast, shopping and seeing Brian tomorrow.

Against my better judgment I do tell Beth about last night's dream, finally. We're back in our room and it's nearly eleven o'clock at night. She's angry that I waited until we're getting ready for bed to drop it on her and I have to admit she's right to be. "I've been pushing it out of my mind all day long," I say. "And I didn't want to upset you." I know that sounds like an excuse, and I guess it is. But it's also true. It's not like there's anything she can do about what I'm seeing any more than I can.

"I'm probably going to have nightmares about it too, now," she says.

"I'll be the first one to know if you do," I tell her. It's a bad joke at an inappropriate time, but sometimes that's the best way to break the tension. Sure enough she laughs, a lot harder than the joke deserved. That only lasts for a minute, though, then she's serious again. Something else has occurred to her.

"You saw what I dreamed last night too, didn't you?" She's not going to let me weasel out of it, either. "Sara Barnes, you tell me!"

I can't even lie and tell her I don't remember, because she knows I remember all these dreams I'm seeing. It's only my own I forget in the morning. "I don't want to see it," I tell her, just like I told her before Christmas. "What's going on inside your head ought to be private. I hate that I'm seeing it."

She softens a bit; she can see that I mean it. "I know you do. But," and now there's just a hint of a smile there, "you're dodging the question. I don't even know what I dreamed about, and you do. How fair is that? All I remember is clothes that didn't fit right, and when I woke up my fingers hurt."

I have to tell her, don't I? So I do.

"I guess I really am jealous of you," she says after I finish. "What else can it mean?" That's extremely high praise, coming from Beth.

I don't dream, as far as I can remember, and I don't see anyone else's dreams. I wake up well-rested and ready to face the day. I'm especially glad about that, since this is the day my boyfriend will be back. His flight is supposed to arrive at one-thirty in the afternoon, and I call the airline at noon to confirm it's on schedule, which it is. I go back to the card I've been trying to finish writing all morning. I have to get it exactly right. I pick up where I left off.

"Your Christmas gift is the best and the most special one I've ever received. I've thought and thought about what I can give you in return, and I know now what it will be. I want to be your best, most special Christmas present. This year, and every year..."

I read it back over, several times. I underline the "I want." I think that says it perfectly. When I'm finished, I put the card in the envelope and seal it. I get everything else I need and head down to the lobby.

I stand right by the door and look over towards Allen House. I'm waiting until I see someone heading over there so I can follow them into the building. It takes ten minutes, but finally I see three people, all bundled up, walking that way and I make my move. They're all too preoccupied with getting out of the cold to notice me sneaking in right behind them– it's even worse now than it was in December, which doesn't seem possible.

I go around to the back stairs and head up to Brian's room. The credit card trick works just as easily as it did the other day and I go inside. I take the Christmas card with the note I wrote and tape it to the outside of the door. Then I go inside and I lock the door behind me.

I take off my coat and all the rest of my winter gear, and I don't even realize I'm folding everything and hanging it up neatly until I've done it. Some habits run really deep, I guess. When that's finished, I take off everything else I'm wearing—of course I fold all that up, too—and I get properly dressed for the surprise. I lie down on his bed to wait.

It's almost three o'clock when I hear footsteps right outside the door. I hear Brian's voice muttering "what the heck?" I hear the card being taken off the door and opened. There's nothing for probably a minute, which feels to me like an hour, then there's the key in the lock, the doorknob turning, and there he is. There's my boyfriend, who I love, looking at me with a mix of confusion, amazement and desire on his face.

What he sees is me in nothing but the black lacy underwear from the Victoria's Secret "naughty nighttime" collection I bought yesterday, and a Christmas bow tied around my neck. I'm lying in what I hope is a very seductive pose. The sight has him speechless, which is exactly how this was supposed to go.

"Did you read the card?" All he's capable of is a barely perceptible nod of the head. "Good," I tell him. "I meant every word." The confusion slowly disappears from his face, and I repeat, just to make sure he's got the point: "Every single word."

He belatedly realizes that he's still standing in the doorway; without taking his eyes off me, he reaches back, pulls the door closed and locks it. And then I show him just how much I meant everything I wrote.

It's nearly eight o'clock. Brian's just now nodded off, and I'm completely–not just exhausted, but drained. In the very best possible way.

Our first time, that first night in my room, my bed, it was something like this. But this was—more. So much more. I don't know any better way to say it. That first night, we had a connection, and I needed him and I lost myself in the moment.

Today, now–it's not just "a connection" anymore. I love him, but it's not even just that. I trust him, more than I've ever trusted another person, more than I ever thought I could trust another person.

And I gave myself to him. Not just my body–that was the easy part–but everything else as well. I gave him my heart and my soul. And he gave me his heart and his soul in return. There were no fears, no worries, no questions. We could just feel. Just love and be loved. Just be, together.

I never imagined I could have something like this.

I'm lying next to him, halfway under the covers, just watching him sleep. I'll let him sleep for a while, but not too long. I can feel my stomach starting to growl–we both need to eat something and get our strength back up.

As I just watch his chest move gently up and down, I hear a sound outside the door. Footsteps. Something heavy hitting the floor. Jangling keys. Then a knock. It brings me straight down to earth. So much for no fears, no worries, no questions.

Brian stirs, but doesn't wake. Maybe they'll go away, whoever they are.

Another knock–they're not going away. More jangling keys. Then–oh, crap!–the key going in the lock, the doorknob turning. I pull the covers up to my neck as the door opens. Standing there in the doorway is someone I've never seen before. He doesn't look much taller than me. He's got light brown hair, and he's looking at me wide-eyed from behind a pair of glasses too big for his face.

"Oh!" he says, going as red as I imagine I just have. "I didn't know–I'll come back!"

Brian's still not quite awake. I try to put as much of a smile as I can on my face; I don't want to make this any more awkward than it already is. "Hang on. Room 411? Allen House?"

The stranger nods. "I just got in. The RD gave me the keys, he didn't think my roommate was back yet." So much for Brian's single room.

"Just give us five minutes," I say, and I don't really keep the disappointment out of my voice. "Go ahead and leave your stuff inside the door if you want." He obediently shoves his bags inside and closes the door. "You might as well go downstairs, it's more comfortable than standing in the hall. I promise, five minutes and I'll be down, and you can come back up here and get moved in."

He doesn't answer; I hear receding footsteps and he's gone. That's when Brian finally stirs awake.

"What?" he mutters. "Thought I heard talking."

I sit up. "You did. It's bad news," I tell him. "Apparently you've got a roommate. He just showed up." Brian looks around the room, thoroughly confused. "I sent him downstairs. But we have to get dressed." He watches me dress first, then pulls sweatpants and a t-shirt out of the closet and throws them on.

"I'm sorry," he says, and then, very suddenly, he grabs me, and I feel myself melting into his arms as he kisses me. It takes all my willpower to pull away from him.

"I'm sorry, too." It occurs to me that we could barricade the door and we'd have more time to ourselves. It would be so good, but–no.

I have to go. Now.

Brian wants to walk me downstairs, but I hold my hand up. "You might as well wait here. I'll call you in the morning," I say, and I kiss him quickly. "And I hope you liked your belated Christmas present!" His expression at that is just priceless. If I absolutely have to leave, this is as good a moment as any.

"I love you!" he calls out to me as I head down the stairs, and before we're out of earshot I say it back. I come down into the lounge, and the roommate is sitting on the horrible orange couch.

"I'm really sorry," he says, and he should be. Of course, I don't say that.

Instead, I shake my head. "You couldn't know. Don't sweat it." I'm just grateful he didn't show up an hour earlier. The way things were going, neither Brian nor I would have heard him, and wouldn't that have been some introduction?

He extends a hand. "Jason," he says.

I shake it. "Sara." I try to make myself believe my next words, or at least make them sound believable. "Pleased to meet you."

Beth is laughing her head off. If this had happened to anyone else and I was just hearing the story rather than participating in it, I'd probably think it was funny, too. That isn't any consolation at the moment, though.

"At least he didn't interrupt..."

I go very red. "I thought about that already. I think I would have had to kill myself," I say. "Or maybe him. Or him, and then myself."

I see there's an envelope on my desk; I'm happy for any distraction right now. "Yeah," Beth says as I pick it up. "Looks like your mother got the pictures back." I tear it open, and she's right. There's our Christmas tree, there's Dad and Bob wearing their matching Santa hats, and there are several photos of Brian and me, all dressed up. I pass them over to Beth, who's already holding her hand out for them.

She whistles. "Wow. You weren't kidding. You really do look like a different person," she says. "I thought I did a good job on you that night we went downtown, but–God, that was nothing."

"I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror," I say, and then I tell her about Mrs. McGuire not recognizing me, and my Dad's little joke. "Gretchen, that was the name he made up."

Beth gives me what I can only call an "evil grin" and it occurs to me I probably shouldn't have mentioned that. "I love it! It's taken two and a half years, but I've finally got the perfect nickname for you. Gretchen!" I definitely shouldn't have mentioned it.

Sara is in her dorm room, looking in the full-length mirror that Beth has hanging from the back of the closet door. She's dressed for bed but the girl who stares back at her isn't; she's ready for a night out on the town. Sara's hair is all over the place, and her eyes are barely open; the girl in the mirror has her hair styled perfectly, and her eyes are wide open and bright.

Sara looks down at herself; she's still in her night shirt and pajama bottoms. She looks back up, and the girl in the mirror steps forward, out of the mirror and into the room. She says to Sara, "You can go to bed if you want, I've got better things to do." The girl walks over to Beth's bed, where Beth is asleep under the covers. She pulls the blankets up, and Beth is fully dressed, fully made up, and she snaps awake in an instant. The girl extends a hand and pulls her up.

"I was waiting for you, Gretchen," Beth says while Sara watches, saddened but not at all surprised that her nonexistent older sister is stealing her best friend away. "Let's go," Beth says to her, and then, to Sara, "Sorry, you've been replaced." Beth and Gretchen walk out, leaving Sara behind...

I open my eyes, and I can't see anything–it's pitch dark. No, there's a little light, coming from under the door, and also from the glow of my alarm clock. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. It's three-thirty in the morning.

I wonder why I woke up? I don't have to go to the bathroom. I'm not thirsty. It doesn't make any sense. I look over at Beth's bed, of course it's empty–

No, it isn't. She's there, sleeping very peacefully, it looks like. Why did I think she wouldn't be there?

I don't know. I must have had some reason, but I can't remember now. I'm just being stupid, I guess. I lie back down, pull the covers over me. Maybe I can get back to sleep. Maybe...

... Sara is in an unfamiliar room. No, she realizes, not unfamiliar. It's a bedroom, one she remembers very well even though she can't remember why she does. She looks around, and recognizes everything she sees–a Rolex watch on the dresser, a beautiful painting of a ship at sea with the sky orange and red as though it were on fire in the background. And now, coming in the door, a large, powerful man, dragging a girl, a teenager, in behind him. Sara stands only a couple of feet from the bed, but she can move no closer, and neither the man nor the girl take any notice of her. On closer inspection, Sara can see that the girl is barely a teenager, probably twelve or thirteen at a guess.

The man raises his fist, and Sara screams. She tries to turn away, but she can't. She can't even close her eyes; all she can do is watch, and scream...

I–someone's shaking me. My throat's burning. I can't–I don't want to open my eyes. I sit myself up, very quickly and I vomit, all over the floor, all over myself. Someone makes a disgusted sound, and I try to stand but my legs won't hold me up. I go down on my knees, and I vomit again.

I hear someone running, and the door opening and my own ragged breathing. I finally open my eyes. I'm in my room. I'm kneeling on the floor of my dorm room in a pool of my own vomit. The remains of my lunch and dinner are all over my clothes and my sheets and the floor.

And now I remember why. It's coming again, I retch, but there's nothing left in my stomach to come up.

"Oh, God! Sara! What's going on?" It's Beth. She's coming in the door. She's got a big wad of paper towels and a trash bag. She wipes my face with a wet towel.

"It happened again," I force myself to say. I can barely hear my own voice. "And she was–she was a little girl. Like junior high school. And–it was worse," I tell her, dry-heaving again while she tries to clean me up. "There was–there was so much blood. She was–you can't imagine."

She looks at me with a mixture of pity and horror, but she somehow keeps herself focused. "Get those clothes off," she orders, and when I do she drops them into the trash bag. I hold my hand out for some paper towels and keep cleaning myself off. "Get your bathrobe, go take a shower," she tells me, and I do as I'm told. As I very slowly walk to the bathroom, I see that she's taking the sheets off my bed and putting them in the trash bag as well.

I want to thank her or at least say something, but I can't make any words come out. I just do what I'm supposed to do, hang my bathrobe on the hook, get in the shower and turn on the water.

I don't have any idea how long I've been here in the shower. From the way my skin is pruning up I think it's been a while. I've just been standing here under the water, barely awake.

How did that–down at my feet, there's my little plastic basket with my soap and shampoo and everything. How'd it get there? I don't remember carrying it in. Beth must have brought it in for me. I didn't even notice her doing it. I reach down for my soap and start washing myself.

I'm just about done rinsing my hair when Beth's voice echoes in the bathroom. "Sara?"

"I'm here. I'm almost done," I say over the sound of the water. I guess she's satisfied with that, because I don't hear anything more. I finish up, dry my hair, brush my teeth, and I feel something close to human when I come back to my room.

"I knew you needed time, but I was starting to worry. You were in there for almost two hours," Beth says. I see that my sheets are back on the bed. She follows my glance. "Yeah. When I got back upstairs with the laundry and you were still in the shower, I figured that was long enough."

I go to her and hug her tightly. The tears start flooding without any warning. "You–I–thank you!"

She lets me cry as she maneuvers me over to my bed and sits me down. "You're my best friend. What was I going to do?" That just sets me off blubbering all the more. On top of everything I saw, I feel awful for what I did to her. I woke her up in the middle of the night, threw up all over her stuff as well as mine, she had to clean it all up and she isn't complaining at all. I don't know what I ever did to deserve a friend like her.

I don't have any idea what time it is. All I know is, Brian has his arm around me, trying to comfort me. It's not really helping all that much. I keep flashing back to the nightmare, and how young she was, younger than the other girls, and how much blood there was. I'm barely holding on right now, and I feel like I'm two seconds away from bursting into tears again, or bringing up my lunch, or both. But we have to talk about it. Don't we?

Beth is here, too, sitting over on her bed. "I don't want to ask–I know how hard it is–but do you think it's happened, or is he just anticipating it?"

"I don't think he's done it yet," I say in a weak voice. "It wasn't until I dreamed about the car, both of the other times, that's when he actually did it. So she's still–I hope she's still alive." It's a pretty thin hope.

Brian gets up from next to me, and goes to my desk to grab a blank notebook. "Maybe we need to be more logical," he says, sitting back down. "You said the very first time you had the nightmare was–what, right after Thanksgiving?"

I can't forget it, however much I'd like to. "The Saturday after, that Saturday night."

Beth takes her calendar down from the wall–it's last year's, she hasn't changed it yet. "So that would be, what?" She flips back to November. "The 25th. Saturday the 25th."

Brian writes that down. I want to crawl under the covers and shut out the world but I have to do this. I have to remember everything they're asking me. "I kept having that nightmare the next few nights. The one with the car was, it was a Sunday," I'm sure of that. How do I know? It has to do with Beth–I remember now. "You had me go see Dr. Ritter the next morning and I remember that was a Monday."

"So that's, what, December 3rd?" Beth asks, looking at the calendar. "Eight days between the first dream and–and when it happened." Brian writes that, too.

"OK. So the next nightmare was when I was in Dr. Ritter's lab. That was a couple of days later, Tuesday night, I think."

Brian pipes up. "Right. I remember that. So that's December 5th." He jots it down.

"And the next time with the car–the next time it..." I can't continue. I can't bring myself to say it.

"The night of the Secret Santa party," Beth answers for me. "That was a Wednesday," she examines the calendar again. "The 13th."

I don't want to be doing this. I want to forget all about it. But the images keep coming into my head, and if there's anything I can do to save that little girl, I have to. Right?

And then it hits me: this is my fault. It's all my fault.

Beth and Brian notice that I'm no longer listening to them, I'm just sitting here looking down at my feet and trying not to do–I don't even know what. Brian wraps his arms around me. "What is it? What just happened?"

I don't recognize my own voice; it's completely lifeless. "If–if she dies, it's because of me."

Brian holds me tighter, and Beth is staring at me with more worry than I've ever seen on her face. "What are you talking about?" she asks. I honestly believe that it hasn't occurred to her, and I love her for that. But she'll figure it out soon enough on her own; I might as well be the one to say it.

"It's my fault. Because I warned Jackie. So he picked this other girl. She's going to die because Jackie had the dumb luck to live down the hall from me, and she didn't." Because when it was somebody I knew, I found a way to do something. But when it's some random girl, too bad, she's on her own. Just like poor Amelia, and poor Katie.

I don't know how I'm keeping any control at all; I want to scream, or beat my head against the wall until it's bloody, or–something. Anything. I don't want to think about this anymore. I don't want to be responsible for picking who lives and who dies.

"Sara, don't be ridiculous! You can't blame yourself!" Beth is looking at me now like I've completely lost my mind. She's not far off.

"What if it was Chrissy?" She winces as though I just slapped her. "What if it was? How would you feel, if you knew I saved Jackie, but it meant that Chrissy..." I can't–I won't say it out loud.

Beth gets it now. She looks close to tears herself. Brian is holding me even closer, but he's also looking at the notebook. "We just have to do something to save her, that's all there is to it," he says.

I don't know how I keep myself from shouting at him, shoving him off me and down to the floor. I guess I have that much self-control left. "How the hell do you expect us to do that?" is what comes out, but I somehow keep at least part of the anger and the pain out of my voice.

He's still holding me. "I don't know," he says, and then he takes a deep breath, and lets me go. He beckons Beth over to my bed, so he can show us both what he's written in the notebook. "But I think we've got eight days to figure it out."

It's right there. The time between the first nightmare and the car, eight days. It's the same for the second one. If that stays the same–if that's the pattern every time–we have a chance–I have a chance. Maybe she doesn't have to die after all.

My head feels clearer, my stomach settles down. The sky outside seems suddenly lighter. There's still a chance. "I could kiss you!" I say to Brian. Then I remember that he is my boyfriend and I can kiss him whenever I want, and I do.

Tales From the Darkside

(January 13-15, 1990)

My relief at Brian's revelation doesn't last long. There's the little problem that we don't know who the killer is or where he lives. And then a much worse thought occurs to me–even assuming Brian's right about the timing. While the girl is hopefully alive, for all we know he could already have her. She might be locked up in his basement right now.

God, I can't think about that. I don't dare mention it to Brian or Beth. I wonder if they've already thought of it and they're afraid to bring it up to me?

We keep talking but none of us has any brilliant brainstorms. By six o'clock, having spent all day hashing and rehashing this, we walk over to Lardner to dinner–it's just opened for the new semester today, now that enough students are back from break. I go through the hot food line and give everything there a pass; I can't help but laugh when I finally sit down at a table, a bowl of cold cereal on my tray. "What's so funny?" Brian asks.

"With everything going on, it's kind of comforting to know that there's always something you can count on."

Beth knows exactly where I'm going and she finishes for me. "Good old Lardner Commons. Guaranteed to be inedible, seven days a week." We all laugh, and for the first time all day, it's with genuine humor.

We're almost finished when Melanie Vondreau sits down next to me. "Hey, Sara. I just wanted to thank you." I have no idea for what, which she can tell from my blank stare. "Biochemistry. I ended up with a B-plus. You saved my ass," she says. "I couldn't have a C on my application for the Livingston scholarship."

That snaps my mind back to the subject of school for the first time since Wednesday afternoon. Melanie's looking at me, expecting some sort of response. "Well–good. I'm glad," I say and it almost sounds like I mean it.

I don't, though, because if she's applying for the Livingston scholarship, she's competing against me. It's a partial scholarship to medical school, and it's awarded by the Biology department. There's only one recipient each year. You have to be in pre-med, obviously, and you have to have at least a 3.5 grade point average to even apply.

A C in an important class like Biochemistry would have really hurt her chances–and boosted mine. And I went and helped her anyway. I really hope whatever karma I'm due for that particular good deed comes to me soon. God knows I could use it.

...Sara doesn't know where she is at first; it's the strangest place she's ever seen. It looks like a ruin of some kind, maybe an ancient temple? Vines and weeds poke up through the stone floor and out of the cracked walls. The air is hazy with dust. Sara has no idea what's going on, until Melanie Vondreau runs past her, breathing hard. Melanie's dirty blonde curls spill out from under a fedora and past the collar of a battered brown leather jacket. To top the outfit off she's got a bullwhip hanging off her belt. It's clear to Sara now–she remembers that Melanie was among the people watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on the communal VCR last night.

Sara watches Melanie run until she suddenly pulls up short, two steps away from a yawning chasm. Behind Melanie, off in the distance but growing steadily louder, Sara can hear indistinct shouts and the sound of many running feet. Melanie backs up a few steps and jumps the chasm at a run. She doesn't quite make it; she barely manages to catch one hand on the lip of the chasm, her legs kicking uselessly over what seems like a bottomless pit. And standing over her on the safe ground of the other side, Sara sees herself. The dream-Sara is wearing a crisp white linen suit and an extremely smug expression as she looks down at Melanie. Melanie struggles futilely to climb up, and dream-Sara watches for a while before sighing heavily. "Oh, very well," dream-Sara says in a dreadful French accent, reaching down, grabbing Melanie and pulling her up to safety...

... without transition, Sara is in a bedroom, one she's been in many times before. She knows everything in the room even before she sets eyes on any of it. She looks towards the door, knowing what's about to come through it, and sure enough, it opens...

I'm waiting for the door to–no, I hear something. Not footsteps, but ringing. A loud, insistent ringing. It's not stopping. The fire alarm.

"Wha–hey, turn that off!" Beth stirs awake, looking accusingly at me. "Why'd you set the alarm?" Then she's sitting up, and she has the good grace to look embarrassed. "Right. The fire alarm. I wonder who did it this time?"

I put on my slippers and open the door. Melody Katz is just coming down the hall towards me. "Bad news," she says. "Rita's not back yet." Which means we all have to go downstairs and then outside into the freezing cold until Security gets here. "Come on, everybody," she yells, knocking on doors as she continues down the hall.

I switch my slippers out for my snow boots, wrap my scarf around my neck and put on my coat. Beth's doing the same thing, and we trudge downstairs. It looks like about half the dorm is here; there are still a lot of people who haven't come back from break yet.

The last two people to exit the building are Kate Billings and her roommate Terrie, and the guilty looks on their faces answer the question of who was responsible for the fire alarm. I'm probably the only person here who isn't angry with them–they spared me seeing the nightmare again, after all.

We all shiver together for twenty minutes before Security shows up, and it's another ten before the alarm finally goes silent and we're allowed back inside.

Sunday morning. Beth's over at breakfast and I'm lying in bed, thinking unpleasant thoughts. If Brian's right, I've only got seven days left now. There were no more dreams–or nightmares–when I got back to sleep, but I can't put it out of my mind now that I'm awake.

There isn't much time. Seven days is nothing. And I'm no closer to knowing one single concrete thing about the killer or where he lives or anything else than I was yesterday.

I need something. I've got a nagging feeling that there's something familiar about him, that I have seen him somewhere before. I told Beth I hadn't, and I've been telling myself I haven't, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that isn't actually true.

Maybe–if I had a picture of him, one I could look at while I'm awake, in the bright light of day, maybe that would help. But how? How could I get–oh!

I've been stupid. There is a way. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me before. I just need a little help, and there's someone a couple of doors down the hall who can provide it.

I knock on the door of room 206, and a tired voice answers, "Come in."

Terrie MacKenzie looks up at me from her bed. She couldn't possibly be more of a contrast to her roommate Kate, sitting at her desk. Terrie's really tall, maybe even six foot, and rail-thin with long, bright red hair. Kate's a full foot shorter, with dark brown hair. Terrie frowns at me. "Look, we're sorry about the fire alarm last night. What more do you want from us, blood?"

I shake my head. "No, Terrie, I don't care about the fire alarm. Actually, I'm glad you set it off." They both look at me suspiciously, but I just press on.

There's another very important difference between Kate and Terrie. Kate goes to the music school, but Terrie's a student at the Ohio Institute of Art. "I was just hoping to borrow your drawing skills for half an hour or so, if you're free."

She gives me a blank look. It is kind of a strange request. "I guess so," she says finally. "What for?"

I tell her basically the truth, which still somehow feels like a complete lie. "Don't laugh, but I've been having this dream, the same dream, for a month now. It's driving me crazy. I know I've seen the guy in it before, but I can't figure out who it is. I thought, maybe, if I had a picture of him to look at, it might jog my memory."

She's very skeptical. "You want me to draw somebody you're dreaming about?" When she says it out loud, it does sound absurd, doesn't it?

It probably is, but it's also the only thing I can think of. "Well, yeah. If I describe him, can you draw that?"

"Like a police artist," Kate chimes in. That's it! That's exactly it!

Terrie still seems doubtful, but she sits up and moves to get her sketchpad and a box of colored pencils anyway. "OK. If you want me to, I'll try. Let's go to the study room, there's better light in there."

I'm not sure how much better the light there can be; the sky outside is gray just like it's been every day for the past several months. But she's the artist; she must see something I don't. She sits down across the little table from me.

"I'm not sure how to start," I admit. It looks so easy on those TV cop shows when they do this.

"Me neither," Terrie answers, screwing up her face in thought. "How about–OK, basically what's the shape of his face? Round, or more of a long face?"

I concentrate; I don't know why it's so hard to summon up the memory of him when I want to see it. It comes often enough on its own when I don't. I can almost see, though–there! There it is!

"Kind of a long face. More oval than round." She starts drawing, and she goes on for a while. She got a heck of a lot from that one answer. She puts down her pencil, shows me the sketchpad.

"You already put the eyes and nose and everything in!"

She shrugs. "The basic proportions are pretty much the same for everyone. This way we've got something to work from."

I guess that makes sense. "The eyes are a little farther apart. Maybe a half inch? No, less than that. And the nose is a little more pointed." She erases and then draws again. I'm doing my best to focus just on his face, and not anything else about the nightmare. It's very hard.

"What about this?"

Much closer already. Too close. I have to focus. I have to keep it together. Just remember his face, and nothing else. "You've got it. The lips are a little thinner, and he shouldn't be smiling." More erasing, more drawing. "You're really good," I say, with more surprise in my voice than there probably should be. She's so caught up in what she's doing that she doesn't notice it, thankfully. She doesn't notice either that I'm sweating, or that my hands are shaking.

"What about his hair?"

"Parted on the left. Not very thick." The hair is adjusted. Then the ears. Then back to the eyes. "Blue. Kind of a dull blue, though. And maybe they're a tiny bit more round." Terrie draws some more. "The forehead's wrinkled. Not a lot, though. Just barely."

Finally she sets down her pencils and holds up the finished picture. "It's him! You really did it." I must have more willpower than I thought; what I want to do is tear the picture into a hundred pieces so I don't have to look at that face and be reminded of what it means. Instead, I sit there quietly and smile. She smiles too, gives me a little bow. "Thank you so much," I hear myself say. "I definitely owe you for this."

She waves my thanks away. "No problem. It was really interesting, actually. I hope it helps you." I hope so too.

I take the sketch and go back to my room. Now I'm sure I've seen him somewhere besides the dreams. I just can't remember where. I don't know how long I sit there staring at him before I hear the key in the door and Beth walks in. She throws off her coat and looks questioningly at me. "What's so fascinating?"

I show her the picture. She's got an even more curious expression now. "Where'd you get a drawing of Dr. Walters, and why are you staring at it like that?"

Beth is sitting on her bed, and I'm sitting on mine. We've been sitting this way for at least ten minutes now. We're just looking blankly at each other. I think both our brains may have short-circuited.

I've been asking myself, over and over, how did I not see it? How did I not make the connection? The picture is obviously Dr. Walters. There's no scar on his cheek, but besides that it's him exactly. How did I not realize it all along?

Beth is the first to recover her voice. "How'd you get–did you have Terrie draw it?" I nod. "You described the guy you've been seeing, and she drew–she drew that picture?" Another nod. "That's the face you've been seeing since Thanksgiving?" And another. "Him. That face. The one that looks exactly like my advisor." Still another nod.

"Former advisor," I remind her. I go on, and I'm not really sure where the words come from, "who quit for no good reason, and who's probably been lying about where he's been since September."

Oh, God. It all fits. It really is him.

But how could it be? He's a professor! Wouldn't someone else in the department have seen something wrong?

Beth is thinking exactly the same thing. "I had two classes with him. I've been in his office I don't know how many times. I've been to his house," she takes a deep breath, and her expression is pained. "You're saying that's who's been–that's who you're–he's the one who..." She's begging me to stop right now, to say that I've made a crazy mistake, that it obviously isn't him. She drops her eyes, she won't look at me.

I want to be wrong as much as she wants me to. But I'm not. "Yes," I say, and Beth won't look back up. "Beth, please. Look at me." She still won't.

I take a deep breath. "Damnit, Beth! You're my best friend," I say, my voice breaking. "You think this is easy? You think I want it to be true?" She starts to very slowly raise her head. "You know I would never lie to you. I would never hurt you. You know that. I couldn't love you more if you really were my sister."

She's not quite looking me in the eye yet. "But you've been having the dreams for a month! Why didn't you realize right away?" She's looking for any way for me to be wrong. I am, too, but there isn't.

"I think it's been there all along. I just couldn't–I couldn't accept it. I guess I couldn't believe one of our teachers could do–what he's doing." Now she is meeting my eyes. She knows I'm right. She knows it's true, but she doesn't say anything. I keep talking. "If I didn't know it in my heart, if I didn't know for sure, I wouldn't say it. It's true, Beth. I wish it wasn't. But it is. I know it's him."

I see a tear leaking from her eye. I don't know how she's held it back this long. It's just the one at first and then, suddenly, they start to flood down her cheeks. "No!" she yells, but I know it's not me she's yelling at. "I trusted him! I've been alone with him! And you're telling me he's a–a murderer!"

"I've been alone with him too," I say, barely louder than a whisper, "I've had to watch him–over and over. All these nights." And my tears start to flow too.

I go to her. We collapse into each other's arms, and all either of us can do is cry until there aren't any more tears left.

"So what the hell do we do about it?" We're still sitting on her bed. We haven't moved in what seems like forever.

I've been asking myself the same thing. As my father would put it, that's the $64,000 question. "There's no proof," I say. "None. We can't go to the police without something concrete."

"We could just go to his house," Beth points out. I've thought of that already.

"And do what? Break in and look for evidence?" Aside from the practical difficulties, breaking into someone's house is a crime and it's hard to see the police taking our word for why we did it. I guess we could stake out the house, and call the police when he shows up with his victim. Unless he's already got her there. And what if he's got a gun? It doesn't seem like a good option.

Beth can see exactly what I'm thinking and from her expression she's come to the same conclusions I have. "We'll have to get evidence some other way, then," she says, and there's a hardness in her voice that I've only heard a handful of times in all the time I've known her. I understand it. She feels utterly betrayed. Which she has been. I hate that I'm the one who delivered the news.

"What are you thinking?" I'm a little bit afraid of the answer.

She gets up from the bed, paces a bit as she thinks. "People are going to be talking in the department now that he's completely gone, right? Ray will hear everything. There's got to be something that'll help us. I'll get him to tell me. I'll get him drunk if I have to." She laughs, but there's no humor at all in it. "Hell, I'll sleep with him if I have to."

"Beth!" I've heard her say something like that a thousand times, but always in jest. She means it now.

"What's the problem? We need to find out. And anyway, he's cuter than Ron," she says with a weak smile. I laugh, much more than her joke deserves, just to break the tension. She joins in and just like that we're both hysterical. Neither of us can stop until I start hiccupping, and that just sets her off again. It's a good five or ten minutes before we're both finally calm.

A few minutes later, Beth stands up, a glint in her eye. "You know what? We should go by his house. Right now."

"Why?" I can't even guess what she's thinking.

"I don't want to do anything–really–but we have to at least be sure he's still there. Better we do it now." She's going through her dresser, looking for something–one of her notebooks from last spring. "I've got his address. I knew I had it there."

We're in Joe Karver's car, which Beth harassed him into letting us borrow. I'm driving, which he insisted on as a condition of letting us have it. Brian's next to me in the passenger seat–I insisted on him coming–and Beth is in back.

She's giving me directions and trying to control her impulse to be a backseat driver. I'm following her directions as best I can and trying to control my impulse to steer us straight into oncoming traffic just to shut her up.

We make a couple of wrong turns but, finally, we somehow end up in the right neighborhood with car and friendship still intact. It looks quiet, with tree-lined streets and nicely-kept houses. The cars in the driveways are mostly newer and in good shape. I can definitely imagine a professor living around here.

I see the sign for the street we're looking for, and I start to tense up as I turn onto Songbird Lane. We're looking for number 3911. "There's 3605," Brian says, so we've got three blocks to go.

I drive slowly, and we're all silent as we go by one block, two blocks, and then we're on his street. I'm sure it's just my imagination, but I swear I can hear all of our hearts beating; I feel like mine is ready to jump straight out of my chest. "I'll go by as slowly as I can, take a good look," I whisper, and both Brian and Beth have their eyes peeled out the windows.

"That's not right!" Beth shouts, and I'm so startled I slam on the brakes–not that we were going fast enough for it to make that much difference.

I whip around to face her. "What? What happened?"

"Look for yourself," she says, pointing to the mailbox at the end of 3911's driveway. I can see from here–in big letters, "The Kelleys" is written on the side.

"Maybe you had the address wrong?" Brian suggests, but, already halfway out the door, Beth shakes her head.

"No. That's the house. I remember it." She's walking up the driveway now, and I don't think this is a good idea at all but I can't let her go alone. Brian's out of the car as well. "That's definitely the house. Except..."

She points to the car in the driveway. It's not a Cadillac. It's a four-door BMW, with a "Proud Parent of an Honor Student" bumper sticker. And on the lawn, just a few feet from the front door, is a skateboard.

"You said Dr. Walters lived alone."

Beth nods. "Yeah, that's my point. And look at the window up there–up on the second floor." I can barely make out what I think are several stuffed animals sitting just inside on the windowsill.

Beth takes matters further into her hands; she marches right up to the front door, rings the bell. Even though it seems pretty clear that Dr. Walters doesn't live here anymore, I'm still terrified. I won't abandon her, though; I walk up behind her, Brian at my side. He takes my hand, and I feel him shaking just as much as I am.

The door opens, and a man and a woman stand there looking at us. He looks nothing like the man in the nightmares, nothing like Dr. Walters. They're holding hands, and I see the wedding rings they both wear. I feel some of the fear drain right out of me; there's no question now he doesn't live here.

"Hi," Beth says brightly. "Is Dr. Walters here? Thomas Walters?"

They both look at us blankly. "You've got the wrong house–oh," the woman says. "Walters! He was the previous owner, isn't that right?"

The man–her husband–agrees. "Yeah. We bought the house in July, he's been gone six months now." The fear comes right back. Six months? How are we going to find him now?

Beth keeps her composure. "Oh! I'm sorry we bothered you. Just–do you know anything about where he moved to?" Please. Please! Give us something. Anything.

They both shake their heads. Of course they don't know. They retreat back behind their front door. We go back to the car, tails between our legs, and it's Brian who voices what we're all thinking. "What the hell do we do now?"

The day is almost gone now, and we're no better off than we were this morning. The three of us return the car and I can't keep myself from giving Joe Karver a withering glare and a "For God's sake!" when he feels the need to go outside and check for himself that it's in one piece.

I know it's going to be pointless, but I borrow a phone book from Mona, and of course it is pointless. The listing for Dr. Walters has the address we were at today. The phone number, when I call it, is disconnected. I call information, and there's no listing at all for Dr. Walters. So that's a total dead end.

Once that's done, the three of us go over to Lardner for a thoroughly depressing dinner. Nearly everyone is back from break now. Under other circumstances, I'd be glad to see friends; happy to hear them talk about their holiday and brag about mine. But right now I'm feeling miserable and defeated and hopeless and it obviously shows. It seems like every time I look up from my plate someone is asking me if I'm OK, and did something awful happen to me over Christmas? Beth is getting a similar treatment, and Brian's only spared because nobody in Carson House knows him all that well.

Every time I'm asked, I mumble something about how I'm fine, really, and I guess it's just the cold and the gray that's got me feeling down. That's Beth's cue to explain her emotional state: "It's Miss Mopey over there, her bad mood is dragging me down."

We head back to the dorm–Brian's coming as well so we can all continue to go around and around and keep not coming up with any good answers. As we walk through the lobby, I see Melanie there on the couch watching the news.

It's no excuse, but I guess my crabby, crappy mood makes me do what I do. "Hey, Melanie," I say, getting her attention. "You know it's not going to be easy for you like in the movie, right? I'm not going to do something stupid and get my face melted off like what's-his-name did at the end, just so you've got a clear shot at the Livingston scholarship."

Her reaction is even better than I hoped; her face goes whiter than I would have thought possible and there's panic in her eyes. "How did you–how could you possibly..."

I'm grinning, for the first time in several hours. I brazenly lie. "Your door was open when you were talking about it. I was walking by, and I wouldn't have eavesdropped but I heard my name and I guess I just couldn't help it." I realize I'm being petty and mean and throwing away whatever progress I made building a better relationship with her during finals. I know I'll feel guilty about it later. Right at this moment, though, being able to laugh feels more important.

Melanie looks utterly scandalized; she can't think of anything to say in response. I say, very sweetly, "Goodnight, Mel," and head upstairs.

By the time I'm back in my room, my amusement has evaporated. It took maybe thirty whole seconds for the guilt to set in.

Beth is still chuckling, and Brian's not sure what to think. I don't give either of them the chance to say anything. As soon as the door's shut, I say: "I shouldn't have done that. It was a shitty thing to do. And I swore I wouldn't tell anything I saw."

Beth is trying to calm herself, and Brian looks at me with something like pity. "You're under a lot of stress, I mean, you're going to have moments..." he says in what I'm sure is meant as a soothing voice.

I'm not soothed. I snap at him. "I'm going to be a doctor! You think that's not going to be stressful? You think it's OK for me to treat whoever I see like garbage if I have a bad day?"

He doesn't flinch at all; he stands his ground. "No," he says, very calmly. He takes my hand, leads me to sit on my bed. I let him. "But it was one moment, and you already feel bad about it. It's not like you're wandering around looking for–I don't know–looking for puppies to kick or something."

That's true. When he puts it that way, I guess I can give myself a little break. "Besides," Beth chimes in, "I know you said you wouldn't tell anyone's secrets, but it sounds like she was dreaming about you. That makes it a little less bad, doesn't it?"

I'm not so sure about that, but I'll take it. I don't really have the energy to be angry at myself anyway. I might as well tell them the rest of the dream now, since they know the general idea already. I don't get two words out before Brian says, "So she had herself as Indiana Jones and you as Belloq?"

I can't help but laugh. "Exactly. I recognized the scene right away, I just didn't remember the name. Belloq, he's the French guy, right?"

Beth is staring at Brian. "How did you get all that just from 'his face melted off at the end?'"

He looks shocked that she's asking. "Everybody knows that. He opens the Ark and looks inside and him and all the Nazis get their faces melted off and die." Beth rolls her eyes; apparently everyone doesn't know that.

We remain distracted a few minutes more, but before too long we're back on the question of Dr. Walters and what, exactly we do next. It's Brian who comes up with an answer. He's looking at the drawing, and he asks me, "So this girl down the hall, she drew that just from your description?" I nod. "You remembered a lot of detail, to come up with that." Yes, I did. "How?"

"I–I just–I concentrated really hard. I don't think I did anything special. She kept asking me specific questions, and I answered them."

"I bet you remember a lot more," he says, not quite looking me in the eye as he does. "Probably more than you think you do."

"Could you see the dial on the watch?"

I don't want to do this anymore! I don't want to keep bringing it back, looking at every detail. I feel nauseous. My head hurts. But the image is there in my mind. The watch is up on the dresser. It's far away. Hard to see it. But I can just...

"Maybe–big hand on the twelve, little hand–at a right angle?" That would be, what? "Three o'clock."

"Three or nine?" Beth asks, in the quiet, calming voice she's been using the last hour, or maybe day, I've completely lost track.

"Definitely three. It's to the right of the big hand, not the left." I feel like my brain is about to start leaking out of my ears. I try to lift my head, sit up from my position lying flat on the bed, and I can't muster the energy to do it.

"I think that's enough," Brian says. Even if my eyes were open I couldn't see him from here, but I'm guessing he's horrified at how awful I look.

"I agree," Beth says, and I can feel her looming over me. "Brian, help me.

I feel her hand under me, and then Brian's. The two of them together slowly, gently lift me up to a sitting position. Beth opens the door and leaves, to return a moment later with a glass of water, which she hands to me along with two aspirin.

It hurts to swallow. I try to open my eyes, and that lasts about half a second; it's so bright! I hear a pathetic mewling sound, like a sick cat. I think it came from me.

"Turn off the lamp," Beth says, and I hear a switch being turned. I very slowly open my eyes again. It's still bright, even though the only light now is coming in from the hallway through the gap under the door. "How long–how long have we been at this?"

"Two hours," Brian says, still holding me up. He sits next to me now, and my whole body sags against him. Two hours? It feels like two days.

"Can I go to sleep now? I need to go to sleep now," I think I say. I feel Brian's arms around me, laying me down. I feel the covers being pulled over me. I feel his lips touch mine, but I can't even summon the energy to return his kiss. I'm so tired–so sleepy...

Sara is lying in her bed, in her room. Her eyes are closed, but she hears voices nearby, whispering, just loud enough for her to make out most of what they're saying.

A male voice that she thinks could be Brian's says, "What we did was really dangerous!"

A female voice, maybe Beth's, replies, "I know. But what were we supposed to do?"

The male again, "I don't know. But this isn't like Scooby Doo or something. We're not going to have some funny little adventure and pull a mask off somebody's head and drive off in our van when it's over. Two people are dead! Really actually dead! Do you want to be next? Do you want her to be?"

Sara can't hear what the female voice has to say to this. She sits up, opens her eyes...

...and she's in the back seat of a car, a VW Beetle. She realizes immediately whose dream this is when she turns and sees a white-faced Joe Karver next to her. In the driver's seat is Beth, who's cackling like a madwoman and who occasional turns back to grin manically at Joe. The car is going much too fast, on potholed streets through what looks like the bombed-out ruins of a city. Beth seems to be deliberately hitting every pothole and heading straight towards a massive conflagration off in the distance. In the passenger seat Sara sees herself, sitting there calmly and every so often saying, "Isn't this a pleasant drive?" while Joe looks on in speechless horror...

...Sara is in a bedroom suddenly, a bedroom she remembers. One she knows. She knows what she'll see on the dresser, on the walls, but now she looks more carefully around. There's a datebook on the side table, and a prescription bottle. Without knowing why, she feels an overwhelming urge to look out the window; there's something she wants to see–needs to see–outside. She only has a moment to look before the door opens, and she's watching a scene that's familiar and terrible. A man and a young girl, and she begins shrieking even before the girl does...

I hear someone–it's me. I'm screaming–I've been screaming. How did I not wake Beth up?

She's not here. What time is it? Eight-thirty. How long did I sleep? I don't even remember going to bed. I've still got my clothes on from yesterday.

It comes back to me slowly. I was trying to remember all the details from the nightmares, Beth was asking me, Brian was writing it all down. And then I fell asleep, and I didn't get up again until just now.

I try to stand up, but my legs don't want to support me. My back is sore–everything is sore. My head is killing me. Why was I screaming?

I see it–it was the nightmare again, the little girl again. I feel my legs go completely and I grab onto the bed to keep from hitting the floor. I manage to lower myself down slowly, so I'm kneeling on the floor up against the bed.

The door opens, but I'm not even capable of turning my head to look. "God, you look terrible," Beth says. I know I do, but however bad I look it's nothing compared to how I feel.

It takes a while, but she gets me back up, forces me to shower and dress and go to breakfast. I briefly panic over missing my first day of classes, but she reminds me that they don't start until tomorrow. I completely forgot that today's a holiday, Martin Luther King's birthday, so I haven't missed anything.

Beth gets me back to our room, and makes sure I'm doing OK–as OK as possible, anyway–and then she leaves. She's got business at the Psychology department. Even though it's an official holiday, she's got a hunch Ray the grad student will be there.

I'm still in my room. I haven't been able to work up the nerve to look at everything Brian wrote down last night. Obviously, I'll have to–otherwise what was the point? But I don't want to do it without him and Beth here.

Instead, I'm trying to take my mind off the nightmares by looking at the syllabus for CHEM329, Chemical Aspects of Living Systems. It works; I don't even notice an hour's passed and I've read through the first two chapters. It should be a fun class; I'm really looking forward to it.

I can only imagine what Beth would say about that. She'd probably pick the nightmares over CHEM329 if she had to choose. I guess a lot of people might, but I'm excited about it.

Beth picks this moment to come in the door. She stalks in like a woman on a mission. She sees me all caught up in my textbook and the sight snaps her out of it; she laughs despite herself. "That's the Sara I know and love. You must be feeling better if you're back to your old habits."

She's right. I can't keep the enthusiasm out of my voice. "It's really interesting! I can't wait to..." Just like that the laughter's done. She's frowning now, sitting at her desk. "What?"

Her voice is sad, almost pitying. "You really were excited. I bet you completely put everything else out of your mind, didn't you?" Yes. She doesn't need me to answer. "I wish I didn't have anything to tell you. You look a million times better than this morning. But I found out–you won't believe it."

"What?"

"You need to sit down for this," she says.

"I already am," I remind her.

"Right," she goes on, completely ignoring what I said. "Well, first of all, Dr. Walters was married."

Beth tells me everything she learned. She was absolutely right–all the dirt came out over break and Ray heard every bit of it. He was alone in the department office and bursting to tell someone. Beth didn't even need to buy him a drink. "Well, just a Coke, when his throat got dry from talking," she corrects herself. "It was the best fifty cents I ever spent."

So Dr. Walters was married, and apparently most of his colleagues didn't even know. He had a teenaged stepdaughter. Nobody had ever met or even seen her or the wife. Obviously, that's strange–what sort of person works somewhere for five years and never once mentions that he's married and has a child?

There's more. Last winter–December of 1988–there was some sort of nasty incident between him and the stepdaughter. The wife filed for divorce shortly afterwards. Then, to top it all off, that was right around that same time Dr. Walters was coming up for tenure. The other professors took an unofficial vote and it went against him.

The way it was always explained to me is that, if you go for tenure and get denied, that's almost as bad as being fired. Most professors, when that happens, resign right afterwards, and it ends up haunting them in their next job as well. The story with Dr. Walters was a little different. Ray's theory was that Dr. Korben, the department chair, went out of her way to ease the blow. She kept everything unofficial and let him know privately, so he could have plenty of time to try and find another job without a big black mark on his record.

All of this fits. Beth and I recap everything she learned:

He's obviously a secretive and dishonest man–keeping his marriage from everyone he knew.

He's got to be tremendously angry–losing his wife, stepchild and job all within a few weeks would upset anybody.

He must have had to sell his house as part of the divorce–that explains why he lived alone when Beth went to his house last spring, and why he moved out in July.

And the "nasty incident" with the stepdaughter–that fits right in with what he's been doing recently. But she couldn't have died or–or–well, anyway, if she had, there's no way that would have stayed quiet for a whole year. The police would've gotten involved; he probably would have lost his job then and there.

"You're the Psych major," I say after we've been through it all several times. "Is losing his job and his wife and his house enough to push him to–to what he's–to killing those girls?"

"I don't know," she answers. "It could be he was already most of the way there. Maybe the daughter suspected. Maybe he was acting weird around her friends. Or more than weird."

She looks nauseous as she says it, and that's how I feel now too. "If we weren't already sure it was him, I think this would settle it."

Beth agrees. "I don't want to believe it. I keep thinking about all those times I was alone with him in his office. God, I just want to go in the shower right now and wash it all away, you know?" Oh, yes. I know exactly.

I hug her, very tightly. "Thank you. I know how hard that was. I don't know if I could have done it."

She hugs me back, and neither of us let go. "You realize we're nowhere close to done yet. We still don't know where he even lives now."

No, we don't. We also don't know what exactly happened with the stepdaughter, and as much as I don't want to know, I feel like it's a piece of the puzzle we'll need to put everything together. I wish I knew how we could find out.

Legal Eagles

(January 15-18, 1990)

Beth and I go over to dinner early. Brian's going to come over afterwards and we've got a thrilling evening planned: discussing what we know about the homicidal ex-professor who's going to kill another teenaged girl on Sunday if I can't do something to prevent it.

In the interest of getting some protein into my system, I've braved the chicken soup tonight. In between forcing spoonfuls of it down my throat, I overhear John, a little way down the table, say something that catches my interest.

"What's that about a law student?" I ask him.

He turns to me, surprised at my interruption. "Oh. Nothing. I'm just helping her with resumes, while I'm doing my shift over at the computer lab." I'd forgotten that he works in the library computer lab. There's always a work-study student on duty, to help anybody who's having a problem, to unjam the printers and all that. And apparently to help people design and format resumes as well.

I wonder if a law student would know how to get hold of whatever legal documents there might be from Dr. Walters' divorce? It's got to be worth a shot. And it'll also postpone going over all my recollections from the nightmares for a little while longer. I know how that sounds, and I agree, but I–I don't know how I'm going to face it when we do all sit down and go through it.

"You're meeting her tonight?"

"Yeah," he says, clearly confused as to why I care.

"Good. You owe me a favor, and I'm calling it in. You're going to introduce me to her and ask her to help me." I didn't mean for it to come out quite so much like an order, even though it is one.

He's completely lost now. "What favor do I owe you?"

I try to keep the impatience out of my voice. I don't do a very good job. "Diana Filardi."

Comprehension dawns, followed almost immediately by more confusion. "That was Beth. She told me about Diana."

I sigh. "Well, I was the one who found out and I told Beth, so she could tell you."

Beth backs me up. "She did. I had no idea until Sara mentioned it to me." Well, it is true. I don't need to mention that if it had been left up to me, he probably wouldn't ever have found out about it.

"OK? We're all on the same page now? So what time are you meeting her?"

I walk over to the library with John. I wish I was with Brian so we could walk huddled together, because it's bitterly cold. The wind is slicing right through all the layers I'm wearing. John doesn't seem any more comfortable than I do.

When we get there, his law student is waiting for him in the computer lab. She's the only patron there. I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but she looks just like any other student. She's wearing a school sweatshirt and jeans; she's got light brown hair tied up in a ponytail. When she sees John, she absolutely beams, and she asks him about his holidays with what looks like genuine enthusiasm.

I guess, now I think about it, I did have a picture in my mind: someone in a sharp suit, a cold, steely glint in her eye and maybe one of those ridiculous aluminum briefcases on the table next to her. That's what I get for watching "L.A. Law," I suppose. It's pretty stupid of me, especially since I'm asking for her help.

They chat for a couple of minutes before John gets around to mentioning me and my reason for coming. She shakes my hand and introduces herself as Natalie. "I'm Sara. Nice to meet you!" She smiles, she makes eye contact, just like a regular person. She really does come across as a legitimately nice human being. I smile back at her.

"John says you need some legal advice? I don't know what he told you, but I'm only in my second year, so I don't know how much I can help you. But I'll give it a try. What's going on?"

I sit down across from her. "It's not really advice exactly," I say. "I just need to know if there's any way to look at someone's divorce papers." John stares at me, and it doesn't take a mind reader to guess what he's thinking: something along the lines of "her boyfriend's a freshman, how could he possibly be divorced already!" On the other hand Natalie doesn't seem surprised–and why should she? She doesn't know me at all; I might have a perfectly good reason to want to know.

I didn't think it was possible, but her smile actually gets brighter. "That's easy! I can definitely help you with that. Divorces are in the public record. You can request the papers yourself. All you have to do is go down to the county courthouse. You fill out a form–very straightforward, it should take five minutes. Then you just pay the fee–if I remember right, for Cuyahoga County it's fifteen dollars and then a dollar a page." She pauses. "Unless they're sealed. In that case..."

"They wouldn't be," I say quickly. I hope they're not.

"Well, then it's like I said. Just go to the courthouse, pay the fee, you're all set."

That does sound easy. "Great!" I say. But I can see a potential snag. "How do I know which courthouse to go to?"

Her smile fades a bit. "Most likely it should be the county they lived in. But if you don't know where that is–that would be a problem." She thinks for a minute. "Maybe–no, I'm not sure where you'd go from there."

That doesn't sound quite as promising. Still, at least she gave me a place to start. The house where Dr. Walters lived is definitely in Cuyahoga County–you have to go way out past the suburbs to be in the next county. And there's no reason to think he would have gotten divorced somewhere else. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

I thank her. "It's no problem," she says. John asks me if I want to wait for him to take care of his business with Natalie so we can walk home together. That's very gentlemanly of him.

"Sure," I say. There's no reason to tempt fate by walking back alone in the dark and the cold. It's not like I expect Dr. Walters to be prowling the streets right outside waiting to snatch me, but you never know what else could happen.

I leave them to their work. I go hunt down a phone book, find the address of the county courthouse and write it down. Brian or Beth or I will have to find the time to go tomorrow, I guess.

Once that's done I don't have to wait too much longer; I guess whatever John's helping Natalie with isn't that difficult. I watch them as they finish up; she makes a point of sitting a little closer to him than she absolutely has to, and she keeps touching his arm while they work. He doesn't seem to notice.

I wonder if it's because now he's seeing Diana and not paying attention to what any other woman does, or if it just doesn't occur to him that a woman three years older than him might be interested in him? Why wouldn't it occur to him? Why would he think a woman couldn't be interested in someone younger than her? Look at Brian and me!

I take a deep breath. I'm getting offended at a thought that I'm imagining John might possibly be thinking, even though I don't have the slightest reason to think he is. That doesn't seem rational, does it?

I guess I'm just looking for anything to think about other than Dr. Walters. I keep doing that all the way home. We don't talk much, mainly because it's too cold to do anything besides just walk as quickly as we can manage. But I'm thinking about him and Natalie, debating whether I should just ask him whether he knows that she's obviously interested in him. In the end, I decide not to; he seems happy enough with Diana, and I don't need to go stirring up trouble where there isn't any.

It's eight-thirty when I get back to my room. Brian and Beth are both there, going over the notes he took down last night. He comes over to the door when I walk in, and he kisses me before I can even take my coat off. That's just fine with me.

After–well, I'm not sure how long, honestly–Beth clears her throat and he lets me go. "Did you find anything out?" she asks.

"I hope so. If he got divorced here, we can get the records from the courthouse downtown." If. And if not–better to not think about that unless we have to.

"I'll go tomorrow," Brian volunteers. "I've only got one class, in the morning." That's settled, then. My Tuesdays are pretty filled; I've got a class at nine-thirty, twelve-thirty and then three-thirty. There's not enough time in between any of them to make it downtown and back.

"Perfect," I say with more enthusiasm than I feel. I hate him having to go by himself, and I'm worried both that he won't find anything when he gets there, and that he will. "So," I say, hanging up my coat, "were you guys talking about me the whole time?"

It's such a bad joke that neither of them respond.

We go over and over the notes. There are no big revelations, unfortunately. There's nothing in the bedroom to indicate where the house it's in might be located. We all assume that the watch reading three o'clock must mean that's when he's going to–to–I can't even bring myself to think it.

"You know what," I say, as the thought just now comes to me. "When I had the nightmare this morning, I had this feeling, this urge. I had to go to the window and look out. I don't know why I felt that."

Beth looks–I'm not sure why–impressed. "You were trying–it's called lucid dreaming. You can learn to shape your dreams, have some conscious control over them. You were trying to see a street sign or maybe the address from the house across the street!"

It seems so obvious when she says it. That has to be what I was thinking. "But I didn't–I got to the window," I say, and I try to concentrate. Did I see anything? Trees. "There's a big branch, it looks like it could support me. I think it's just about out of reach if I opened the window and leaned out. The house across the way," I can almost see it. "Red brick. There's a big window down on the first floor looking into the living room." I try to focus on the front door. The house number is right there, next to it. I close my eyes. "I think the first number of the address–I think it's a seven," I say, and out of nowhere I've got a blinding headache. I feel Brian's arms around me, he's supporting me, otherwise I'd just keel over.

It's nearly midnight. Brian just left and I'm more than ready for bed. I've still got the headache, but it's finally starting to hurt a little less. That's not much comfort though–I'm sure it will come back full force when I have another nightmare tonight.

Beth is giving me my instructions. "You tell yourself, 'I will look out the window,' and you keep saying it to yourself until you fall asleep. OK? Over and over."

I manage a weak smile and a thumbs-up, but I can't quite produce any words. Beth pronounces that "good, great," and she turns off the light, climbs into her bed. "'night, Sara."

I don't answer her. I'm trying to do what she says. Look out the window. Out the window. Out the window...

...Sara's in a room, a bedroom. She's been here before, and she knows there's something she's got to do. Something important. There's somewhere she needs to look, somewhere specific. She racks her brain, knowing that she doesn't have much time, not knowing why that is or how she knows it.

She sees the window, and she remembers–that's where she has to look. She goes over, peers outside, not sure exactly what she's supposed to be looking for. She tries to commit every detail she sees to memory, but the sound of footsteps, and then the door being thrown open, cut her short. She turns to see who's coming in, and she screams...

A tree stump. A big tree stump. Four numbers, a seven and a two and I couldn't make out the rest. A sign, but it was too far away to read the words.

What is all that? Why is it in my head? Why is it important? I have to write it down. I stumble out of bed, over to the desk, and there's a notebook, it's already open. I jot down everything that I'm thinking of, even though I don't know what it means.

And then I do.

I catch myself from shouting–I did it! I made myself look out the window, and I saw, and I remembered–not everything, but a lot more than the last time. Then the rest of it comes back, all in a rush of images. My legs give out, and it's only dumb luck that I fall right into my desk chair.

The sound doesn't rouse Beth. I've never been as jealous of her the whole time we've known each other as I am right this minute. I would give absolutely anything for these nightmares to be over, to be able to sleep as peacefully as she is right now.

My first class today is at nine-thirty, and it turns out that Brian's one class today is as well. It's even in the same building as mine, so we're walking over together. The sky is a dark, foreboding gray–darker and more foreboding than usual–and we need a new word past "bitterly" to describe how cold it is. My eyes are the only parts of my body that are exposed, and it feels like they're going to freeze solid.

We walk pressed up against each other, and it's very slow going. His presence does warm my heart somewhat, but the warmth doesn't make it as far as my hands or feet.

We finally arrive, and when I pull off my gloves, I expect my fingers to be blue or maybe even purple. But they're not; it only feels like frostbite was setting in. Once our faces are uncovered, we share a quick kiss and then Brian goes upstairs to his Materials Science class and I go downstairs to the big lecture hall for Physics.

I've got a second semester of it–electricity and magnetism this term. I have to have it for the pre-med program, and I've been telling myself that it can't possibly be as bad as last semester. I hope.

After the first hour and fifteen minutes, I'm undecided. Nearly everything made sense to me immediately. The few things that didn't became clear after rereading the text a couple of times. But I felt that way last semester, too, until a week or so after the first exam. So we'll see.

When Brian comes out of his class, he looks shell-shocked. "My advisor said it was a little advanced for freshman year, but he thought I could handle it," he says. "I'm not sure about that–it's going to be rough."

I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. "Does that help at all?"

"I'm not sure," he says with a straight face. "Give it another try?"

I do, and he can't keep a smile off his face this time. "Much better, right?"

We get all our winter gear back on and head out into the Arctic. We talked about the plan over breakfast. I walk him to the bus stop on Euclid Avenue–that will take him downtown, and it's closer than the train. He's got the address for the courthouse, he's got enough cash, he knows exactly what to do. I wait with him for the bus, even though every nerve in my body is crying out for me to get somewhere warm.

I guess it's just one of those things you have to do for love.

I don't get back to the dorm until after five o'clock. I have no idea if Brian was successful or not. Right now my body is recovering from the walk back, and my brain is still going over everything I learned in Chemical Aspects of Living Systems. It's going to be even better than I thought.

I lie down on my bed and it occurs to me that in some ways everything that's happening now is sort of like how things will be in medical school and residency. Long hours and sleepless nights. Trying to solve difficult problems that don't make any sense, without nearly enough information.

Facing death.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

I didn't even hear Beth come in. "I'm not sure they're worth that much right now," I answer.

"No word yet?"

"Nope," and just as I say that the phone rings. I pick it up. "Brian?"

It's him. He can barely speak, though. I wonder if it's possible for your vocal cords to freeze solid? If I understand him, he's saying that he got the records. I'm going to just assume I'm right about that. "You're fantastic!" I say, which would be true even if I'm wrong about what he said. "Why don't we all go over to dinner, and we can look at everything afterwards?"

He makes a sound that I take as agreement, and I'm right about that at least because he's looking out the window in the lobby of Allen House waiting for us when we head over to Lardner five minutes later.

"There's no address! I can't believe there's no address!"

Beth actually punches the desk as she says it, and she's not the only one who's frustrated. We've been looking at Dr. Walters' divorce papers, and there's a lot there. But on the very front page, where the names and addresses of both parties ought to be, there's only a post office box listed for him.

And for his ex-wife as well. So much for trying to find her and see what we could learn.

We do know quite a bit more about Dr. Walters now, though. He was married for four years, to a woman named Donna Francis. Donna had a daughter, Stephanie, who was born in November of 1971, which makes her eighteen now.

The cause listed for the divorce was "irreconcilable differences," but there's also a list of specific incidents, several of which involve the stepdaughter. In December of 1987, there was an altercation–it doesn't say who started it or what it was about–that ended up with Dr. Walters requiring twenty stitches for a wound on his face. And that explains how he got his scar.

There was another "altercation" a year later, December 3rd, 1988 to be exact. It looks like that was the final straw for the wife. Again there's no explanation of exactly what happened or whose fault it was, but it does mention that the stepdaughter got her arm broken. Donna filed for divorce ten days later, December 13th.

"Those are the dates of the murders," Brian whispers, holding up the notebook where he'd written all the dates down with a shaking hand.

There's more. The divorce was final in June of 1989. There was no alimony, but part of the settlement was that the house had to be sold, and Donna got two thirds of the proceeds. She also got a car–specifically a tan 1985 Cadillac Seville.

I don't remember the exact model of the car in my nightmares, but it was a Cadillac, and it was tan.

"He wants things back the way they were," Beth says, eyes wide. "He wants his house back, he wants his car back, he wants his face without a scar on it."

Brian looks disgusted. "He thinks he can get it back by killing girls who..."

I cut him off. "Girls who are the same age as the one who he probably blames for everything. I bet if we knew what Stephanie looked like, she'd look like the two girls he's–well, those two girls."

We know a lot more, and we have an explanation–at least, a theory–for why he's doing it. But we still don't have any idea where he lives, and without that, I don't know how we can stop him before Sunday.

"Jackie!" Beth says out of nowhere.

"What about her?" I don't–oh! I dreamed about–he dreamed about her.

"He was going to go after her. Why?"

Jackie's from around here. "You think she went to school with the stepdaughter?" It makes sense. She would have been in high school this time last year. That's exactly what Beth thinks.

Five minutes later, I know she's right. "Yeah, Stephanie Francis. I remember her," Jackie says. "Last I saw her was right before Christmas last year. She came to school, I guess a day or two before Christmas vacation, had a broken arm."

"What do you mean that was the last you saw her?" I ask, trying to keep very nasty thoughts out of my mind.

"I guess her and her Mom moved over Christmas. My father told me about it."

I give her a blank look. "He's a policeman. Somebody else in his office investigated–you know, a kid gets hurt like that, they always question the parents. Her Mom didn't press charges, I guess, but she was splitting up with her husband. That's the last I heard of it, and I never saw Stephanie again."

I'm standing in her doorway, holding on to the door frame and hoping I don't look as freaked out as I feel. But I guess I do, because Jackie calls me on it. "Are you OK? How do you even know Stephanie–wait! This has something to do with Christmas Eve, doesn't it?"

I tell her no, of course not, but she doesn't believe me.

"All right. I'll tell you," I say, hoping I can make this sound believable. "It really doesn't have to do with Christmas. But we're pretty sure that the guy who hurt Stephanie–he was a professor here. He was Beth's advisor, actually. He just quit at the end of last semester, he's gone now, and there's all kinds of gossip, and it came out he had a stepdaughter." That's not even a lie, though it feels like one. "We were talking about it, and we guessed you might have gone to high school with her. That's it, honestly."

I can absolutely read her mind right now. She doesn't really buy it, but she can't think of any other reason I'd care about some girl she went to high school with, so she'll accept it. "I guess that makes sense," she says.

I thank her and report everything to Beth and Brian.

"If Jackie was in the same year as Stephanie, Dr. Walters could have seen them together. Then he saw her last semester on campus," Brian says.

"And he lumped her in with Stephanie, being responsible for him losing everything that was important to him," Beth picks it up.

I finish the thought. "So he dreamed about abducting her, kill–no, I won't say it. But that's got to be it, doesn't it?"

We all agree. But we still don't know where we go from here.

Brian goes back to his dorm at eleven. I don't want him to go, and he doesn't want to leave. But it's too late to ask Beth to see if she can go over to her boyfriend's for the night.

Just that thought is amazing to me. Until I met Brian, I never once asked Beth if she could go somewhere so I could have the room to myself, so I could be with someone. Now here I am, seriously contemplating it. If only Brian hadn't gotten stuck with a roommate–but he did.

So I have to go to my cold, empty bed all alone and try to get some rest with all this horrible new information bouncing around inside my head.

God, if I told Beth what I'm thinking right now, I would never, ever hear the end of it. Maybe tomorrow I can hint around that she hasn't spent much time with Ron, and he probably misses her. Maybe she'll just take the hint and not tease me endlessly about it. It's worth a shot.

In the meantime I walk Brian downstairs. I don't want to let him go, and it's only after a good ten or fifteen minutes that I allow him to pull away from me and head home. Then, it's back upstairs to my cold, empty bed.

...Sara is outside, on the main quad. By the lighter gray shade of the sky, she guesses it's midmorning. When she spots Jackie walking past, with a tall, dark-haired man in full police uniform, she knows whose dream she's watching. The man's radio crackles to life. "Go ahead!" he says into it.

"Watson Hall is secure!" comes a voice over the radio.

"Roger that," says the man. Clipping the radio back to his belt, he turns to Jackie. "You can go in to your class now, honey."

Sara watches Jackie glare at him. "Dad, you don't need to guard me all day long, and you can call off the SWAT team, too!"

...the scene changes, and Sara is in a bedroom. She realizes what's happened, where she is. She goes immediately to the window, not sure exactly what she's looking for, but sure she'll know it when she sees it. She wishes she could lean out the window, to get a better view, but it feels as though it's painted shut. It resists all her efforts to open it. As she struggles with it, the bedroom door opens...

I'm shaking. I don't want to open my eyes, I don't want to see–what?

It was the nightmare. Again. I tried to open the window so I could lean out and see the street sign, but it wouldn't budge. Then he came in, with the girl, and–no! No more! I can't think about it.

I look at the clock–it's just after four in the morning. Maybe I can get a little more sleep. Maybe there won't be any more dreams...

I open my eyes. The sky is lighter; the sun must be up, somewhere beyond the endless clouds. I roll over and look up at my clock. The big green numbers say: 9:59 AM.

Crap!

My class is at ten-thirty, and it's on the other side of campus. I jump out of bed, pull out a pair of sweatpants from the closet, grab the socks I wore yesterday, take a sweatshirt off the top of my laundry pile, and put it all on. I throw my coat on over all that, get my shoes on, and head out the door. I don't even bother to run a comb through my hair–there's no point. I don't dare look in the mirror.

I'm halfway downstairs before I realize I forgot my backpack with my notebook, my textbook, and everything else I need. It's back upstairs to get it, then downstairs again and out.

I get to my class at 10:28 AM exactly, just enough time to run down to the soda machine in the basement. With the caffeine and sugar from two cans of Coke, I'm able to stay awake and even pay a little attention for the entire class.

I go straight back to the dorm when it's done, and after I take a nice hot shower and put on clean clothes I look–and feel–nearly human again. I even have time for a quick lunch before I have to get to my one-thirty class.

I go to class, I come home, and then I spend the rest of the afternoon beating my head against the wall trying to think of some way to figure out where Dr. Walters lives. When Beth gets back from class at four o'clock, she sees me lying on my bed, staring at nothing.

"No brainstorms?" She knows exactly what I've been thinking about.

"None," I tell her.

She sits down on my bed, puts her arm around me. "Me neither. Well, I did have one, but it doesn't have to do with Dr. Walters. I just thought–you know, I haven't had any time with Ron since we got back from Christmas. I think I'll go over and see him tonight."

I can feel myself tearing up. "Thank you!"

"For what?" she asks with a completely straight face.

"For not making me ask," I say, and then I hug her very, very tightly. "And for putting up with me since this all started."

As soon as we're back from dinner, Beth clears out and Brian comes over.

"I know the days are running out, but I can't talk about it tonight. I can't think about it. Can I just have tonight? Will you help me?"

I can. He does.

I don't know how much time passes, but there's a moment when we're just holding each other, under the blankets, wrapped so closely together that I'm not sure where I stop and he begins. Right at that moment I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience. It's like I'm floating, looking down at myself. And all I can think is, "how did I ever become so frightened and desperate and needy?"

"You're not," Brian says, and I come back to myself. Did I actually speak out loud? I must have. "I take that back. I guess you are," he says, but before I can even get angry about that, he kisses me, and all conscious thought disappears.

Sometime later, he's talking again. "I should have said, you wouldn't be human if you weren't all those things. Desperate and afraid. If you weren't afraid of what you've been seeing, you'd be–you'd be a cold, unfeeling–you'd be some kind of a monster, I guess."

"But you don't think I'm a monster, right?"

No, he doesn't; I can see that's clearly not the word that comes to his mind as he holds me close. He shakes his head and this time I kiss him, and that's the last word either of us says about the nightmares tonight.

I don't have any nightmares, or any dreams at all. I wake up and I feel completely refreshed, better than I have all week. I don't want to get out of bed, and Brian doesn't want me to either, but we both have an early class.

He very reluctantly heads back to his dorm for a shower and a change of clothes, and then we have breakfast and walk together to class. Afterwards, we agree to meet up when I'm done with classes this afternoon,

It turns out that both he and Beth came up with the same idea. They want to have me try and remember the other nightmares–the ones in the car–to see if we can figure out where Dr. Walters is living now from them. It makes sense. I don't know why it didn't occur to me sooner. It's not as though we have any other ideas to fall back on.

Beth gets back half an hour after me, and we meet up with Brian at Lardner, have a quick meal and then get to it.

"You said he opened the trunk. Were you watching from behind him?" I try to picture it. I feel pounding, as though my brain is beating itself against the inside of my skull. I was in the back seat, but then–I guess–yes. I was outside.

"Yeah. I see what he's doing. I can see the trunk."

"Can you see the license plate?" God! It's really hard to focus. It hurts. I just want it to stop hurting. I can see–it's an Ohio plate. I can read–I think I can read it.

"LXG. L like in large, X like in x-ray, G like in good. And then three numbers. One, four, seven." I feel a tear fall from my eye. I want to stop. I can't–can't keep doing this.

"Are you sure? L, X, G, one, four, seven?" Beth's voice is so calm, so peaceful. How can it be so calm? I hate her for that. What right does she have to be so calm?

Am I sure? I don't–I have to focus. Focus. Focus. "Yes. Definitely. I'm sure."

There's a hand on my head, pushing my hair off my forehead. Something cold–a washcloth? That's nice. That feels a little better. "You were amazing," Beth whispers into my ear. "Really amazing. I'm proud of you,"

I can't make any words come out; none of my muscles want to work. I think I might have managed a very weak smile, but I'm not even sure about that.

I feel a hand on my back, and another on my forehead, I'm being pushed up. Someone grabs my left hand and puts a cup into it, and some–pills? aspirin, maybe?–into my right hand. "There you go. Swallow those, have a little water," Beth says. I follow her orders, and I'm lowered back down.

"Good. Now go to sleep." I feel lips pressing against mine. I assume they're Brian's. I hope so...

48 Hours

(January 19-20, 1990)

I wake up to my alarm buzzing. Eight o'clock. I don't think I had any dreams, but I've still got a headache. It must be left over from last night. Beth is already up and showered. I remember that she's got a nine-thirty class. "Did I tell you anything useful last night? I can't remember a thing I said."

"We couldn't believe how much you remembered from the nightmares. You even saw the license plate on the car." She looks more sad than impressed. "But it was rough. We really put you through the wringer."

I do remember that. I don't ever want to go through it again. Maybe if I said enough I won't have to. I get up, and I see the notebook Brian was writing everything down in, still open on the desk. His handwriting is almost as neat as mine; I never really noticed that before.

I read through it–I can't believe all this detail came out of me. I remembered every turn, every stoplight, it looks like. I wonder if there's enough there to actually pin the location down. We'll need...

"I've seen those big local map books, with all the streets detailed. They sell them in the bookstore," Beth says, beating me to it.

"I'll go by after Vertebrate Biology. You know what, I won't even go to my one-thirty class, I'll just come straight here and start working on this."

Beth is stunned. "I don't think you've ever voluntarily blown off a class your whole time here."

No, I don't think I have, either. "I'm going to call over and let the professor know, though. I'll tell him I'm sick–that's kind of true anyway."

"And lying to a professor? I don't think I know you anymore." Any other time, it would be funny.

I'm as good as my word; I go to my class, then to the bookstore, have a quick bite to eat and then I'm back in my room.

I spend a good two hours trying to trace the route that I described last night. I'm able to find the end point–Old Tree Road–and I can work back part of the way. I get as far as Persimmon Drive but from there it's all guesswork. That's the last street sign Brian wrote down, and then he's got down things like "one or two blocks and then a left" and "two or three blocks, a right, then another right at the next stop sign."

This is a problem.

We've got part of the house number across the street. It starts with seven two. That narrows things down a lot–it'll be the 7200 block of whichever street it is. But which street? It could be any one of several of them. Are we supposed to just go out driving tomorrow, cruising up and down through the suburbs looking for a big tree stump, praying both that I've remembered correctly and that he dreamed it accurately?

Beth comes in at three o'clock. "I did a little more digging," she says by way of greeting. She doesn't sound enthusiastic enough that I think she learned anything earthshaking, but she isn't completely despondent either.

"What did you do?"

She throws her coat on the floor, kicks off her shoes and lies down on her bed. "I went over to the department office. I got Ray to pull the faculty address file for me, and while he was looking for that, I poked around and I found the list of parking stickers and cars."

I'm impressed, more than she seems to be. "And?"

She sighs. "They've only got the post office box for his address. But at least we know what kind of car he's got now. A white 1986 Toyota Corolla. License plate LXG-147."

So that much was right. "He's imagining he's got his old car back, but he put his new license plate on it."

Beth nods. "That's it. In his mind, everything's how it was. He's in the nice house, driving his Cadillac, he never got the scar."

It's just like Gretchen. Except I only see myself as a different person when I get all dressed up and do something fun; he sees himself as a different person when he–when he does what he does. I don't think I'm going to mention that to Beth.

Instead, I show her what I've been up to all afternoon. "I can get to here," I point out the spot on the map, "but it gets fuzzy from there. If I was right about the house number, that narrows down the block, but it could be any one of these streets," I run my hand several inches across the map.

Beth gives me a grim smile. "I guess we're borrowing Joe's car again tomorrow. We're going to need as much daylight as we can get if we're going to search street by street."

Yes, we will.

After dinner Brian suggests, repeatedly, that we just go to the police with what we have. "Your friend Jackie, you said her father's a cop. Ask her to call him. Tell him everything."

I don't think we can. I don't think he'd believe me. If I wasn't going through this, and someone else brought it all to me, would I believe it?

The biggest hurdle, to me, would be explaining how we figured out it was Dr. Walters in the first place. Everything we've learned since then fits; it explains why he's doing it, the dates fit a pattern, the incidents with the stepdaughter add weight to everything. But that first step is just impossible to get past, as far as I can tell. What could we possibly say to Jackie's father–or anybody else–that would sound reasonable?

I can't come up with anything. Neither can Beth, or Brian. We're going to have to go out tomorrow and just hope to God we find what we're looking for.

We're in the right neighborhood. The streets look like what I saw in the nightmare. We're seeing house numbers starting with seven two. But we haven't had any luck with the details we need. Beth is driving this time–despite my solemn promise to Joe that I would be behind the wheel at all times–so I can focus all my attention on looking at the houses. I'm looking out the driver's side, and Brian's in the passenger seat looking out the other side.

"Remember, there's a big tree stump in the front yard, and the house is red brick. There's a big window, really big, you can see everything in the living room." Another detail pops into my mind. "Their Christmas tree was still up! Look for a Christmas tree in the window."

There's nothing on Oakwood Lane, or on Green Ivy Drive. Brian sees a big stump on Cedarwood Place, but the house behind it has aluminum siding. As we go down street after street, it starts to snow. Only flurries at first, but it just takes a couple of minutes to become heavy. Big, wet flakes plop onto the windshield. If we don't see it soon, I don't know what we'll do–but just then I do see something.

There's a man, carrying something big, with a smaller figure trailing behind him. It's a Christmas tree. They're trudging up Magnolia Lane, and Beth drives past them. "I'll make the block," she whispers. Up ahead, there are several Christmas trees in a big pile on the lawn of the house on the corner.

We come around again, and we pass them walking back the way they came; they've obviously dropped their tree off and they're heading home. Beth goes around a third time, and we spot them turning down Red Oak Drive. She parks a block back, and we watch from afar as they go into a house halfway down the block. Beth starts the car back up, and she drives, very slowly, down the street, through the intersection, past one, two, three houses. The fourth house, the one they went into–that's it. We found it!

Stump in the front yard. Red brick. Huge living room window. And out the other side, Brian's pointing at the big tree in the front, with a large branch that's tantalizingly close to the upstairs bedroom window. "Number 7209," he breathes. "That's it!"

Beth keeps going, as slowly as she dares, and Brian and I try to pick out details. The house definitely needs painting, compared to the others on the block. The snow hasn't quite covered the ground yet; I can see that the paving stones making up the front walkway are all cracked. "Look at the driveway," Brian adds. "It's a mess." There's also no car there, white Toyota Corolla or otherwise.

"What do we do now?" I whisper, not sure why I am–it's not as though anyone can hear us inside the car. I'm torn. Part of me wants to just get out of the car right now, break into the house and see if the girl is there, try to find some other evidence and then call the police.

But if he's home now–even though there's no car in the driveway, he could be–who knows what would happen? And if the girl isn't there, and we don't find any evidence, what do we do then? He'd know someone had been there, maybe he'd go to a motel, and just go get the girl tomorrow anyway and kill–no, I refuse to even think that.

Beth drives a few blocks away and parks in front of a big three-story house on the corner. "It's your decision, Sara. I think it has to be."

I don't know what to do!

Think it through. I can do this. "We only get one chance, whatever we do. If we try to get in now, he'll know when he gets home. No matter how careful we are, we'll disturb something. If we do it and she's not there, then it's all for nothing."

I think that's it. We know–as much as we can be sure of any of this–he'll be here tomorrow at three o'clock, that's when he'll–anyway, it'll be three o'clock. I believe that.

"We come back tomorrow. It's the best chance. Agreed?" I don't like it, but if I have to decide, that's my choice. Neither of them look any happier about it than I do, but Brian nods, and Beth's answer is to start the car and begin heading back.

When we get back, the first thing I do is return Joe's car keys, and tell him I'll need them again tomorrow. He balks at first, but I wear him down. "Look, I swear, I won't ever ask you again. But it has to be tomorrow. I have to," I came up with the excuse on the way home, "go and pick up a whole box of MCAT review books from Anne Salinger." She graduated last year, we both knew her. "They're at her parents' house, and I guess they're going on vacation Monday, so tomorrow's the only day I can get them."

Joe accepts that, finally, and hands the keys back to me. "I plan on sleeping in tomorrow. This way you won't bother me in the morning."

I kiss him on the cheek. "You're a lifesaver, you know that?" I hope to God he actually will turn out to be one.

We go to dinner, trudging through the deepening snow. I can't bring myself to eat anything, and tonight it's got nothing at all to do with the quality of the food. Beth and Brian apparently feel the same. He takes maybe three bites of spaghetti and meatballs, and Beth just pushes her fried chicken around her plate for half an hour.

We go back to Carson House, sit in my room and stare at each other for most of the night. Every so often one of us speaks, and nobody answers, and then there's more silence. Around eleven o'clock, Beth decides it's time to go to bed. "We all need to sleep tonight. We have to be at our best tomorrow," she says. I can't argue with that.

"We never decided on the plan for tomorrow," Brian points out. No, we didn't.

"Noon." High noon. That's appropriate, isn't it? "We'll leave at noon. We'll have plenty of time to get there, even if the roads are bad. And then–then..." I don't know about "then." None of us do. "Anyway. You go home," I tell Brian. "Like Beth said, get some sleep." We kiss, and he squeezes me tight.

When he lets go, before he can open the door, Beth jumps up and hugs him. Then I hug the both of them.

None of us say anything, but this time it's because there's nothing left to say.

...Sara is in the bedroom, and this time she knows exactly whose bedroom it is and precisely why she's here. She stares at the door, and tonight when it opens and the man and the girl come in, she doesn't cry or scream or try to look away.

She looks the man straight in the eye, speaks calmly to him. "You're not going to hurt her, Dr. Walters. I won't let you."

And he looks at Sara, right at her, and for the first time he sees her, registers her presence. He's confused, surprised, angry. "Who the hell are you?" he says.

"I'm the one who's going to put an end to this," Sara says...

A View to a Kill

(January 21-23, 1990)

I'm talking to someone. Who? The only one here is Beth, and she's just now stirring awake.

Oh, my God.

I was talking to him. He saw me. He knew I was there. He knew I was watching.

But he won't understand what it means. I didn't know any of it was real until I saw Brian at the club that night. I'd been having the dreams for a week before I knew it. There's no way he'll realize what's going on.

There better not be.

I don't tell Beth; I don't want to say it aloud. We've got more than enough to be worried about today without me adding to it.

She puts on a brave face as she goes about her morning activities. If she weren't my best friend I might be fooled. Nobody else might notice that her smile is forced or that her voice is just a little bit too even and controlled, but it's clear as day to me.

I look at the clock. 9:55 AM. Two hours before we go. I don't want to go to breakfast; I'm sure I won't be able to keep anything down. But I have to do something, distract myself somehow.

I call Brian. He answers on the first ring; he sounds as tense as I am. By way of greeting I ask him, "Has your roommate gone over to breakfast?"

"Not yet," he answers.

"Call me the second he does," I tell him, and he says he will.

Beth looks–I'm not sure whether it's horrified or impressed. Maybe both. "You're not?" is all she can say.

Oh yes, I am. "You of all people should understand," I say, and I can't say anything else because the phone rings. I don't think it's been even thirty seconds since I hung up.

I don't even give him a chance to speak. "Stay right where you are. I'll be over in a minute," I tell him, and I hang up without waiting for a response. I'm out of the room, down the stairs, outside and over to him in record time; it might not even have been a minute.

When he opens the door, I don't say a word. I just go straight in and lock it behind me.

An hour later, we're back in my room again. I send Brian down to the vending machine in the lobby to get some sodas and whatever snack looks good. At least we'll have something in our stomachs. And it gives me a moment to talk to Beth alone.

"Even I wouldn't have done that," she says, looking at me nervously.

"I just–I'm afraid. After today–who knows? That could have been the last time..."

She doesn't let me finish. "Don't. Don't you dare say that." She's been thinking it too. I know she has. And Brian felt it just the same as I did. Neither of us said it, but we didn't have to. There were no words at all.

He comes back up a minute later with three Cokes, two Twinkies and a Snickers bar. He starts to apologize, but I shake my head. Really, that's about the best we could hope for.

We eat our snacks in silence. At one point, out of nowhere, Beth takes my hand and Brian's. "We're all going to take care of each other, right? We're all going to be OK, we're all going to come home in one piece. Right?"

"Right," Brian and I say together. Beth squeezes our hands hard.

"Right. That's just all there is to it," she says.

Exactly.

It's a quarter after one. We go past the house, and there's still no car in the driveway. I don't know what that means.

We park a couple of streets away and start walking. Beth nearly falls on a patch of ice, and it's very lucky that Brian catches her. That would be all we need–one of us breaking our leg or something.

We're on the block now. Red Oak Drive. About halfway down, there it is, number 7209. Still no white car. Also no lights on. We can't hear a TV or radio or anything else. I don't think he's here. What do we do now?

I know what the answer is, but–once we do it, there's no going back.

"Let's go around the back." I'm in front, tiptoeing around the side of the house. I can hear Brian and Beth crunching through the snow behind me. It's impossible to be quiet.

There's a tiny yard in back and–thank God–a door that probably opens into the kitchen. He can't be home–if he was anywhere on the ground floor, he'd have heard us by now. Still, we whisper.

"What now?" Beth asks.

The lock on the back door looks pretty flimsy. I wonder...

"What are you doing?" Brian asks, as I pull my driver's license out of my pocket and insert it between the door and the doorframe, just like Jessica showed me. It only takes a second–I feel the catch, I push, and I turn the doorknob. We're inside.

"There's no alarm," Beth breathes. Hopefully. Or, there is and it's a silent alarm. But we can't worry about that now.

The kitchen is very dirty; the floor needs a good mopping, and there are probably a week's worth of dishes in the sink. Several days' worth of newspapers sit on the kitchen table.

He's definitely not here. We'd know. I think.

There's a small dining room, a round table and four chairs. There's a living room, curtains drawn. We see a decent-sized TV and a flowery-print sofa with a plastic cover over it. There's a bathroom, the door ajar. Nothing in there. There's another door. It's closed. It must lead to the basement.

And then there are stairs going up. That's where the bedroom is. Brian takes the lead. "Beth, wait at the bottom of the stairs. Let us know if you hear anything," I whisper. I follow Brian. There are three doors, all open. One is another bathroom; the second is filled with boxes, but no furniture or anything else. Nobody in either of them.

The third is the bedroom. Everything is exactly how I saw it. It's as though I've stepped straight into the nightmare. The dresser, the painting with the ship and the orange-red sky, even the wristwatch. All here.

Images come into my mind, and I can see right there on the bed–no! I won't. He's not here. It's not real. It's not going to be real.

"Come down here!" Beth hisses, breaking me out of my spell.

Slowly we step out of the bedroom and back down the stairs. Beth is waiting there; she looks nervous enough for the three of us. "Behind that door," she points to the closed door, the one I assumed leads down to the basement.

After a moment, I can hear what she heard; metal rattling against metal, and something else. Something like an animal whimpering. I try to turn the doorknob; it's locked.

I try my trick again, and I can't get it to open that way. Brian grabs my hand, pulls it away from the doorknob. "Give me one minute," he whispers. Beth and I both cringe at the noise he makes, looking for God knows what in the kitchen.

He returns a couple of minutes later with a hammer. "Under the sink. My Dad keeps a toolkit there, too," he says.

"Go for it," I tell him. There's no point worrying about being quiet now. He takes one, two, three whacks at the doorknob, and on the fourth, he smashes it right off of the door. I look up into his face, and if this were any other time or place, I would kiss him and never let go.

Instead, I turn away from him and pull open the door. There's a raspy shout from below us: "Help me!"

I feel around on the wall, and sure enough there's a light switch. I take two steps down the stairs, and I can see everything. It's an unfinished basement, there are boxes, some lawn furniture folded up against one wall, and, there, by the boiler–there she is.

It's her, the girl I saw. She's sitting on the floor, with one arm up in the air–she's chained to one of the pipes coming out of the boiler.

"Beth, go look for a phone! Call the police!" Brian shouts. I hear her running, I hear Brian coming down the stairs behind me. I continue down, over to the girl.

"We're going to help you. You're going to be all right," I say, forcing calm into my voice. She focuses her eyes on me. She's dressed, thank God. I assume these are the clothes she had on when he took her. Jeans, a Cleveland Browns t-shirt over a long-sleeved white shirt. She's barefoot.

"I'm Sara. What's your name?" She's in shock, I think. I just want to get her talking, get her attention on me and off of whatever's already happened to her. She's got the beginnings of a black eye, and there's a bloodstain all down her left sleeve.

"Rebecca," she mutters. "Help me!"

I put a hand on her shoulder, very gently. "We will, Rebecca. I promise. We're going to get you out of here, you're going to be just fine." I hope. God only knows what she's been through already.

From above, Beth calls out, "There's no phone anywhere!"

I look at Brian; he nods. "Go next door. We'll be OK here."

"I can't leave you here!"

Yes, you can! "Beth, just go! Get the police here! And an ambulance, too!"

I hear her footsteps above me. "I'm going now!" she shouts, and I can hear her muttering in a much lower voice something that sounds like "Oh God, oh God, oh shit, oh God!" Then there's a sound that has to be the front door slamming shut.

"Please help me!" Rebecca wails again.

"We will, honey. The police are on their way. We'll have you home in no time." Her right wrist is handcuffed to the pipe. I don't know how to get her free. Someone gave Beth a pair of those furry handcuffs last year as a joke, and I remember thinking that they looked pretty flimsy. Not these—they look serious, like what the police use. "You didn't see any nice big, sharp pliers in that toolbox, did you?"

Brian shakes his head. Just then, there's a loud click, and a whistle from the boiler and Rebecca screams. The pipe! "I know it's hard, but you have to keep your arm away from the heating pipe, honey. We're doing everything we can. I promise."

There's a loud thump, and the whistling stops; the heat's off again. Then—oh, shit. Oh, God. No! I didn't just hear...

I did. Brian heard it too. Rebecca starts wailing at the top of her lungs. "Please don't," I beg her. "Please." I step away from her. She's still yelling. Of course she won't stop. She can't.

I wouldn't.

Brian takes my hand and heads for the stairs. We go up slowly, one at a time. We get to the top...

And there's someone there, looming in the doorway. He shoves Brian with both hands; Brian's too surprised to act. For one instant, he stands on the top step, frozen in place, and then...

Everything happens in slow motion. Brian loses his balance. His feet go out from under him. He lets go of my hand as he falls, and for a moment I'm still standing. My left hand goes to the railing, and as Brian goes down headfirst, I grab his ankle with my right.

Then I lose my balance, too. I hear a sharp crack–it seems like the loudest sound I've ever heard-and my right foot is on fire. I scream. Brian slips out of my grip and slides down the stairs. There's a hollow thud as, I think, his head hits the wall. Brian!

I go down right after him, still hanging on to the railing for a moment. My body twists around and I slide down feet first, on my stomach. My right foot hits the floor–I'm screaming again, it's worse than anything–God, it hurts! It's broken. Has to be.

I try to get up anyway, and I make it almost to my knees before the pain is just too much, and I think I black out for a few seconds.

I'm on my back as my eyes open again. There's a sharp pain in my rear, to go along with the stabbing, burning pain in my right foot. I must have fallen on top of something sharp.

I look up to see the man stepping over me. He looks down, and I see him clearly now.

It's him. Dr. Walters. "You!" he spits. His eyes go wide as, I assume, he remembers his own dream. "I saw you last night," he says uncertainly.

"Yes!" I say, forcing the word out. Everything hurts now. My head is pounding. I feel so light-headed. I have to stay conscious. I have to keep talking. Keep him talking. "I saw you, too. I know–I know everything. Everything you did."

Brian's near me, just a couple of feet away. He's lying on the floor, not moving at all. I have to see–he can't be–please, don't be–thank God! There! I can see his chest rising and falling. He's breathing. He's alive.

"I know you," Dr. Walters says, looking from me over to Rebecca and back again. "You're a student at the university."

My attention returns to him; I have to fight to stay awake, to focus on his words. I have to keep him talking. That's how it works in all those movies, doesn't it? As long as he's talking, he isn't doing. And Beth must have called the police by now. They're on their way. They have to be.

"Yeah," I say. I don't know how I'm managing to speak. It's so hard. I just want to pass out. I won't. I can't. "You–my roommate really liked you. You were her advisor. Beth? Beth Rosewell?"

That gets through to him. He's interested in spite of himself. "Elizabeth? Very bright girl. She always impressed me."

Hell of a way you have of showing it, don't you? But it matters to him. It's important that I'm a student there. Maybe–I wonder if–I hope I'm right about this. "The other girl, the one with dark hair, the one at the bus stop. She's a student there, too. But you knew that." That's why his dream about Jackie was different. He dreamed about looking for her, instead of dreaming about already having her. Somewhere inside, maybe he's got just enough of a conscience left that he knew how wrong it was. "You didn't want to hurt her. You didn't want to hurt someone from the school."

He kicks my side, hard. My vision goes dark, just for an instant. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. "You don't know that."

I have to keep going. Keep him talking. Help will be here soon. I know it. Beth wouldn't let me down. "I do know. So do you. You knew it was wrong to hurt her." He's actually listening. I'm getting through. I can't stop now. God, I want to, I want to let go, I want to pass out and not hurt anymore. But I can't do that. "She has a name. Jackie. She's my friend, and Beth's friend. You knew it was wrong. You know it's wrong to hurt me. Or Rebecca over there. She's got a name, too."

I wish Brian would wake up. I need him. I can't do this by myself much longer.

Dr. Walters looks away from me towards Rebecca. "She doesn't matter." It was a mistake to talk about her. Oh, God. I screwed up. I have to get him to hear me again.

"She does so matter! We all matter!" He's just standing there, looking back and forth from me to Rebecca. I'm losing him. I'm losing him, and he's going to–no. I can't let him. "Hurting her isn't going to fix anything!" I don't know where that came from, it just popped into my head. He stomps on my foot, my already injured foot, and I shriek. I retch and my stomach empties onto the floor.

I'm coughing and shaking. I have to get control of myself. Keep talking, keep him talking. "You can't bring your wife back this way," I manage to get out. "You can't get your job back. It won't work."

He kicks me in my side, again. I definitely pass out for a moment there. When I come to, he's still standing over me. Rebecca's still crying. Keep his attention on me. Beth will come through. The police will be here. I know it. "You can't fix everything that went wrong this way."

He snorts. "Next you'll tell me that if I just say I'm sorry and let you go, that'll make everything right again."

"No," I whisper. My voice is going. My throat is so sore. It hurts to breathe. It's a struggle to say anything, but I have to. "You can't make it right. But you can make it not any more wrong than it already is. You've still got the chance for that."

"No. It's gone too far. Too far," he says, and he looks ready to kick me again–and that's when it happens. He freezes.

We all hear it, Dr. Walters and Rebecca and I, at the same time. The sirens. He looks down at his hands, as though he's surprised to find them empty. His eyes dart around the basement in a panic. There's no exit down here, no way for him to escape. No weapons. He steps over me, and as he's running up the stairs I can hear footsteps above me, more than one set of them–lots of them.

It has to be the police. Beth came through for me. I knew she would.

There's a thump, then another one. I hear breaking glass, shouting, more shouting, and finally a thud that shakes the ceiling. And then I pass out for good...

I don't know where I am. It's white. Bright. It smells like–cleaner. Not bleach, but something like that. There's someone standing over me, looking down at me.

"Dad?"

I think it's him. He's talking to someone behind him. "She's awake," he says to them.

"Dad?"

"I'm here, Sara. You're fine. You're in the hospital." He looks really tired. I can just see, there's Mom standing right behind him. And Beth is next to her, I think.

I must have laughed. "What's so funny?" Beth asks. It's definitely probably her.

"Mom's the same height as me, did you know that? She looks just like me, and you look just like you, so you look like you and me standing next to each other."

Dad whispers something to them. I think I hear the words "pain medication" but I'm not sure.

"Why am I in the hospital?" Did something happen to me? Why does my right leg look so much bigger than my left? I'm really confused...

I remember everything, right up to the moment when the police came. Beth is sitting next to me, and she's just now filling me in on what happened after that. She doesn't wait for me to ask about Brian; that's the first thing she tells me.

"He's fine. He had a concussion, but that was all. They kept him overnight, but they made him go home yesterday." She squeezes my hand. "He wanted to stay, but you were still in Intensive Care and they wouldn't let him, and then his father showed up and took him back to campus."

"Where is he now?"

"Downstairs in the gift shop. Buying you flowers, I think." Of course he is.

I love him.

"What about–what about Rebecca?" I want to ask if she talked about what happened before we found her but I don't think I want to know.

"She's going to be fine, too." Beth knows what I'm not asking. "He didn't–didn't do anything. I mean, besides what we saw." I sigh. That's something, anyway. Actually, it's a lot.

"And Dr. Walters is in jail," she continues. I don't really want to know any more than that. I don't ever want to think about him ever again, if I can help it.

"And–this is important," she says, whispering now. "I told the police what happened. I told them I wanted to visit him, because he was my favorite professor. You and Brian came with me and when we got to the front door we heard Rebecca, and the door was open so we went inside."

What a load of crap. Not that I would have done any better. "They believed that?"

She grins. "Under the circumstances, I don't think they really cared why we were there. But it's better if you tell them the same thing. I already told Brian."

I just now notice her left hand is bandaged. "What happened to you?"

"Oh," she shrugs. "Nobody was home in either house next door, or across the street. Then he drove up, and I kind of freaked out. I picked up a garden gnome and smashed the living room window of that house across the street, and I called 911 from there. I cut myself climbing in through the broken window."

That actually is kind of funny, but I don't have the energy to laugh. "So what happened to me?"

That's less funny. "Your right ankle is broken, you're probably going to have that cast for six weeks or so. And you've got some bruised ribs. And," she's fighting to suppress a giggle. "A laceration of your left buttock. You landed on a nail when you went down the stairs."

"I don't understand. That's not funny." I don't think I appreciate her laughing at my injuries.

"No, it's not." Except obviously it somehow is. "Just–I guess you better not ever break up with Brian, otherwise you'll have to explain to your next boyfriend why you've got a scar on your butt." If I had enough energy, I'd try to sit up and smack her.

Brian picks that moment to walk in the door, bouquet in hand. "Those are so pretty," I say. "So nice. Come here."

Beth takes the flowers out of his hand as he leans over me. I can't pull myself up, but–I don't have to. Brian's found the lever to raise me up, and now my head is level with his, and he kisses me.

"I was so scared, when you fell. I saw you were breathing, but–God, I don't ever want to lose you." That was the worst moment out of all of it, that first instant when I didn't know if he was–if he was alive.

"I don't want to lose you, either. Why don't we just never lose each other, how about that?"

I kiss him; it seems like a good answer.

It's all the answer either of us needs.

The Sure Thing

(May 31-June 1, 1990)

I'm sitting on my bed, looking at my cast. I don't know why I kept it, but there it is on the floor, over in the corner.

I remember Beth telling me I'd have it for six weeks. I actually had it for nine, and I think I reminded her about that every single day past six weeks until it came off. She laughed, I think, every single time I did, too.

I don't know how I'll ever pay her back for everything she did–for helping me around for nine weeks. For all of it. It's funny, but I think the responsibility she took on in taking care of me really agrees with her. She must have thought so too, because she applied to be an RA next year.

She wasn't the only one who helped me, either. There was poor George, although that wasn't really by choice. A week after–well, after "it" happened, he slipped on an icy patch of sidewalk and broke his leg in two places. Somehow hobbling around with a cast felt just a little bit easier knowing someone else in the dorm was going through it with me. And we became physical therapy buddies–three times a week right up until the semester ended.

Then there was Mona, who took time out of her insanely busy schedule to help me study for the MCATs when it was–quite literally–painfully obvious that I wasn't going to be able to make it to the official review sessions. Melanie and Janet joined me, in a very touching show of solidarity. Melanie and I buried the hatchet, too.

Even so, I guess I should be honest and admit that I took great pleasure in scoring higher than Melanie. For the record, I did really well—a 73, which put me in the 96th percentile. Which means I'll probably have my choice of where to go for medical school, and I've got a great shot at the Livingston scholarship, too.

Jackie and her father helped by not pushing me about exactly what happened or how I knew what I knew. I think, after Dr. Walters was caught, she finally understood how lucky she was just to be alive, and she took that to heart. Her father did, too; he also did everything in his power to get the police to accept the story Beth cooked up at face value.

That was much easier after Dr. Walters pled guilty. According to the newspaper, he did it as part of a deal so that he would "only" get life plus fifty years in prison rather than the electric chair, or however they execute people these days. He'll never, ever get out of prison, and that's good enough for me.

Beth and Brian and I all got harassed quite a bit by reporters, for a little while at least. Until another friend came to our aid. John convinced his friend Natalie the law student to try and get the reporters off our backs. I don't know what she did or said–I think she might have gotten one of her professors to help, too–but it worked.

It turns out I was right about the two of them, as well. Diana broke up with John, and he finally noticed that Natalie liked him. I'm glad, for her even more than for him–us older women with an eye for younger men have to stick together!

Over and above everyone else, every single day, there was Brian. He was so patient, so kind. He was everything I needed–everything I still need.

Life is pretty much back to normal. I'm just barely limping now; on good days you can't even tell. On really good days, sometimes even I forget that I've got two metal screws in my foot and another one in my ankle.

I still haven't seen the other physical reminder of what happened–my new scar. Beth offered, repeatedly, to take a picture of it for me. Brian says it's hardly noticeable at all; if you didn't know it was there you wouldn't even see it. I'm not really worried about that; nobody besides him is going to be seeing it anyway!

I still think about it all, obviously. But it's just memories now. They don't have any power anymore. I don't wake up screaming, I don't walk around in terror. And most importantly, my nights belong to me again. I haven't had a dream that's not my own since that last night before we saved Rebecca...

...Sara is in a backyard. The sun is shining, the grass is green. There's a grill, with smoke issuing from it; there's a little fountain gurgling away. There's a big round metal table with an umbrella over it.

She knows this place–it's Brian's backyard. And there he is, with his father, and Sara's father.

"I know how old I am!" Brian says. "And I know how old she is, too. She's almost twenty-two, and that's the same age her Mom was when..." he says to Sara's father.

Sara's father holds up a hand, interrupting him. "We're not going to talk you out of it, I know better than that," he says.

"There's no point," he then says to Brian's father. "Even if we did, she'd probably just go ahead and ask him." Sara's father produces a small box from his pocket. "As long as you're going to do it, you may as well do it properly. This was my mother's–her grandmother's."

He hands the box to Brian...

I wake up completely refreshed, completely relaxed. I shower and dress and the smell of bacon leads me down to the kitchen. Mom is just sitting down to her breakfast; Dad and Bob must have eaten already.

I go to her and give her a hug. "What's that for?" she asks, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"Nothing," I say. "Just–could you take me over to the salon this morning? If you ask them, they'll fit me in today, right?"

She's very suspicious now. "The salon? Why?"

"No reason," I answer. "Brian's just coming over later, and–well, I want to look my best, that's all." It's very important that I do. It's time to let Gretchen out for a little while. "Oh, and can I borrow your diamond earrings again?"

"Sara Katarina Barnes, you tell me what's going on!" She already knows, I think. She just can't quite wrap her mind around it. I don't blame her. It is kind of a big deal. It's six months to the day that we met, and what more appropriate time is there than that?

"There's nothing going on, Mom. I want to look nice for my boyfriend, that's all. And I guess I'm just in a good mood today. You know, I had the most wonderful dream last night..."

...but Sara's adventures continue in the first official book of the Dream Doctor Mysteries, coincidentally enough titled Dream Doctor

Look for it at:

www.jjdibenedetto.com

If you enjoyed Dream Student, please and leave a review.

You can also visit my website at www.jjdibenedetto.com and sign up to receive news and updates about the Dream Doctor Mysteries, and all my other books as well!

Or you can drop me a line at jamesd@elevendayempire.com.

If you really enjoyed Dream Student, you'll love the audiobook edition, narrated by the amazing Heather Jane Hogan. Or click here first to listen to a ten minute sample!

Finally, every book in the complete Dream Doctor Mysteries (and all my other books) is available electronically, in paperback, and as an Audible audiobook:

The Dream Doctor Mysteries

Dream Student

Dream Doctor

Dream Child

Dream Family

Waking Dream

Dream Reunion

Dream Home

Dream Vacation

Fever Dream

Dream Wedding

Dream Fragments: Stories from the Dream Doctor Mysteries

Betty & Howard's Excellent Adventure

A Box of Dreams: the collected Dream Doctor Mysteries (books 1-5)

Dream Sequence (the Dream Doctor Mysteries, books 1-3)

The Jane Barnaby Adventures

Finders Keepers

Losers Weepers

Her Brother's Keeper

The Jane Barnaby Adventures Box Set

Welcome to Romance

Finding Dori

All available in Audio, Digital, and Print at:

www.jjdibenedetto.com

So many people made this book possible, and much better than I could have made it on my own.

First, obviously, my wonderful wife Cathey, without whose support it wouldn't exist at all.

Second, my friends who saw the original drafts of this book too many years ago to think about, and who helped Sara Barnes come to life: Tim, Chris, Jodi, James, Jack, Steve, Gene, Greg, Jenna and others who I'm sure I'm unforgivably leaving out—if I missed you, I'm truly sorry!

Third, Jodi Roosenraad, who read every word of this book multiple times and whose editing, advice and encouragement made Sara a better, stronger character, and made the book as a whole far better than it had any right to be.

Fourth, everyone in the various writing and critique groups, especially the GoodReads Beta Reading Group. There are too many individuals to name, but thanks to all of you for your advice and encouragement.

Fifth, my friends and classmates at Case Western Reserve University, and especially in Raymond House. Although Sara, Brian and Beth are completely fictional and entirely my creation, some of the people who populate their world were inspired (with deep affection) by real people. So, to George, Jim, Jim, Regina, Andy, Maria, Martin, Dan, Kim, Justin, Glenn, Julie, Julie, Tara, Kat, Lisa, Anne and Natalie, thank you for your cameo appearances, and for making Sara's world a little more real and a lot more interesting.

Sixth, Emma Michaels, who did a fantastic job creating the cover. And Colleen Sheehan, who designed the interior of the book. And Heather Jane Hogan, who did an amazing job narrating the audiobook edition.

Seventh, anyone who I've forgotten or left out, and I know there are a lot of you, please forgive me!

Finally, it should be self-evident, but this is a work of fiction, and the events of this book are entirely made up. Any resemblance between the characters in this book and any real person is purely coincidental.

J.J. (James) DiBenedetto is a marketing professional by day and novelist by night. He lives in lovely Arlington, Virginia with his beautiful wife and a very demanding cat who runs the house. He's the author of the Dream Doctor Mysteries, the Jane Barnaby Adventures and other works.

About the Cover

Emma Michaels is an extremely talented cover artist, as well as a novelist in her own right. Visit her at her website:

<http://www.emmamichaels.com>

About the Designer

Colleen is a book interior designer and typesetter out to quell the terrified mental anguish of readers forced to read their favorite books with awkward and distracting pagination. She lives in a strange world where porcelain animal heads adorn the walls of an office that doubles as a private dreaming forest.

Consider visiting her website.

www.ampersandbookinteriors.com
