Forgetting Sylva

Broken

In my dreams I am whole. I am running again, and that is how I know for sure that it is a dream; because never in life could I run like this, free and uninhibited. But, for a moment, I delude myself, let myself believe that I'm awake. Because it feels real. It smells real. It sounds real. It tastes real.

I am in the reception centre. The cloths that once covered the tables are now hanging from the ceiling in ragged strips all around me, dangling to brush my face and arms, the fabric rough against my skin. Some of the pieces of cloth have keys stuck in them, halfway down the tear, as if they were in the middle of being ripped apart.

I am alone, but I can see phantom bodies through the tangle of sheets. A flash of red silk. A glimmer of black. But when I chase after them, they are gone. I am chasing shadows.

The smell of perfume in the air is so strong that I can taste it: heady and floral to my nose, but cloying and thick to my tongue. A slow waltz plays, but the music is coming from everywhere and the white tablecloths are universal and the room is never-ending.

I am sobbing as I run and then I trip over a hand splayed out from amidst the sheets and I am falling and my leg snaps and I crawl, like a wounded gazelle, because if I stop moving it will get me it will catch me I will be gone. And I don't want to die. Not yet.

In this dream, I am broken.

First comes hearing. The slow, soothing sound of a machine reading my heart rate. Then the soft sheets of the bed against my skin, the mattress beneath me. The slightly heavier feel of my leg, wrapped in special lightweight plaster. But then, I knew that would be there. It does not surprise me.

Then I hear the breathing, and the soft tap of fingers on the metal bar on the side of the bed. I open my eyes. Math boy sits there, in a chair beside my bed, his head bowed over his tapping fingers, chocolate hair shaggy and unkempt. He still wears his suit from the formal, although he has taken off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, and his tie has gone missing. There is a slight spattering of red on his sleeve and along his chest. Slowly, I reach out and touch it, and he freezes.

"How-" My voice is rusty, but I try again. "How did that happen?"

He looks up at me, and a slow, sheepish smile crawls across his face. "Ahhhh... Greaves deserved it," he says leaning in conspiratorially. "But don't say anything too loud. Wouldn't want him to remember who beat him up. Especially since he won't be drunk anymore."

I smile a little, let my hand drop back to the bed. There is an ache inside of me, bone deep.

"Do you remember me, then?" he asks.

"Your face," I say. "The class I took with you. Where you sat. That you used a 2B pencil for math. But not your name." He laughs, and it makes me wish that smiling didn't hurt so that I could do it more often.

"I'm Lance," he says, extending a hand to shake and then thinking better of it.

"Lance Kefton," I complete, and he grins.

"You have a good memory."

"I have to have something about me that's good," I joke. And then I look around, as much as I can from my vantage point. "Where're Marcus and Olivia? And my parents?"

Lance shifts in his chair, then stands and stretches like a cat. "They all slept here the whole night, and the nurse told them to go home, have a shower." I think of my family sleeping in the small army of chairs I now see stacked in the corner, and the ghost of a smile graces my lips.

"If you don't mind me asking, why are you here?" I ask, as he cracks his knuckles.

"I'm visiting my sister," he says, and his smile turns fond and soft. "They refused to go unless someone was watching you, someone who wasn't a nurse. They said you wouldn't want to wake up to that."