The dream I had last night is still floating in my head this morning. In it, I'm packing all my belongings. I go to dad and tell him I’m leaving forever. He gets so angry he tells me he never wants to see me again, that I’m a traitor and a liar. He calls me irresponsible and immature. I leave without looking back. In my dream, I board a train that puffs pink smoke in its wake. I arrive on the train in front of Mom’s apartment building, which is hazy, floating this way and that. When I ring the intercom to get in the building, her voice floats out from speakers somewhere overhead.
“Who is that?” the dream mom says.
“It’s Sam,” I say. “I’ve come to live with you forever.”
Mom laughs. “Live with me forever? You can’t live with me forever. Only for two days, and then I’m going to Istanbul! I hear it’s nice this time of year.”
“But you can’t be going - I came to stay.”
“No,” she says. “You can’t stay. Sorry, but you can live in the gallery across the street if you like.”
When I turn around Benji is waving from the gallery. I cross the road, putting my luggage down in front of the large windows. The glass has all turned black. When I look back across the road, the lines of my mom's apartment building are blurry. The building is wobbling, as if I’m staring at a desert mirage. And as I watch it blows away like smoke in the wind.
I shake my head, like I’m trying to dislodge the strange dream from my brain and out my ears. After a bowl of cereal and a half hour attempt at writing that results in nothing, I throw a few books and my customary notepad in my messenger bag and make the short trek to the bus stop. The library is actually kind of nice. I look around, realizing I’ve missed the familiar surroundings. The quiet murmur of people talking, the smell of old books, the row upon row of wooden shelves.
I know where I'll find Jacob. The library section doesn't have a huge comic section, but it did what it could. There’s a little corner beside Science Fiction that houses their modest selection of graphic novels.
Jacob greets me with a wave and a huge grin, and I feel a smile on my face for the first time in a couple days.
“Hey.” It's a relief to be around someone friendly.
“Hey yourself!! Do you know I haven’t been to a library in a year?”
“I know me too. I fake going to the library all the time...” I falter. “Or I used to.”
Jacob frowns. “Yeah, what happened? Everything okay?”
“Long story.”
Jacob gestures to the circle of cozy-looking, worn out armchairs.
“We have all day and some cushy arm chairs over there.”
“Yeah, we have all day until my dad gets back from work at six.”
Jacob makes a face,.“That bad, huh?”
I flop down onto the nearest armchair. “He found out that I was seeing my mom.”
“Oh, crap.” Jacob sits down in the chair next to mine. “What did he do?”
YOU ARE READING
I Am Anastasia
Teen FictionSamantha wishes she were someone else. Anastasia, to be exact. Anastasia doesn't sit in the corner and read because she's too shy to talk to anyone. She doesn't keep trying and failing. Anastasia slays dragons. Of course, Anastasia is only a charact...
