Charlie~~
"Maybe I'll join a frat." Lying on his bed, Kyle spills his plans for college to Tyler and me. He'll be starting at the end of summer. He flexes his bare feet, joints popping. The way our room is laid out means I'm closer to his feet than his head. Mine and Tyler's beds are both tucked into corners with Kyle getting his own side of the room, his bed the tip of our triangle. "Do you think I'd get hazed?"
In the dream, my bed is a king, but here in the real world, I only have a twin.
I hold up my model of a rainforest that inspired one of my menageries to my eye. A leopard's head pokes out of a bush. A monkey hangs from a tree. All frozen. "Probably."
Decades ago in the 2010s, universities cracked down on hazing. The restrictions they placed on the organizations only lasted so long.
Tyler glances up from his chemistry textbook but keeps silent.
Sitting up, Kyle grabs his phone from his desk.
"Where are you going to apply, Charlie?"
A parrot perches on a branch at the front of the rainforest. Stuck in place forever. My siblings don't know I won't be going to college. "Depends on what I want to study."
"You need to decide soon," he says.
With a click our door slides open, and Dad walks in. "Tyler, Kyle, out." They scramble out of the beds and slip through the door behind him, Tyler with his book in hand.
As the door slides shut, Dad takes a seat on Tyler's bed. I set my model to the side.
"You said I could be awake."
He holds up his hand. "I'm not here to send you into the dream."
"I don't believe you're here to only talk."
"When do I ever do more than talk with you?" He makes a point. He's never helped me with homework—not as if he's given me any. He's never tossed a ball back and forth with me. He rests his palms on his thighs. "I want to talk about Nora."
My throat tightens.
"I ran into her again."
"Do you ever just run into anyone?"
Eyes narrowing, he picks up a picture frame from Tyler's nightstand. The one of Tyler and Kyle on their rafting trip last year. The trip I was forced to decline. "I'm certain she recognized me. But she's progressing too slowly."
"It hasn't even been three weeks." I dig my fingers into my comforter scrunching up the gray and black fabric. "Do you want her to exhibit powers?"
"I want to know what she's capable of." He sets the photo carefully in its spot and places his hands behind him, leaning back into them. Casual. That's what he's going for to get me to lower my guard. "I need her to come to the conclusion that she's dreaming, but I want you to speed up the process and determine if she's worth my time."
"Me?"
"Make her sleep."
"I can't make her sleep in the dream."
"A dream can bring up memories we've repressed for her, so make her pass out."
Wanting more space between us, I sink against my wall, coiling into it.
"Naturally, you'll have to rough her up quite a bit." If she passes out from the pain, she's a Class One.
"No."
He stands, giving me a pitying look and walks to Kyle's side of the room. "Don't you want to go to college, Charlie?"
My pulse jumps. "What?"
"Do this and you can join your brother at college in a year."
That's impossible. "I don't have credits. You've never had me take classes."
"You don't think I know that you've been teaching yourself since you were ten? And never mind the credits. One call, and I can get you into any school in the country." He runs his hand over Kyle's comforter and over the back of my brother's desk chair where a sweatshirt with his chosen university's logo hangs. "You're a smart boy, Charlie. Imagine four years without setting foot in Somnia. Four years of football games and tailgates. Three years with your brother." Closing his eyes, he tilts his head back. "Days spent in the sun." He inhales, his nostrils flaring. A bit dramatic.
Freedom is what he's offering, but can I pay the price? I've wanted to feel the sun on my face since I learned about that great burning star.
I could see so many stars. Real ones.
He picks up Kyle's sweatshirt and moves to the shelf that hangs in the middle of the wall. My model of Harbour Town's lighthouse is propped on it along with the Eifel tower and three circus tents. "You could see the world."
I grit my teeth and shake my head. "I can't hurt her like that."
"It's only a dream, Charlie. You're not actually hurting her."
The rainforest sits on my bed beckoning me to explore it. But not the one in my menagerie. The real one.
"You have a week, Charlie. If you don't do it, someone else will."
"What if she can't pass out?"
He tilts his head, examining my models. "If it doesn't appear to be working after an hour, then you can stop. I'll have to figure out something else to get her to achieve a lucid state." He tosses the sweatshirt. I catch it before it crashes into my rainforest. Unfolding it, I'm met with the school's logo. "Think about it."
Can we all agree that Richard Pace is an awful human being?