Tuesday, February 2, 2 p.m.
Something different happened last night. I had the dreams. And like I’d hoped, it was someone cool. A basketball player for the Cavs. A big Hawaiian guy who moved so fast and so strong, for the first time I understood why some people actually like to play sports. He was pounding down the court, slamming that ball to the floor over and over again, not missing a single dribble, not even thinking that there was a possibility he could. And that was all really great and I was having a lot of fun. Maybe too much fun. Because toward the end of the game, I had this crazy impulse to shoot the ball from half-court, just sling it, one armed. And I did it. I mean, he did it. The guy I was being in the dream threw it. And of course he missed and everybody on the team got mad and started yelling at me. I mean, him. “What’s wrong with you, Kapono?!” and “What’s your problem? You on drugs again, man?” and “What kind of juvenile stunt was that, you moron!” I wanted to run away and hide.
I started to wake up, but right before my eyes opened, I heard his voice in my head say:
“What the hell did I do that for?”
And then I was awake in my bedroom, sweating so bad my sheets were sticking to me. It was only about four in the morning, so it was still dark out. I turned on the ceiling fan and lay there and tried to fall asleep as the fan dried my sheets, turning them cool and stiff against my skin. I kept remembering how it felt to be that basketball player. The power, the freedom. I wanted so bad to fall asleep and go back there and be that guy again, and this time I wouldn’t screw it up. But I couldn’t fall back asleep.
About two hours later, right around sunrise, I heard the front door slam and I winced. Mom was home from work and she must have been pretty tired, since she forgot how much Bill hates it when people slam the door. A minute later I could hear him yelling and her yelling back and then some things breaking.
One time, about six months ago, I tried to step in when they fought. I thought I could stop him from hurting her. But I ended up in the hospital, which was worse than she usually got. After that, she made me promise not to get in the way. She could take a lot of things, she said, but not me getting hurt on her account.
So now I just try not to listen, wishing I was anywhere else. Yeah, maybe I did want to escape from my life sometimes. I wouldn’t mind being a big warrior guy with a chain-mail babe. But then I thought about these dreams I’ve been having and I wondered if Ms. Randall was wrong. Maybe instead of keeping me sane, all this escapism was making me crazier.
Mom was hiding in her room when I got out of bed, which meant he’d probably left a mark on her face. It made me mad, but not in that way you see in the movies where the hero gets this tough look in his eye, makes a fist, and punches out the bad guy with some amazing strength. It just made me feel like I was going to throw up. And that’s more or less how I felt all through my morning classes.
But if I thought I was in a bad mood, Max was even worse. All through lunch he just sat there, looking at his roast beef sandwich like he wanted it to turn back into a cow just so he could kill it again. I knew better than to ask him what was wrong, so I just kept my head down and ate my lunch.
“You see the game last night?” he asked after a while.
“No,” I said. “Who won?”
“Damn Heat, man!” he said, and slammed his fist on the table. “Because of goddamn Kapono!”
“What?” I said.
“Yeah, I know, right?” said Max. “The Cavs were in the lead just about the whole game. Then in the last minute, Kapono was heading for the hoop and he got this crazy look in his eye, then just chucked the ball from half-court. It bounced off the backboard, the Heat got the rebound, ran it back, and hit a three-pointer before the clock ran out and won the damn game.”
I stared at him for a couple seconds before I realized he was expecting me to say something.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah!” he said. “They should fire his ass, don’t you think?”
“Um,” I said. Because I was pretty sure the poor guy shouldn’t be fired for something that was my fault.
So now I’m sitting here in study hall, not sure if I’m going crazy or if I’m some damn Harry Potter wizard. And I don’t even know who to ask about this. Not Ms. Randall, and definitely not Max. Especially if it’s true I made his team lose.
Maybe there’s nobody I can talk to.
Tuesday, February 2, 7:05 p.m.
You know, I’m never going to ask anyone about anything ever again. Well, okay, maybe not never. But I’m going to really think about it before I ask other people about weird stuff that happens to me.
When I got home from school, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a nice bouquet of flowers in front of her. Our kitchen is small and it’s all different shades of brown, so flowers always really stand out in there.
“Hey, Mom,” I said.
“Hi, Sebastian,” she said. She had a bruise on her left cheek, and her eye was a little swollen. It looked like it hurt pretty bad. I guess that was why she was drinking wine coolers at four o’clock. Even Bill usually waited until dinnertime to start drinking.
“How was school?” she asked.
“Okay,” I said as I grabbed a bag of pretzels from the pantry.
“Yeah? Then why did Ms. Randall just call me to tell me she’s concerned about you? She asked how things are at home. Why’d she ask that?”
“I don’t know.” I stuffed a handful of pretzels in my mouth. “I didn’t tell her nothing.”
“Sebastian Younger, don’t you talk with your mouth full.”
I swallowed real quick even though I hadn’t finished chewing. It hurt a little.
“Sorry,” I said.
“So, Ms. Randall, she says you’re having trouble sleeping? A lot of bad dreams or something?”
“I didn’t tell her anything about bad dreams,” I said. I started to head for the stairs and the safety of my room.
“Stop,” she said.
I stopped.
“Sit,” she said.
I sat down at the kitchen table across from her.
“So,” she said, leaning in, still clutching her wine cooler, which made it tip a little. But it was mostly empty so it didn’t spill. “What did you tell her?”
I thought about lying, honestly. But I just wanted to talk to someone about the crazy thoughts I was thinking right now, and if you can’t talk to your mom, who can you talk to, right?
“Okay,” I said. “Now, I know how this sounds, but hear me out. I been having these . . . well, I thought they were dreams. I thought I was dreaming I was other people or something. And I thought that was kinda weird so I asked Ms. Randall about it.”
“Why Ms. Randall?”
I shrugged. “She was just the person who was there when I thought to ask someone, I guess.” I didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings that I would choose Ms. Randall over her. “So that’s what I thought it was. Dreams. Then last night I was a basketball player for the Cavs and I accidentally made him mess up a shot. But today I found out that the real basketball player, the same guy, messed up in real life in the same way that I messed him up in my dream!”
She stared at me, and I could tell she wasn’t getting it at all.
“Mom,” I said. “Somehow, while I’m sleeping, I’m, like, possessing other people’s bodies or something! It’s like . . . I don’t know what. Magic, I guess.”
She was still looking at me and I couldn’t really tell what she was thinking, partly because of the bruise on her face. But then she took a last swig of her wine cooler and put the bottle down. She rubbed her good eye with the heel of her hand. Then she looked at me again.