Chapter 88

I’m running down a dark, narrow hall.

“Ansel?”

I know he’s here, but I can’t find him. The hall stretches on forever. I pass by door after door, all closed.

I hear a noise from one and I turn the knob, but it’s locked. I struggle against it, shoving it open, but Ansel’s not inside.

It’s Henry. He’s standing in an office and he’s a mess. His hair’s uncombed. His sleeves are pulled up haphazardly. His tie is loose and crooked. There are papers everywhere, and he’s searching through them.

Beads of sweat are breaking out all over his forehead. He kicks closed a desk drawer and yanks another open. A swarm of white spiders begin to pour out of the drawer. He tries to close it, but he can’t.

I gasp as the spiders cover his hands and legs, and then they engulf him.

“No!”

They’re crawling into his mouth, open in a scream. I can’t help him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Henry.”

I have to get away. I can’t watch it anymore.

I turn and run back down the hallway.

The hallway is the ocean.

“Ansel.”

He’s laying on a beach towel, leaning back, with his head propped up against his hands to watch the waves. He’s wearing a pair of purple sunglasses. There are smudges of white sunscreen near his hairline and on his shoulders.

I breathe in, relieved beyond what I can put into words. “You’re alive.”

“So they tell me,” he says. “I guess I haven’t kicked the bucket just yet.”

“Can I sit here - next to you, I mean?”

“I guess,” he says. “It’s a public beach.”

We watch as two surfers do ocean acrobatics over sharks and dolphins.

“This has got to be your dream,” Ansel says.

“Why would you assume that?”

He turns and lowers his sunglasses a smidge so he can eyeball me.

“It’s better than your dreams,” I say. “At least we’re not in a burning city.”

Ansel clears his throat. “You’re forgetting the sexy aspect of that.’

I feel my cheeks flush. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Ansel lays his head down against the towel.

It’s night. The sky is alive with twinkling stars.

I lay down next to him - but with plenty of space between us. A whole galaxy of space that stretches out underneath us, too. The ocean waves are made of stars and they lap at our feet.

“Is this okay?” I turn my head to him.

“Why do you keep asking me stuff like that?” He’s still wearing the sunglasses, staring up into the heavens.

“Because we broke up,” I say.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

The intentional echo of my own words hits me right in the gut.

Of course he hasn’t, and I can’t expect him to. I can’t expect everything to be alright.

A silence falls between us. Crickets chirp. We’re nestled in pine trees. The smell of woodsmoke is in the air.

Ansel brings his arms down his sides. He throws off his sunglasses, tossing them on the ground next to him. “I’m glad you’re okay, Karin.” He turns his head towards me and catches my gaze.

“Thanks to you,” I say.

He keeps his blue eyes locked to mine. “I have to tell you something else,” he says. “I’ll always love you. Broken up or not. Angry at you, whatever. No matter what. So you have to be okay - stay okay, you know?”

My heart hurts. I don’t fight the tears back.

I struggle to get the words out. “You’ve never said that before.”

He looks back up at the sky. “I used to think of it as a curse - loving you.”

“Maybe it is,” I say, sniffing.

“My perspective has changed.”

“Why?” I wipe my eyes.

“Honestly?”

“Yes,” I say, raising my eyebrow.

“I think I just gave up.”

“Gave in to fate,” I say.

“Something like that.” He sits up. “I was scared to before. Scared you’d hurt me again.”

“I did,” I whisper.

“You did,” he says.

My eyes blur with tears. I wipe them with my sleeve. A frog croaks.

“But, you know what,” he says, finding my gaze again. “The thing is - you were right in some ways when you left, after all of that happened with Ethan Woods.”

He runs his fingers through his hair. “You were also dead wrong, too, but I get the underlying themes of why you were unhappy. I know I can be kind of -“

“An ass?”

He clutches his chest. “That stings, Karin.”

I laugh and sit up next to him.

“I was going to say, ‘gruff,’ maybe.”

“Ohh, okay.”

He winks at me. “You and Aron would get along.”

“Is Aron the -“

“Shrink, yes.”

Ansel sighs. The harvest moon sits low in the sky. Red paper lanterns hang in the trees, glowing warmly.

“I get it,” he says. “I do. I get why you didn’t feel free, either, and in the end, I think it was probably good, even though it hurt like hell, when you left.”

I draw my knees to my chest. It’s my cue to speak honestly, but I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m ready.

“I have Ada again,” I say, instead.

“Is that what you wanted?”

I wrap my arms around my legs. “Yes.”

Ansel’s quiet for a moment. I notice, for the first time, that his shirt’s stained with blood. “Why?”

I put my head down on my knees. “Um, lots of reasons. Turns out, she was a lot more important than I knew.” I smile. A vague, cop-out answer. I’m skirting over the deep truth of things. I can’t keep my eyes off the blood on his shirt.

Anxiety gnaws at my stomach and I stand up. I rake my hands through my hair. Ansel is leaning back against a beige couch.

We’re at my friend’s house. The house is crawling with people, drinking, talking, dancing. The lights are down low and the music is blaring.

Ansel makes a face. “Not my scene,” he says, shouting over the music.

“Come on,” I say, fighting to be heard over the heavy baseline.

“What?”

I extend my arm out and he takes my hand. Butterflies fill my stomach. He looks at my wrist and his eyes grow sad. He leans in close, but still has to yell. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

I shake my head and take him with me, trying not to trip over three of my friends snorting something off the coffee table. We squeeze through people lining the hallway, and make our way through to my friend’s bedroom in the back.

I open the door and we step in, already feeling relief from the loud noise of the party.

A couple’s making out on the bed, totally oblivious to us. Ansel rolls his eyes. “Get the fuck out,” he growls.

They break apart and look at him. He’s imposing enough that all he has to do is glare, and they scramble away.

“I liked the forest better,” Ansel says.

“Me too.”

“Is this what you did after you left… the first time things ended, I mean. Snorted cocaine off of coffee tables?”

“And what if I did,” I say, suddenly hot under the collar, even though I had to be dragged to this party and left an hour in, stone-cold sober.

Ansel shakes his head. “It doesn’t seem like you, that’s all.”

Something catches my eye in the back of the room. I go to the window and press my face against it.

“Just a UFO,” I say, like it’s totally normal.

“I take back my cocaine comment. You went with the shrooms, instead, didn’t you?”

I lob a pillow at his face, hitting my target. He laughs and tosses it back underhanded. Then he sits down on the edge of the bed.

Ansel’s face gets somber.

“I think I might be dying, Karin.”

Panic jolts through me. “Is something happening - right now, I mean?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Don’t worry. I don’t think I’m going to keel over this minute. I just, I don’t know if I’ll get out of this.” He smiles half-heartedly, but it’s enough for me to see his dimple. “If I do, I get major bragging rights.”

He glances out the window as green Martians beam out of the flying saucer hovering.

“Never wanted to do a second time on a vent, though.”

“Second time?”

The lights flicker off and on, and then everything goes quiet.

I’m seated in the passenger seat of a car. Ansel’s driving.

“Is this your car,” I ask. “It’s really sporty. I wouldn’t dream this up.”

He chuckles. “Can you do that? Move from one head to another?”

“Actually,” I say. “I’ve never pulled someone into my dreams before.” I’m beginning to feel the exhaustion spread over me. I think my battery’s draining a little now.”

“So, now, you’re stuck in my head, then.” Ansel glances over to smile at me.

“Not stuck,” I say. “I -“

Everything flickers again, like a short circuit. This time, everything’s gone, including Ansel.

It flickers again, and we’re back in the car. He’s pulled over into the parking lot of a donut shop.

“What just happened?”

“I think I’m running out of juice,” I say.

“Too bad. I was just about to take you to the best donut place in five counties - at least.”

“Ansel,” I say. “We never really got to date, did we?”

“Not conventionally,” he says. “But who cares about convention?”

“You don’t think we missed out?”

“I mean, my life has sort of been one crisis after another. Who has time to date?”

“But I didn’t even know you liked donuts. The couple times we had them at the sanitorium -“

“I’d give mine to you.” He grins sheepishly.

I shut my eyes and put my head in my hands.

“What’s wrong?”

Ansel and the car disappear. After a second, the dream powers back on, like pulling the breaker of a theme park ride.

“Are we sure, it’s not me,” Ansel says, “Doing the switch off and on?” There’s a hint of nervousness in his voice.

My heart picks up a beat. Am I sure?

“It’s me. Don’t worry.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Who knows,” I say. “Dream time isn’t the same, anyway.”

“Yeah. True.” He kills the car engine.

“Ansel? There’s stuff I want to say.”

“Say it.” He crosses his arms.

I shake my head. “It’s too much to get out, I think. I can feel that I’m losing more -“

He’s gone. Then the scene flickers back.

“Do this,” he says, without missing a beat. “Pretend I’m dying, and just blurt out whatever it is.”

He’s looking at me with a wry expression, but maybe it is my only chance.

Ada pushes me forward. The emotional effect is like being shoved off a cliff.

“I fucking love you, Ansel.”

He blinks in surprise.

The waterworks start up again. It’s not delicate and it’s not romantic, but it’s earnest and it’s real.

Because, it’s not just the kind of love that makes your heart pound, although he does that plenty. It’s the kind of love that you can’t erase, even when you try. That will endure.

Ansel chews on his lip. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Ada, I fucking love you, too.” He smiles wistfully. “And so does Jeff.”

“No, th-“

It all goes dark. Then light. Then dark. Then, he’s gone.