Dreamology(46)

“So did yours!” I practically shriek in excitement, and Max, laughing, reaches over and lets his hand rest lightly at the back of my neck, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

But Petermann doesn’t look excited. “I’m confused. You mean his lips tasted like Oreos in your dream.”

“No,” I say. “Well, yes, they did in the dream the first time, but then they also did in real life.”

Petermann’s brow furrows. “I suppose it would be silly for me to ask if you had in fact consumed any Oreos yesterday?”

Max and I shake our heads.

“What is it?” Max asks.

“I’m not sure,” Petermann says, tapping his fingers on his desk. “Have either of you ever experienced anything like this before? A moment where something from your dreams seems to seep into your reality?”

The question makes the hair on my arms stand up. “I have,” I say cautiously, telling him about Sergio and Brunilda outside my window, and Jerry’s giant footprint. “Have you?” I ask Max.

Max nods. “The parrots have been stalking me, too. The other day they were roosting on the goal during a game and cheered when I scored. And yesterday, when I went to switch my laundry from the washer to the dryer, I pulled a rubber ducky out with the load.”

“Like the washing machine dream,” I whisper. “I saw one in the Charles River a few weeks ago.”

“Had either of you ever experienced this . . . dream bleeding, so to speak, before meeting each other?” Petermann asks.

Max and I both shake our heads again.

“They’re merging,” Petermann says under his breath.

“What?” Both Max and I speak at the same time.

“I don’t want to alarm either of you yet,” Petermann says. “But it’s my concern that now that you’ve met in real life, your minds may not be able to tell the difference between reality and your dreams. It’s possible that the longer this continues, if we can’t stop you from dreaming of each other, it could become impossible to distinguish waking and dreaming, one from the other.” He pauses and leans forward. “And you may slowly begin to lose your grip on reality altogether.”

“You mean like, go insane?” I ask.

Max’s hand, once tangled up in my hair, has dropped into his lap. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he says.

“Look around, Max,” Petermann says. “What about any of this makes sense?”

“It’s going to be okay,” I say to Max as we walk to his car. It’s still early in the morning, not even eight yet, and the whole quad is empty. Max is still holding my hand, but he hasn’t looked at me directly since before Petermann told us his theory. “We’ll figure it out. Petermann will figure it out.” I stop, waiting for him to show he heard me.

Like the gentleman he is, Max doesn’t go around to his door, but comes to mine first, opening it for me.

“I know we will,” he says, placing his hands on the sides of my shoulders. “I just wish everything wasn’t so complicated. I should be studying for a history exam right now, but instead I’m worried my dreams are taking over my mind. I know it’s silly, but I just sort of wish that last night’s dream balloon never came down to earth again.”

“Why? What happened on the balloon?” I ask, pretending to be confused.

“Oh, you don’t remember?” Max says, playing along. “Would it help if I reminded you?”

“It’s not just helpful, it’s important,” I say, pointing a finger at him. “Crucial to research as a matter of fa—” But I don’t even get to finish my sentence, because Max is already kissing me.

I pull away, feeling disoriented. “Sometimes when you kiss me, I become completely weightless,” I say.

Then I see the look on Max’s face. He’s staring in horror at the ground. I look down too and realize we actually are weightless. We’re floating. Just a bit, just a foot or so. I kick my feet and just like that, whomp, we’re thrown back to the earth again, where we lean against the car to ground ourselves. My heart is pounding so fast I think it might burst through my rib cage, and I feel like I might throw up.

“Did you see that?” I ask.

“Yup,” Max says, breathing hard.

“Did we . . .”

“We did.” Max nods. “And I think it might’ve been my fault.”

“How was it your fault?” I asked.

“Well, I said I didn’t want to come down from the balloon again . . . so we started to go up.”

Max is looking at me, terrified. I take his hand and squeeze it tight.





21


Hi




OLIVER’S HEAD APPEARS upside down over mine with a quizzical expression, but I can’t hear what he’s saying through the musings of The Cure in my ears, so I pull out my headphones. If you are not familiar with postpunk or new wave music of the late 1970s, I highly suggest you amend this, particularly if you are hopelessly in love.

“What?” I ask, choosing not to sit up from my position on the quad, where I’ve been splayed out all free period just staring at the foliage above. I swear this one tree keeps turning from a normal fire-red color to various shades of hot purple and pink, which I could attribute to the fact that I’m dozing on and off. Or the fact that, you know, as Petermann said, I’m losing my grip on reality.