Life Is but a Dream by Brian James Page A

we do that? —
    — We walk through the sun — I tell him.
    — Like wait for it to sit right on top of the ocean … then just walk out into waves? — he says.
    It’s a good way of picturing it and I nod enthusiastically.
    — Yeah … just like that — I say. — And once we’re on the other side, all of this won’t be real anymore. It’ll disappear and then it’ll just be us. Forever. In a place that changes with however we wish it to be. —
    — You really think so, huh? —
    — I know so — I say. — As long we’re together, I know it will come true. —
    — Don’t worry about that. I’m not going anywhere without you. — He says it like a promise that will last long after the sun dips down just below the taller trees on the tallest hills. The nurses will come then and take us away, but it doesn’t matter. They can take us to different wings of the hospital but they can’t really separate us. Not anymore. We are connected in a dream—that can’t be broken.
    — I’m glad I was sent here after all — Alec says.
    — Why? —
    — Because you’re here — he says.

 
    CHAPTER
    EIGHT
    — We just want what’s best for you. — My mom keeps repeating the same phrase over and over. She’s like the spinning rainbow when the computer freezes. — We just want what’s best for you, that’s all. —
    I’m sitting on the bed as she goes through my closet, pulling tops off of hangers, jeans from the floor, piling all of them in the same travel bag I’ve used for every car trip we’ve taken in the past four years. Knowing that they are taking me away to a mental hospital, the pink canvas fabric seems too cheerful—the koala bear keychain that dangles from the zipper even more so.
    — You know that, don’t you? You know we just want what’s best for you? — she asks, grabbing the first books she can reach from the shelf near my desk and tossing them on top of the clothes. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to her that half of them I’ve already read and the other half are schoolbooks that I won’t need where I’m going. — We just want to help you. —
    I don’t bother to tell her how I don’t need any help because I’ve stopped trying to make them understand.
    My dad’s role is to pop his head in the door and tell us both — It’s time we should be leaving .— My mom sobs on cue and he crosses my room sympathetically. I watch as he puts his arm around her and kisses her on the forehead the way I’ve seen fathers do in a hundred different movies. They’ve rehearsed their parts so well.
    As we pull out of the driveway, I can almost convince myself we are going on one of our road trips. I am in the same seat, with the same view of my parents. My mom’s hair is pulled into the familiar brown ponytail so that I can roll down the window and her hair won’t get tangled whipping her in the face at sixty miles per hour. I have my sleeve in my mouth and my head tilted back to see the rainbows streaking through the clouds as we drive.
    — It’s a trip. Just a trip like going to see dolphins or the Grand Canyon — I mutter. I pet the birthmark on my left hand until my skin gets pink and sore. It reminds me of the wimp tests that boys I know used to play in grade school by rubbing pencil erasers over their arms until the skin peeled away like a sunburn. The first to cry out failed.
    The drive is three hours and eleven minutes from our driveway to the Wellness Center. The radio is on but nobody sings. We stop only once to eat. My dad orders food for me that I leave in the bag without touching.
    When we arrive at the hospital, it’s early evening. The sky is light purple and my mom’s eyes are red and swollen. We drive through a heavy gate with a guard who says he’s expecting us. Our car’s headlights turn the building into a haunted house with lightning in the windows. A seven-foot-high stone wall surrounds the hospital like a cemetery and I wonder if this is where I’m being