Jessica Beauregard tipped the water bottle slowly, letting the cool liquid drip into Summer Vargas’ mouth. Her eyes were half-closed and unfocused, trails of sweat engraved on her face, dripping from stray strands of hair matted to her forehead. Jessica would have barely thought her conscious if one of Summer’s hands wasn’t gripping her forearm tightly. She put the bottle on the table next to the bed and spoke softly, biting her bottom lip between words, as if scared each word might explode.
“Sum, can you hear me? Please tell me you’re okay.”
“What…what time is it?” Summer’s voice was deep and shaken, barely more than a whisper. Jessica glanced at the clock on her bedside table.
“Little after four.”
Summer’s eyes closed, and she let out a sigh. Barely three hours had passed. She turned, freeing herself from the embrace of her roommate, and wordlessly rose and made her way to the door, grabbing a ratty hooded sweatshirt off of her desk chair. She began to open the door, but it quickly slammed back. Jessica’s palm was pressing against it; a stern look from narrowed eyes stabbed Summer, who looked away.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m not going to use, calm down. I just need some air.”
“I’m not worried about you using, I’m worried about what just happened to you!”
“It was a bad dream,” Summer sighed. “Just some bad stuff I’d rather have forgotten. I just need to shake ‘em out of my head.”
Jessica stared down her roommate, then frowned and grabbed her own coat.
“Well, I doubt anyone will be looking for kids outside at four in the morning. Let’s go.”
Summer went to protest, but she had rarely seen Jessica look anything but awkward or nervous, so she surrendered and left their room.
The grounds of the West Campus were crafted with the same angular precision that the building itself was known for. Razor-straight sidewalks lined with sleek, solar-powered lamps gave the outside a clean, chic, art deco look. Summer walked along the sidewalk, hands in her pockets. Though Fall had only just begun, already there was a chill in the air and Jessica watched her breath escape in white wisps as she waited for her roommate to speak.
Summer said nothing, but eventually stopped and leaned against a light post. Jessica propped herself up against the one opposite, and they stared at the smooth white concrete.
“I used to have these nightmares, when I was little.” Jessica jumped with surprise as the silent space between them suddenly filled with words.
“They were bad, really bad. So bad it started to make me scared to go to sleep, y’know? I was afraid I’d have a dream so bad I’d never wake up, and so I started staying up as much as I could. But that just made things worse. I started to drift off all the time, and I’d always end up having another terrible dream. I really started to lose it.
But my parents, they weren’t really the hands-on types, and they already weren’t so impressed with the kind of kid I was. So I hid it, best I could, just kind of…withdrew, as much as I could. Then when middle school was ending I was at this party, and I’ll spare you the details but thanks to what I took there I slept. Really slept, for the first time in, God, years. Drinking, smoking, pills, if I can get high I don’t get the nightmares. Eventually it became…habit, I guess. I was scared to stop because of them. That’s all it was. I didn’t mean to worry you, it’s just…something I’ve been dealing with for a long time.”
Neither girl looked up. Jessica had never heard her roommate talk so much or so honestly, certainly not since she’d begun her bet with Sarah Jacobson. She bit her lip, the nervous habit the girls both shared, and a whisper escaped her lips.
“I don’t believe you.”
The crisp night air seemed to swallow her words, swirl them around in the space between them until they were diluted and lost.
“Excuse me?” Summer said quietly, eyes now locked on the girl standing across from her. Jessica’s voice shook. “I don’t believe you,” she said again, louder this time.
“You think I’m lying?” Summer said indignantly, her head tilted.
“I don’t think you’re lying about everything,” Jessica said slowly, choosing her words carefully. “I think maybe you had some kind of nightmares, and the drugs help you keep them away, but…but you’re not being honest with me.”
“I’m not sure what you want from me,” her roommate replied. “I mean, you saw me having one-”
“That’s not what I saw,” Jessica replied gravely.
“Then what the hell did you see?”
Jessica’s chin now rose as she strained to look straight at Summer.
“Your eyes were…blinking, sort of. I could see them moving, but it wasn’t right, it wasn’t REM or anything, it was…they were white, Summer. White a-and…cloudy. There were shapes in them, moving around, and I,” Jessica’s words became a jumble as her eyes began to brim over with tears. Summer simply stared, her eyes narrowed.
“I have not told one single person this, Jessica. Not one,” she finally muttered, as she closed the gap between the two.
“My dreams…” Summer paused, opened her mouth a couple of times without saying anything. “I see things. People, places…events. I see true things, Jess. I see things, and they happen. I don’t always remember them, and mostly people’s faces are all blurry, so I can’t even be sure of what’s going on but…I dream about things, and they happen, and the more I do it the worse the things get. I hoped it wouldn’t happen again, but it did. I saw a-a cat I think, and, God, I can’t believe I’m actually telling you this. I…”
And her eyes widened, and she looked off into the distance.
“I saw someone die.”