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It was a nightmare so powerful it became real.

People are afraid of their dreams, not because they will toss and turn in their sleep and wake up sweating, even crying. No, they are afraid of their dreams because they believe their dreams might be

predictions, turning their imaginings into terrible prophesies.

I didn't fall back to sleep for hours after Brody had left in that wild, angry rage. When I finally did. I saw those two red taillights growing in my mind, first into furious eyes and then merging into one large ball of fire that exploded along with the ringing of the telephone, raining down hot embers out of a thunderous, black sky above me.

After waking to the phone's ringing. I felt my heart pounding like a tom-tom, stealing my breath and filling my lungs with vibrations that reverberated down my spine to the ends of my feet. The phone rang and rang. I sat up, turned and lifted the receiver.

"Hello," I said. Silence, deep and ominous followed without anyone speaking. "Brody? Is that you?"

I heard a great, deep groan. "Brody?" "He's dead!" she screamed. It was the most

chilling scream I had ever heard, piercing my heart, slicing it to the point where it stopped and then starred. Every part of me wanted to pull away, explode like the light in my nightmare and send my arms and my legs, my head and my feet and my hands in different directions.

"He's dead!" My stomach twisted. I felt my throat close as my blood drained down my body. I could barely hold the phone. It seemed to gain mare weight every passing second.

"What? Mother? Who's dead? What are you saying?"

"Grant just phoned me from the scene of the accident. He sounded like a dead man himself. I didn't recognize his voice. I kept asking, Grant, is that you? Finally, he just screamed at me, screamed that Brady was gone. WHAT DID YOU DO!" she shouted so loud herself that my ear rang.

"Brody? What happened? He can't be dead," I barely uttered.

"I don't know. I don't know. They said he lost control at a turn an hour from my mother's house, went off the road and hit a tree. Why was he driving home so late? I thought he was going to stay over, if not with you, then with Victoria. What happened? What did you do? What did you tell him?"

A terrible shivering began in my body. My bones were rattling, my teeth chattering.

"I told him we couldn't be lovers. He wanted that and I had to be hard and mean to him to stop him."

"Oh God," she said. "It's my fault. All this is my fault,"

I didn't say no. I couldn't make excuses for her because in my heart and soul I believed she was responsible. Not being sympathetic with her had an unexpected result. however. She suddenly turned any at me.

"Couldn't you make something up, string him along so he didn't get so upset? Why did you do this so late at night and send him out like that? Why did he stay there if he told Victoria he wasn't going to stay? Did you encourage him? You did, didn't you? You're getting even with me, is that it?"

"Of course not."

"Why did he leave like that then? Why didn't you stop him?"

"What did you want me to tell him. Mother? Should I have been the one to tell him the truth because you didn't have the courage? This isn't my fault!"

"You could have been less mean, maybe," she moaned. "Why didn't you just ignore him?"

"He came to me in the middle of the night, Mother. He came to my bedroom naked. He wanted to have sex with me."

"Stop it! You're making this up. Stop it!"

"He wanted me to be his girlfriend. He said he was deeply in love with me and that no matter what anyone thought, he would still love me."

"I won't listen to this. Brody's dead. My son... Grant will hate me," she said in a mad loud whisper. "He'll blame me. They'll all blame me. Do you understand what's happened?"

"I'm sorry," I said, through my tears. "I wanted him to be my brother. I wanted him to be my friend."

"Was he drinking? Did you and he drink my mother's liquor? You had a wild party! That's why he tried to make love to you."

"Mother, nothing like that happened. He brought some beer, but he wasn't drunk when he left," I said.