Page 168 of Dream On

“Can I be honest with you?” she asks, approaching me at my side. Willa stops, an arm’s length between us, drawing out the silence for a few breaths. “It’s probably not my place…but I never really resonated with the title of the show. It gives too much power to chance, to the idea that we’re at the mercy of whatever happens. But I think we’re bigger than that, you know?”

Her words have me glancing back up, seeing her.

Listening.

“I think we’re armed with the tools to carve out our own path, to create exactly what we want,” she continues. “When we leave our dreams up to circumstance, we relinquish control. And I think it’s easier sometimes, letting something else take the wheel, but then we never get to uncover who we really are. What we’re capable of. What we’re made of.” She smiles softly. “We’re the ones holding the pen. It’s up to us to write the ending.”

I study her, allowing the underlying message to settle in. Allowing somethingother than this crushing sense of inevitability to seep inside and outshine the darkness.

The glimmer of possibility. The spark of potential.

The hope.

Fuck.

I shake my head, blotting it all out with black marker.

No.

I made the right call. Stevie is exactly where she should be.

“Anyway, sorry if I’m overstepping here.” Willa shrugs, her eyes dipping away. “I just feel like I was able to see your relationship through your eyes, woven inside that manuscript, almost as if I had a little window. And maybe it was all fiction, but I’ve come to know you. And I don’t think you write fairy tales. I think you write truth.” She takes my cold, clammy hand and gives it a squeeze before letting me go. “If that truth is what I think it is, then I hope you hear me.”

With a final poignant look, she steps around me and saunters down the hall, leaving me alone in the quiet, empty corridor.

I slump back against the wall and slide down to my butt.

I think about my truth, knowing it can’t possibly be that simple.

Truth has always been elusive, a shifting shape, too hard to grasp. A battle of what I know versus what I want. Maybe Willa can see what I want, but she doesn’t see what I know.

She doesn’t have the full scope.

I tip my head back against the wall and exhale slowly through my nose. My cell phone weighs heavily in my front pocket, teeming with unanswered texts, missed calls, and video chats from my mother that I’ve consistently rejected.

Swallowing, I pull the phone out of my pocket and open the screen. I click on the text app, scrolling through the endless string of neglected messages, until I land on two little words sent over a week ago.

Nicks: I’m home.

And then another two words a few days later.

Nicks: Happy birthday.

My throat burns.

I begged her to contact me as soon as she made it home safely, yet I never summoned up the courage to send her a reply. And then she somehow remembered my fucking birthday.

More guilt chomps through me, nibbling down to the marrow.

Swiping my thumbs over the keypad, I finally text her back.

Me: Thank you. How are you?

I need to know she’s okay, that she’s happy and fulfilled, getting back to the life that was always meant for her. That’s what I want.

I think that’s what I want.

Seconds turn into minutes. Minutes turn into ten. All I do is stare at the screen, waiting for the message to show Read. When it does, my pulse revs. My breath stalls in the back of my throat as I watch her bubbles come alive, stopping, starting, then doing it all over again.