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In the end, she dreams, because she can’t remember anything otherwise. In the dream, she’s a giant, a hundred feet tall. The entire city of Tuscaloosa stretches out beneath her, busy, sprawling. She doesn’t want to stomp anyone out, though, she’s lost and a little afraid, so she goes to the one place she knows she’ll always be safe in, picking her way carefully over rows of trees and ant-sized pedestrians.
When she gets to the apartment, Amy is the exact same size as her. And she smiles.
*
In the dream, there is a man in a suit. Jess cannot see his face. She has no idea who he is, but something about him unsettles her, unsettles her to the point where she’s screaming, begging to wake up - but nothing is happening. Nothing ever happens. And the man in the suit turns to look at her, and though she cannot see his face, Jess knows he is smiling at her and she screams and screams and screams. Her eyes fly open, effectively bringing her back to the real world and her dank hotel room, but the shadow in the corner looks too much like her nightmares and she is motionless. She screws her eyes shut again and counts down from ten, each second excruciatingly longer than the last. At zero, she can move once more, and the shadow is gone.
*
In the dream, the forest is on fire. Woods she kind of recognizes, patches of trees that look vaguely familiar - she knows this place, or did, once. She can’t tell if it’s day or night, not through all the choking, black smoke, and she nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels a sweaty palm slip into her own.
He’s soft-eyed. Unassuming. Jake or Jack, she thinks his name was, and he squeezes her hand like it’s the only tangible thing in the universe.
Maybe it is. Jess wrenches away from him, scowling, demands, What do you want?
Jake looks sad. Sadder than she remembers him. I just wanted to help. I just wanted to help, he repeats, monotone, an ancient needle skipping the surface of a scratched and weathered LP. I just wanted to help.
I want to find Amy, she says, but she’s not sure if he really hears her or not.
He blinks, slow. I just wanted to help, says Jay Merrick, and when he reaches out for her hand a second time, he bursts into flames. The jelly in his eyes pops out of his sockets and melts down his cheeks and his hair crisps and blackens away, flesh sloughing off of his bones, but the only thing he will tell her is that he just wanted to help.
She doesn’t remember how this dream ends.
*
Jessie. Jessie, I miss you. Don’t you m i ss me? Don’ t y
Jess. Jessie. J
doyouhearmedoyouhearmecanyouhearme? I dont see yOu…
Amy? Amy? Amy, are you there?
i never was. never was.
Amy…Please…
to the - To the ark. Ark. ark. Ark. ark. Ark. Ark. ark…………………
*
In the dream, she’s sixteen years old again, and she’s sitting in Ms. Thomson’s US History class, and someone’s scribbled some pen graffiti onto her desk. She leans closer to peer at it, ignoring the steady drone of the lecture on the Battle of Bull Run. Curtis Jefferson’s in the seat to her immediate right, and he’s snoring.
I hate Carly Eriksson, the graffiti reads, decidedly tame for high school vandalism. But then the letters wiggle, starting to shift, and right before her eyes Carly Eriksson changes into Jessica Locke, Jessica Locke, I hate Jessica Locke.
Who’s Jessica Locke?
Curtis has woken up, but it isn’t Curtis anymore, it’s someone dark-haired and side-burned and sad around the eyes. Who is she? h e asks again. He doesn’t go to this school, that much Jess knows.
Just some crazy dyke, she tells him. Who has no idea what to do with herself.
Not-Curtis sighs. Yeah. I’ve been there before, but he disappears before she can ask him if his name was once Jessica Locke, too.
*
In the dream, Jessie sleeps. She sleeps, and she sleeps, and she sleeps, like she never has before. And when she wakes up, the figures she has seen all stand above her bed, saying nothing, doing nothing, waiting for her to make the first move.
I won’t, she warns them, hugging her knees protectively to her chest beneath the sheets. I won’t do it, I fucking won’t.
She doesn’t.
*
In the dream, she’s wearing glasses, something she’s never needed before. They’re square-frames, too, harsh and solid, not really fitting for Jess’s bone structure, the shape of her eyes. But when she wears them, Amy looks at her like she’s hung the moon in the sky. And so the glasses stay on.
I’m so happy, says Amy, her forehead pressed to Jess’s. I love you, Jessie, except it isn’t Jessie’s name she says.
Jess swallows, hard. I love you, too, she says, and tries not to choke on the words.
*
In the dream, Timothy Wright has an entire fifth of whiskey, and maybe they both go a little too crazy on it. Jess has never been great with the hard liquors and she coughs to get off until she practically hacks a lung into her pillowcase, throat burning and eyes watering with the sting of alcohol - but after that, everything feels much, much easier.
Tim can handle his drink a hell of a lot better than she can. Jess wonders what that means, if anything.
“Are you really leaving?” she asks, unable to keep the dullness out of her voice.
He knocks back another swallow, grimaces, and sighs. “Yeah. Gotta get the fuck outta here.”
“Ok,” she flatly intones. “And what am I supposed to do.”
A shrug. “Dunno. Whatever you want, I guess. Maybe you should get out, too. Probably’d be good for you…”
“I can’t leave,” she tells him, and realizes it’s the truth. “I - I can’t…I can’t leave. Not yet, at least.”
The ghosts all stay to haunt her, but not nearly enough. If she sticks around, she might get to know them better. Learn a bit more of the truth, if she can.
“Hmmm.” Tim hands her the bottle. “Are you sure?”
Jess throws back her head, takes two long pulls, groans, gags, quite nearly loses her lunch all over the carpeted hotel floor. Tim’s eyebrows raise in alarm and he moves to take the whiskey back from her again, only -
“‘M not sure at all,” she tells him, laughs, and has another swig.