The rose petals were so soft. It felt as if thousands of gentle fingers were touching my hands and arms and face and throat and feet, and the parts of my back and stomach that were exposed when my pajama top floated around me in the water. My screaming/breathing reflex showed up just late enough that I opened my lips and nearly choked on a mouthful of wet roses. I sprang out of the tub, about four feet straight into the air, miraculously not landing face-first against the corner of the bathroom counter.

Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I thought for a second that I was seeing another terrible specter: a girl with matted dark hair, white skin glowing in the dark room, hideous black bruises all over her body like spots of decay.

But nope, it was just me. Soaking wet and covered in rose petals.

The door opened without being touched, which was not a comfort. I fought the urge to scream and race down the stairs to Mom’s room, and wake her and Jonathan with my story of what had happened.

Instead, I forced myself to walk slowly — not calmly, but slowly — toward my open bedroom door. I didn’t bother to avoid the rose petals this time. I shuffled right through them. They clung to my wet skin and covered my feet like moist, flaking socks.

They seemed as real as anything else you could touch and smell and see. But when I had passed back into my own room, I knew without having to look that they would be gone when I did turn around.

All that remained to prove anything had happened was the sopping-wet hot mess that was me — and the soggy piece of paper clutched in my right hand.

Under the bright lights of my bathroom vanity, I managed to uncrumple the page and gently stretch it back to its normal dimensions.

I’d never seen a screenplay before, but I knew that’s what I was looking at. There were character names and lines of description and action.

It started in the middle of a scene in which two people were eating dinner.

One of them was a woman. Her name was Charice.

And one of them was a man.

His name was Henry.

And the last thing on the page was a line of dialogue.

CHARICE

This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.