Now I know for sure that all of this is a dream, because what happened tonight can’t possibly be real. It just can’t.
I don’t even know where to start. Rankin came into my room last night. I guess technically it was earlier today, since it must have been about one or two in the morning. I was sleeping, and then I felt something pressing against my back. Rankin had pulled my shorts down, and he was pushing himself against me. I was still only half awake, so I didn’t realize what he was doing at first. He put his arms around me and pulled me closer. I could hear him breathing in my ear.
Believe it or not, that’s not even the bad thing. If that was all, I could probably handle it. Probably. But that was just the beginning.
Like I said, Rankin was holding on to me and trying to . . . I don’t think I can even say it right now. But he was getting close. As soon as I realized what he was doing, I woke up fast. I even opened my mouth to tell him to stop.
And that’s when the screaming started.
At first I thought it was me screaming. Then I realized it was a girl’s voice. I don’t know what Rankin thought was going on, but he pulled me closer to him and put his hand on my mouth. Maybe he thought I was the one screaming too.
It was so weird. I was trying to figure out who was screaming and I was trying to get Rankin off me all at the same time. Everything was happening at once, but I felt like I couldn’t even move because I didn’t know what was more important, getting away from Rankin or helping whoever was making the awful noise.
That’s when the light came on. It snapped on like fireworks exploding over our heads. I couldn’t see. Rankin rolled off of me and sat on the edge of the bed, covering himself with his hands. I looked up and saw Carl and Nurse Moon standing in the doorway. The screaming had stopped, like the light switch controlled that too.
“Pull your shorts up, Jeff,” Moonie said. She wasn’t yelling or anything. She said it really calmly.
I pulled up my underwear. Rankin had picked his up from the floor and was pulling them on. I glanced over at Nurse Moon and saw that she was looking down to give him some privacy. Carl, though, was staring at us. Staring at us and shaking his head, like we were his grandkids and we’d just disappointed him big time.
“Rankin, back to your room,” Nurse Moon said when he was dressed.
Rankin didn’t look at me as he walked out of the room. He didn’t look at Moonie or Carl either. He rushed by them and down the hall. I looked at Nurse Moon, my heart pounding in my chest.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Who was screaming?”
“It’s Martha,” Moonie told me.
That scared me. “Is she all right?” I asked. “What happened? Is she hurt?” I started to go toward the door.
“Don’t you worry about her,” said Nurse Moon, holding up her hand so that I stopped. “She had a bad dream. That’s all.”
I nodded. I know all about dreams that make you want to scream. Then I remembered why Carl and Nurse Moon were in my room in the first place.
“We were just . . .” I began.
Moonie interrupted me. “Dr. Katzrupus will talk to you in the morning,” she said. “Good night.”
That was it. Good night. Like she was tucking me in. No yelling. No “I’m very disappointed in you.” No nothing. And you know what? That was worse. If she’d yelled, or seemed disgusted, or even at all upset, I would have felt better. But she treated it like she didn’t care. Like it didn’t matter.
Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know anymore. Maybe Sadie is right and it’s just something guys do. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. I’d really rather not talk about it with Cat Poop, though. It’s exactly the kind of thing he writes about on his stupid pad.
When I finally fell asleep after Moonie left, I had the weirdest dream.
First we were in group—all of us, even the people who are gone now. Cat Poop asked us to go around the circle and say what we were most afraid of. Alice said she was afraid of being alone. Bone said he was afraid of cars, which seemed weird until I remembered the whole gas station thing. Juliet said she was afraid of teeth, which because she’s Juliet didn’t seem strange at all. Rankin said he was afraid of losing. Martha didn’t say anything.
Sadie said she wasn’t afraid of anything, and I believed her. In my dream it was like she had this force field around her that protected her from everything the rest of us have to watch out for. Then she looked at me and said, “Once you realize there’s nothing to be afraid of when you die, there’s nothing else to worry about.”
When it was my turn, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I looked around at the rest of the group and thought how messed up they all were. Then I looked at my wrists and realized that they were bleeding again. I pulled my sleeves down to cover them, but I could feel the blood soaking through, and I was afraid everyone was going to notice and start laughing at me.
When I woke up from the dream, I felt weird. I can’t really explain it. There was this knot in my stomach, the same kind I get when I wake up the morning of a big test I know I haven’t studied enough for. Then I remembered Rankin, and that I was going to have to talk to Cat Poop about what happened, and I knew why the knot was there.