4
Brynn
The sun is on my face. A warm breeze ruffles my curls as I breathe in the smells of salty sea air and leftover campfire. Waves crash softly on the shore, and I feel at peace. Like I’ve finally come home.
The beep beep beep of my phone alarm even sounds like the sharp squawk of a seagull, but I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to cling to the last few moments before I have to wake up and start my day—or, I guess, now that I’m officially thirty, the next decade of my life.
No, Brynn. Don’t go there.
Even though it’s just a metaphor, it feels too heavy.
As the fuzzy edges of my dream fall away and I become more coherent, I realize I must have forgotten to close my blinds last night because the sun is blaring so brightly through the window that it’s painful to open my eyes. I lie with them closed for a few more moments and give props to the content creators on my meditation app because those ocean waves crooning through my phone sound very realistic.
I roll over to bury my face in my pillow but misjudge the distance to the edge of the bed. As I flip over onto my stomach, I start to free-fall.
“What the fudge—” My hands don’t brace in time, and I hit the floor in a belly flop, knocking the wind from my lungs and smacking my chin so hard my teeth chatter.
Ow! My body retracts into the fetal position.
“What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks just happened?”
Wait.
I can’t swear.
“Fudge. Shoot. What the ever-loving frick?”
Filthy profanities are being generated by my brain, but I cannot for the life of me make them come out of my mouth.
What is going on?
I roll onto my back, wondering if maybe I hit my head harder than I thought. But instead of the usual popcorn ceiling above, I’m staring at a puffy white cloud that looks like it came straight out of a picture book.
What is even happening?
I get to my feet, taking in my surroundings. I’m on a small wooden deck flanked by deep-green patches of beach grass, facing a shore. There’s an ocean that definitely isn’t from a meditation app. My bed isn’t a bed at all, but a cushioned outdoor lounger covered in white fabric dotted with pale-yellow buttercups.
Am I dreaming? Or have I been kidnapped? I check my body for wounds but don’t appear to have any notable injuries.
I’m still wearing the black lululemons I changed into last night. The scrunchie I meant to put my hair up with has left deep red indents halfway up my forearm.
I must still be dreaming. It’s the only logical explanation.
I turn to face the cottage behind me. It’s a small Cape Cod–style beach house with pale-yellow shingles, white trim, and a large sliding glass door that opens to the deck I’m currently standing on.
Next door is an identical cottage with shingle siding in light blue.
A memory stirs, and my heart triple-beats, as if it knows something my brain doesn’t quite yet comprehend.
I step toward the sliding door, pressing my face to the glass to peek inside. The walls of the cozy living room are a soft, buttery yellow. The furniture is all simple rustic wood save for the oversized sage-colored couch, which sits on top of a green-and-blue vintage rug in front of an old stone fireplace filled with white candles.
The living room opens to a kitchen with simple white shiplap walls and cupboards and rustic wood countertops. A glass shelf along the windowsill sports a neat row of pots with basil, rosemary, and mint. It’s chic but inviting, like slipping into a pair of cashmere socks.
I have this desire to go inside, to run my fingers along the mantel and see if it smells like herbs and fresh linen.
I look down at the welcome mat below my feet, which is stamped with the words Shut the front door, and I know with every fiber of my being that there is a key underneath.
Now this is getting weird.
Sure enough, when I lift the corner and blow away a layer of dirt, it’s there.
It slips into the lock easily, and as I push open the door, a thought occurs: What if this isn’t a dream? What if there’s some other explanation I’ve yet to deduce, and I’m breaking and entering right now?
“Hello?” I call out, not entirely convinced that no one will answer.
But the only sound is the crashing of the waves on the shore.
I step inside and instantly feel like I’ve come home. I have this urge to dive onto the couch, pull the fleecy white blanket over me, and wait for a thunderstorm to roll in.
But that nagging thought keeps surfacing. This feels too real to be a dream. I’m too coherent and my elbow is a little too achy from hitting the deck. I reach into my pocket for my phone to google, then remember that I lost my purse at the bar last night. I guess Dream Brynn lost hers too.
Okay.
No Google.
I just need to revert to good old-fashioned thinking. How do you tell if you’re in a dream again?
I start with the obvious and pinch my forearm.
“Jesus H, that stings!”
And the crescent-shaped indents in my skin confirm what the fall to the deck already told me. I can, in fact, feel pain.
A mirror.
I think I once read that when you’re in a dream, you’re not supposed to be able to see your reflection.
There’s a small mirror hanging next to the kitchen door. I look into it and find Regular Brynn staring back at me, a tiny patch of drool crusting the corner of my mouth. My dark curls are wild, as if I spent the night on a lawn chair.
Okay, maybe you can see your reflection in a dream, and I’ve mixed it up with vampires.
I glance again at my tired eyes and, in doing so, notice that beneath the mirror is a row of hooks. There’s a single key ring with a silver key, a car key for a Mini Cooper, and a stamped metal lobster keychain painted bright red.
An alarm bell sounds from deep within the depths of my brain.
All of this is highly familiar, but in a bizarre way. It’s like I’ve seen it all before, but I also swear on my life I’ve never been here.
Have I had this dream before?
I lift the keys from the hook and exit out the kitchen door to a small dirt pathway that connects to the blue cottage next door and leads out to the main road. Sitting in front of a small yellow one-car garage is a bright-red Mini Cooper, which chirps as I click the unlock button.
Although I’m aware that I’m possibly committing my second felony of the morning, I get into the driver’s seat and start the car, rationalizing that if I’m not dreaming, then I’ve most likely been kidnapped, and the police will probably understand.
Backing out of the driveway, I instinctively turn right past another large patch of beach grass onto a paved road.
There’s an outcrop of buildings in the distance that flank both sides of the road. It looks like the main street of a small town.
The closer I get to the buildings, the more uneasiness grows in my belly. Like the cottage, it all seems too familiar.
The cobblestone-lined sidewalks are littered with wooden flower boxes filled with bright purple and blue pansies, interspaced with welcoming stone benches gently shaded by tall red maples whose leaves are still a bright Kelly green.
At least my imagination is cute and quaint.
I creep slowly past the tiny shops. There’s a dry cleaner, a pharmacy, and a barbershop with one of those red-and-blue swirling poles, but it’s the bakery with its fluffy white cakes in the window that catches my eye.
Particularly the cake covered in bright-colored sprinkles with the single white birthday candle in its center.
I hit the brakes.
It’s rather fortuitous because there are two men crossing the road ahead of me, carrying a ladder between them. They’re followed by a woman whose bright-red hair is so familiar that I roll down my window and crane my neck to get a better look. I can’t see her face. She’s too busy yelling at the men as they lean the ladder against one of the lampposts. Instead, I watch as one man climbs and the other runs back across the street, returning a moment later with the end of a banner that is tied to an opposite lamppost. I stare as the banner pulls taut and the words 75th Annual Ms. Lobsterfest Pageant—June 21 7:00 p.m. are displayed in sparkly red paint.
Ms. Lobsterfest?
“No forking way.”
All of a sudden, it all comes together. Like one of those 3D puzzles, the answer suddenly pops right out, as if it were right there in front of me all along.
I’m not in a dream at all.
My foot finds the gas. I’m sweating. A panicked feeling is climbing the walls of my throat.
It’s not possible. It makes no logical sense.
I’m so preoccupied with my own panic that I don’t see the guy as he steps off the sidewalk until it’s too late.
My foot finds the brake pedal, but not before the Mini makes contact, and he crumples to the street below with an audible thwack.