I dreamed about Ellie.
We were walking together between the rows of date palms on her Uncle Jim’s farm. As usual, my dreams were vivid. I could smell the dates as they squished beneath our feet, the earthiness of sun and soil. Me, in my high school gear: long black trench coat which was never as hot as it looked, vinyl pants that were as hot as they looked, black doc martens that I’d drawn on with a silver Sharpie. Ellie was wearing the same boots, albeit smaller. I had decorated hers with gold scribbles. She was dressed in jeans and a strappy top, her uniform. Jackasses made fun of her for wearing pants in the California desert, even in the heart of summer, but I loved her in that. The jeans adapted to her body as she developed over the years, from lean and lanky to lean and curvy.
We’d always been the only kids in Palm Valley who wouldn’t be caught dead in shorts.
We walked along the rows, the sun dappling through the leaves making me feel happy. It was always a peculiar feeling but I was used to it when I was around her. Being around Ellie gave me peace and acceptance. Real life only settled in when she left.
In the dream, I reached for her hand and pulled her towards a date palm. A ladder had been left there after harvesting.
“I want to show you something,” I told her.
She shook her head, her brow wearing a faint sign of panic. She looked so fucking cute, it was always so damn hard not to kiss her. I remember always wanting to and never working up the nerve. She had let me be so true and free (as free as a teenager can be) but that was the one thing I could never let on – how much I wanted her, needed her. It was puppy love at its dirtiest.
“Come on,” I had said to her. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”
Her fourteen-year-old face grew hard with stark determination. I knew that would work on her.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she said. She grabbed the ladder and began to speed up it.
“Careful!” I called after her and followed.
We seemed to climb on and on, forever and forever, the palm tree stretching from twenty feet to thirty feet to fifty feet to a hundred. We finally reached the top, crawling through the thick fronds like kittens in a jungle. I took every opportunity to touch Ellie, my hand on her arm, her back, her thigh.
“Oh my god,” Ellie said as she settled in. Her eyes were fastened to the horizon.
In the distance you could see the San Jacinto Mountains looming like lions. They were on fire, the peaks flickering with flames that edged their way down the mountainsides and toward the towns below. The fire spread like a blanket of lava over the valley, faster and thicker until it reached her uncle’s farm. Date palms disappeared in front of our eyes, going down like blackened matchsticks, leaving tiny puffs of smoke floating above a sea of red.
Ellie looked at me, young and scared. She reached for my hand as the hiss and pop of the fire gathered at the base of our tree.
“Will you burn with me?” she asked. “Or will you go free?”
I grabbed her face as the heat pressed in. “I’ll burn with you.”
My lips touched hers for one second. Our screams covered us in the next.
“Camden,” a voice came shuddering through the dark. “Camden, wake up.”
Soft hands on my arm, shaking me awake.
I opened my eyes. Instead of seeing Ellie’s face in a sea of flames I saw Sophia’s, peering at me with something a little less than concern. Her hands were still shaking me but she was keeping her distance, clutching her mauve robe to her chest. I blinked and tried to sit up.
I was on her couch in her tiny, toy-strewn living room. There was a fuzzy darkness that came with dawn. Light was taking its time outside her windows.
“What’s wrong?” I groaned while pinching the bridge of my nose. I’d fallen asleep with my glasses on, ensuring that the frames felt permanently pressed into my skin. We’d gotten to her apartment as night was falling. After scoping out the joint and peering through the blinds every five minutes, watching for her brothers or anything suspicious, I stayed up for as long as I could. It was a second story unit with views of the street, easy pickings. Sophia didn’t seem as worried as I thought she would be. Perhaps her focus was on Ben. He may have been young but he was observant and knew something bad was happening. Sophia did what she could to make sure he was calm and happy before putting him to bed.