Max lets out a low laugh. “We both know I’d like that, but my mom’s on my case now that she knows we’re dating. She likes you,” he clarifies. “She just doesn’t like how close you live. I guarantee she knocks on my door any minute to check up on me.”
“Fine,” I grumble. “Maybe I’ll just go downstairs and ask Margaret to reverse the procedure so I get you back in my dreams again.”
“Not unless you wanna see your dad and Margaret Yang making out,” Max warns. I squeal and we both erupt into laughter. “Besides,” he says, “we both know you still dream about me anyway. And I dream about you. We just don’t dream together.”
In the pause, I just listen to the sound of his breathing for a little while. It’s so comforting. I don’t have any trouble sleeping anymore. This is the only noise machine I need.
“What?” I say after a few seconds when I hear Max laughing softly on the other end of the line.
“I just can’t believe there was ever a time before this,” he says.
“Go on,” I say, blushing. “I like where this is going.”
“I just mean, there was basically always a dream you, of course. But to think that only a few months ago you didn’t really exist. You were just this person I looked forward to seeing every night and hated saying good-bye to. You were my secret. My dream girl.”
“Say that last part again?” I ask.
“I’ve said it a million times before,” Max mumbles. “I should record it for you on your phone.”
“That’s actually a great idea,” I say. “It could be my ringtone!”
“Alice, I was kidding.”
“I’m still waiting for you to say it again,” I say.
Max sighs, but it’s a happy sigh. “Alice Rowe, you are my dream girl.”
I smile quietly.
“But now I have to go to bed,” Max says.
“No!” I command.
“Yes,” he says. I’ll see you in . . .”—he pauses—“six and a half hours? I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you soon.” After everything, he is still just as serious as ever.
“See you soon,” I say. But I don’t put down the phone. “Max?” I say after a few minutes. “Are you still there?”
Max’s voice comes out soft, as he drifts off into sleep, just the way he does every night when we do this. “You know I am, Alice. I’m always here.”
I smile to myself, a sense of calm coming over me as my whole body relaxes into the mattress, Max’s breath creating a rhythm on the other end of the line.
The sooner I go to sleep, the sooner I get to wake up and see my dream boy again.
“Would you please stop somersaulting?
Because I don’t like it,
and neither does the person sitting next to me.”
—Lucy Keating, talking in her sleep, 2001
Acknowledgments
THE DREAM TEAM: To Sara Shandler, the truly delightful human, who along with Josh Bank, always makes me feel like I have something to say that is worth hearing, and always knows the very best way for me to say it. Les Morgenstein for not hesitating to say “sure” when I walked into his office and clumsily announced I had something I’d like him to read. Joelle Hobeika for getting the proposal out the damn door, without which none of these acknowledgments could ever be written. Jocelyn Davies for immediately sharing my vision of what this book could be, and working patiently with me to make it so. Hayley Wagreich for fixing some of my toughest notes before I even had a chance to process them, and for putting Emperor Fluffbottom on her bulletin board. Natalie Sousa for creating the cover of my dreams (see what I did there). And of course: Romy Golan, Heather David, Matt Bloomgarden, Stephanie Abrams, Lori Paximadis for handling all the rest.
The VIP Read Team: Sarah Carden, Annie Martyr, Jennifer Graham, Marty Keating. For approaching the drafts I sent and questions I asked with dedication and, most of all, enthusiasm, fuel that kept me running until the end.
My Family: Mom, Dad, Mike, Andy, Shannon, and Laura, for their incredible encouragement, for always telling me I was funny, for always telling me to “write it down,” and for being the lovable weirdos who gave me some of my best material.
Like Family: Nyssa Liebermann, Ghazal Moshfegh, Erin La Rosa, Cayley Lambur, Alexandra Jamali, Justine Wardrop, Kate Perry, Carly Holden, Kyle Blasman, Anthony Pucillo, Anna Carey, Nick Greer, Ben Shattuck, Nate Sherman, Pedro Noyola, Aaron Bergman, Liz Parker, Hopie Stockman, Susie Cooley, Alexis Deane, Rebecca Welsh, Matti Sloman, Susan Birkett, John Spooner. Some of you read, some of you spent entire dinners or walks or car rides discussing a bunch of teenagers I made up, and some of you just listened . . . which was often all I needed.