“Dad!” he screamed, his voice ragged and agonized. “Daaaaaad!”
And then it hit me: the barely visible blue tint to the car’s back quarter panel with a dent that I’d seen a hundred times before, and which marked it unmistakably as Mr. Spencer’s car. I sank to my knees as flames ten feet high fully engulfed the car.
It was the last thing I saw before I blacked out cold.
“SO,” DR. WHITE SAID AS I SAT nervously across from him, “your mom tells me you’ve been having panic attacks and that you blacked out yesterday while in the middle of one.”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking that what I’d experienced felt way more intense than a simple dose of panic.
Dr. White twirled his pen along his knuckles. It had a slightly hypnotic effect. “What’s been triggering those, do you think?” he asked.
I squirmed in the leather chair, worried that at any moment I’d say something that would make him think I was crazy, because by now, I was convinced that’s exactly what I was. Still, meeting Dr. White a few minutes before had been a surprise. He was older than I expected, with hair that matched his last name, but his eyes were youthful and kind, and his manner was easy and relaxed. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
“I don’t know,” I said. So much was overwhelming me lately, and the day before, when I’d driven Cole not to his house, but to his grandmother’s—with whom he didn’t even live—had just blown my mind.
Dr. White smiled at me. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Uh…sure. I guess.”
He pointed to me then back to him. “This works better if you tell me what’s going on with you. Otherwise, we’ll have to play charades, and, fair warning, I’m awesome at charades.”
That broke the ice, and I laughed a little. “Okay, so, like, where do I start?”
“Anywhere you want.”
So I did. I told him about my parents’ divorce; my breakup with Tanner; how he’d hooked up with my best friend; how we’d moved out here to live with my domineering grandmother, who decided to plan my entire future; about going to a brand-new school for my junior year and how I hadn’t made a single friend until yesterday when the hottest guy I’d ever laid eyes on asked me to hang out, and at the end of a short drive with him I’d had a full-on, completely humiliating panic attack and blacked out.
“Whoa,” Dr. White said, that pen still sliding up and down and over his knuckles. “That’s all kind of intense.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Okay, so is there anything else that’s been happening? Your mom said that you’ve been having a recurring nightmare. Want to tell me about that?”
I’d purposely left out the dream—and a few of the other really freaky details—because, again, I didn’t want to appear too cray-cray on the first visit. But it felt good to talk about all the other stuff, so maybe I could tell him just about the one dream, and leave out the other super-freaky nightmare I’d had during that nap I’d taken before heading to the salon. I figured revealing one glimpse into my clearly disturbed subconscious per session was probably best.
As I told Dr. White every detail of the dream where I was in the field searching for the boy, he stopped twirling his pen and sat forward slightly. He seemed intrigued.
“How long have you had this dream, Lily?”
“Since I can remember.”
His brow furrowed. “How old would you say you were the first time you had it?”
“I think I was, like, four.”
Dr. White sat back in his chair again and tapped on the armrest. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” he said.
“What?” I asked, afraid I’d just revealed that I was someone who should be sent off to the asylum.
“It’s quite unusual for a four-year-old to have such a vivid dream where they are represented as an adult.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, the dream has never changed…until two nights ago, actually. It did change a little.”
“How so?”
“Well, instead of it starting out in the field, it started out in my high school.”
“Really?” he said, his brow lifting. “Where in your high school?”
“In a hallway, but I couldn’t find the exit. Every time I turned a corner I ended up in another section of the school that I didn’t know well enough to find my way out, but eventually, I found the exit and, when I ran outside, the field was totally on fire.”
“I see,” he said, jotting another note. “Have you ever noticed that this dream occurs more often during certain times of the year?”
“I almost always have it in the spring,” I said. “Well, except for this time. This is the first time it’s come up in the fall, but usually, it’s every spring in, like, late April or early May.”