Chapter 6

The night was the enemy.

Each attempt at closing her eyes and drifting back to sleep was thwarted by visions of the girl with the freckled face. It was as if each time she closed her eyes a different snapshot of the Dream came into focus. Cammie would go mad if she stayed in bed and listened to the silence.

But every thought of movement, of action, seemed to crippled her even further. Her heart hammered so rapidly she felt she would wake the whole block with its drumming. It was beating as fast as the wheels in her head were spinning, the two working in unison, a machine created to hold her into place with the weight of anxiety pinning her down. With each second that ticked by she felt her limbs growing heavier and heavier, being crushed. The weight in her belly that seemed to be disseminating a numbing sensation through her body seemed to grow thicker and more malicious.

Cammie tried to think herself through the situation: meditate, control her breathing, and rationalize. But what was there to rationalize? She could not think away the Dream. It was the Dream. The Dream was never wrong. It had never been wrong. Yet she had never wanted to be more wrong in her entire life. She would give up everything to be wrong tonight.

She thought of Adam, of his reaction. She thought of their future. It was like a mirror, reflecting falsely what Cammie thought should have been, only to be shattered moments before she could reach through to grasp it.

Adam.

Though Cammie had spent months deflecting the idea that she could Dream of anyone but Adam, a small part of her had been prepared for it, knew it could be a possibility. She knew she could have faced Adam in the event that she had not dreamed of him. But this situation was entirely different. She could have told him the truth if she had dreamed of another man.

Another man.

Adam would have understood. He would have been crushed, of course, and so would she; but in two months, when he turned twenty-one and gazed upon the face of the woman he would spend the rest of his life with, he would have been okay. They both would have, hard as it would have been. Cammie liked to imagine that they would have stayed friends, even.

But this? A woman? How could she even explain it? She wasn't gay, she had never been attracted to a woman, she had never thought about women that way. These things did not just happen. She had known about people being gay, celebrities, people at her high school and college. That was something those people knew about themselves as soon as they became aware of sexuality. They knew they were different, knew they had no interest in the opposite sex. And that was okay for them—it was strange—but Cammie didn't care what other people did. She cared about she did. She knew the types of judgement cast upon those people, especially by her own family. She did not want that for herself. She couldn't handle that for herself.

Cammie just wanted Adam, wanted her life to be normal, wanted to make her family proud. Could anyone be proud of her if she returned home with a woman on her arm? Pure panic drilled through her core as she imagined the expression that her mother would conjure up. When Cammie's younger sister told the family she was going to major in art in college, a major that was considered to be a ridiculous waste of time, money, and talent by their mother, she was practically disowned. What would the Driver family do to Cammie if they found out she dreamed of a woman?

Cammie began reel through her past, looking for any indication that she had missed something. Had their been any friendships out of the ordinary? Had there been any weird interactions between her and another girl?

The panicked search for answers yielded no results and Cammie was left wondering what could have gone wrong.

The Dream is wrong! She screamed at herself. It was the Dream, it wasn't her.

But as she allowed herself to be satisfied with the idea that the Dream was wrong, she happen to be reminded of her female friendships throughout the years, sneaking into her mind like a thief in the night. Memories of soccer leagues, sleep overs, and classmates seeped into her mind. Faces of friends floated through her vision, the girls that she always sought out when she went to practice or school. These girls that she felt an inexplicable bond with, though she could never fully articulate why she felt so drawn to these girls. Even if she didn't always say hi, she remembered looking for them, staring at them, always wanting to catch their eye in a crowd.

And always wanting to be with them. Always wanting to be near them. Always wanting to hang out with them. Always wanting to text them.

Anxiety blossomed in Cammie's stomach.

No, Cammie reasoned. No, that was just normal friendship. Girls were always closer with their friends. Girls were more intimate. Nothing that she did was abnormal. All girls were especially clingy with their friends. Plus, she had never been into Savannah, and she was her best friend. Surely if Cammie was gay, she would have been attracted to Savannah. This was irrefutable proof that she was not gay.

Besides, she reasoned with herself, she liked men. She had been intimate with Adam. She was attracted to him and countless others of the opposite sex.

The word bisexual from her health class floated into her mind. The girls she grew up with began to join the word, spinning in circles around her head, taunting her, telling her to confess—confess what she truly was and who she truly wanted to be with. It was not Adam. It was a woman.

Cammie bolted out of bed, determined to rid herself of these thoughts.

"I'm not gay!" She hissed to herself. "I'm not!"

Cammie collapsed to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest and burying her head in her arms while the first of many tears poured from her eyes. She felt hysterical, like she was moments away from a panic attack.

"I'm not gay. I'm not gay." She told herself this over and over again. No amount of reason seemed to build a big enough defense against the refutable proof of the Dream. "I'm not gay!" she hissed again, this time with tears streaming down her cheeks.

But if you're not gay, why did you dream about a woman?

Cammie quickly dressed herself in running attire and bolted down the stairs and out of the door, determined to run faster than her mind was able to think. She would run herself into exhaustion and figure this out. It simply was not possible for her to be feeling this. It simply was not possible for this to even be happening.

She quietly opened the door and shut it behind her. It was five am on a brisk winter morning and she had no desires to speak to anyone quite yet, let alone her family; she had not idea how she was planning on lying to them. Adam was another matter entirely.

Cammie opened a music app on her phone and scrolled through to find a playlist she often turned to when she was feeling overwhelmed; the music was loud, harsh, and vibrated through her whole being. She blasted the music in her ears, pumping through earbuds that made her eardrums throb with the vibrations. Cammie was determined to drown out this nightmare.

Her feet pounded on the pavement of her neighborhood, breathing growing heavier. She ran until the first rays of sunlight peaked over the small mountains her in which her neighborhood was nestled. When the first lights touched her skin, she ran faster with the realization that the day was upon her. The day that was supposed to be one of the best days of her life quickly turned into a day she would rather forget.

She ran faster, trying to outrun the sunlight, the oncoming day, the Dream. She was destroying her body, as if punishing herself for daring to dream of anyone else but Adam.

Legs moving of their own accord, Cammie found herself jumping off the sidewalks, over the low brick walls that separated the mountain trails from the neighborhood, and into the wilderness. She sprinted up hills, her legs screaming, begging her to cease this endless running. But still she ran, tears now streaming down her face. She fled from everything, out of the neighborhood, out of sight, out of her life.

The trees surrounded her, swallowing her into the sparse forest's belly. The leaves blocked out the sunlight and Cammie felt as if she had escaped the day, yet still she ran, when that small voice in her head told her she could not hide away in the forest forever.

She let out an anguished cry and dipped deep into herself, willing her legs to pump harder. her insides felt as if they were being shredded, like the air itself were razor blades, cutting her up, moving through her veins and tearing her apart. Finally, her body could not handle the torture any longer and she collapsed on the side of the trail. The anxiety tumbled out with her exhaustion and she lay sobbing on the dirty ground.

She let everything rock through her body; the emotions of panic, fear, and anger finally caught up, and chewing her up, spitting her back out on the ground. She finally let it all consume her, let her body feel it, let herself cry as everything crashed down on her.

Her head spun with scenarios about how her life would play out. What would she tell people? Her mind was racing, running through every expression and comment that would be uttered when they found out about her dream. What would people think?

You dreamt of a woman?

You're gay now?

It's unnatural. You're not supposed to fall in love with a woman.

You're not supposed to dream of another woman. What's wrong with you?

"Nothing's wrong with me," Cammie whispered. She finally began to calm down, now the tears streaming silently. She felt paralyzed and utterly drained of everything. She felt sick just thinking about everything; it was overwhelming. Like a tidal wave crashing down on an unsuspecting boat, nausea pummeled Cammie. She flipped over and vomited what little food was left in her stomach. Her throat burned.

She was shaking, as if she was experiencing an intense craving for some substance her body had become dependent upon.

Cammie cried out in frustration. Why couldn't she just be left alone? Why couldn't she have just dreamt of Adam. Why? Why? Why?

Cammie lay for so long on the ground, she must have fallen asleep in exhaustion. She awoke to her phone angrily buzzing in her pocket. It was her mother.

Shaking, she answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Where are you?" her mother answered on the other line.

"I went for a run."

"Are you okay?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Okay, well, hurry home we have breakfast ready for you."

The thought of food made her stomach turn.

"Okay, I'll be home in a bit, I ran a lot farther than I realized."

The line went dead and the panic began to nestle in her stomach once more. Her mind began to reel with the possible outcomes upon her return home.

Cammie slowly picked herself up from the ground and slowly began her walk home. Swould need this time to think—really think—about how she was going to handle this situtation. She had had her panic, she had let herself feel the intensity of the situation. Now she needed to figure out a plan of action. Cammie chewed her bottom lip. Should she tell anyone? If so, who? Savannah? No, she couldn't tell Savannah, that would make this too real; there would be no going back once she told Savannah. But maybe Savannah could help her figure out a plan? A way to combat her Dream.

Cammie shook her head. It was a perposterous idea.

What about her family? That was not even an option. She knew how her mother judged other people. This would be a one-way ticket to disappointment. Her father? No, he was too busy and too stressed. Jess? Jess would probably run to their mother and spill Cammie's secret with glee to deflect some of the disappointment off herself. No, she could not tell her family.

That left only one person left that she trusted, and Adam was the last person she could tell.

Cammie was out of options. There was no one to tell; she could not give this secret away to anyone. She was too ashamed. That meant that she had to figure this out on her own.

Adam's birthday is in three months. I can just wait until then and see who he Dreams of, and then we can clear this all up. He'll see me, and then I'll confirm that my Dream was a mistake. Because it definitely was, there's no other explanation. I can't be with a woman; I'm supposed to be with a man.

Cammie took several deep breathes to calm her racing heart and convince herself that this plan would work; that her Dream was simply a mistake and that Adam's Dream would set everything right again.

"I'll wait until Adam's birthday, and when he sees me, everything will be okay. I'll be fine. I just have to pretend like everything is normal until then. I'll be fine. We'll be fine. Everything will be fine." she told herself, as if preparing for a championship game in which mistakes were not tolerated. "A little lie never hurt anyone."

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