Chapter Text
Invisible. 2014
When Dream woke up in the morning, the words he’d cradled as he fell asleep were still there.
I hope the military accepts your application because no college ever will.
He rolled over on his back and made a decision. Or rather, the decision had already been made for him, possibly in his sleep, and now he simply had to sign it. He was not going back to school.
*
Lies. 2022
It was the last clear evening before the rain season rolled in and swallowed the neighborhood whole. Dark clouds already hovered near the horizon, and in a desperate attempt to hold onto spring, people lit their barbecues once more and pulled out whatever was left in the fridge. Dream and Sapnap was no exception. They had looked at the forecast, then each other, and now they were having pork chops in the garden.
The night felt charged somehow. Electric, like the air before a thunderstorm. You dread the lightning; yet waiting is the most dreadful part of it all. Maybe that’s why Dream felt a strange kind of relief the moment a sharp signal suddenly split the purple sky in two.
Sapnap pulled the buzzing phone out of his pocket with greasy fingers and shrugged when he didn’t recognize the number. Dream could tell that he was on the verge of ignoring the caller, whoever it was, probably a salesperson, but on what must have been the last signal Sapnap changed his mind and picked up. And then he dropped his plate on the ground.
Pork chops fell in the grass like a feather and the calm, almost dreamlike expression, that two beers had painted on Sapnap’s face, morphed into chock. Dream instantly felt his heartbeat pick up speed and he rose from his white plastic chair. His friend looked like he’d encountered a ghost.
“Who is it?” Dream hissed, but Sapnap just waved at him to sit back down.
Dream did not obey. Too many unpleasant images raced through his mind of doctors and policemen, calling from morgues or crime scenes and about to deliver terrible news. What could have happened eight thirty on a Thursday night? Oh, just everything you could ever think of.
“Sorry, It’s just… It’s just been so long.” Sapnap finally spoke to the mysterious caller and shook his head, eyes wide as two moons.
“How long?” Dream leaned in closer to get a lead on the caller’s identity. All he could make out was that it was a woman. “Who are you talking to?”
Sapnap covered the microphone and looked up at him in disbelief.
“It’s mom.”
Dream’s stomach dropped.
“What? What the… she shouldn’t be able to call this number.”
Sapnap was about to answer him, but before he got the chance to his mom must have said something outrageous, because his already massive eyes grew bigger and then he turned away. As if he didn’t want Dream to hear the rest. It had the opposite effect.
“Sapnap. What is she saying?”
Without giving him as much as a look, Sapnap got up from his chair and walked across the lawn until he’d reached the wooden fence on the other side, where he remained perfectly still underneath the large palm tree.
Dream considered using his curse to sneak up behind him and eaves drop (and a couple years ago he might have done exactly that) but resisted the urge. If Sapnap discovered him, it would only serve to drive him further away. Instead, he resorted to pacing back and forth on the terrasse, waiting for a sign of distress that would warrant him running over.
Why had Sapnap’s mom of all people suddenly decided to disrupt their Thursday evening? Why now? And why was Sapnap taking so long? Like a rich lady clutches her pearls in the face of danger, he had no choice but to check in on his own treasure. Make sure that it was still there, despite the world flipping on its head.
“George.” Dream sighed in relief when the guy, still half asleep, picked up on the fifth signal. “Guess who just called Sapnap.” With George next to him, he instantly felt calmer. In control.
Like always, he imagined what George saw in his mind’s eye while talking to him: a tall blond guy with a concerned frown between his brows and a purple t-shirt from Target. That’s what he put on this morning, right?
“Uh...” George began, but before he’d gotten the chance to utter as much as a syllable Dream had already blurted the answer in his ear.
“His mom.”
George immediately sounded more awake. “Really?”
Dream sucked in a breath. “Yes.”
“When.”
“Five minutes ago. And then he just ran off.” He gestured in indignation. “First, he wouldn’t say who it was and now he’s on the other side of the lawn just standing there. I have no idea what they’re talking about and it’s killing me.”
“I thought they had no contact since he moved out....”
“They don’t.”
“Then why now?”
“I don’t know.”
They both fell silent as Dream studied Sapnap’s back to try and figure out what was being said. It was a futile attempt. Backs can’t talk.
He’d been so certain, that quiet afternoon almost two years ago when Sapnap picked him up down the street from his family home, that they were already shadows in a memory. One that would remain sharp in their minds for years to come.
Sapnap had driven all the way from Texas and his shirt was covered in stains and sweat, but he’d looked happy. A fire worthy of his brand burned in his dark eyes as well as Dream’s. Seeing his friend again for the first time since he was fourteen was just as magnificent as running away a second time.
When Sapnap put a hand on Dream’s head to measure his height he fell through his life and landed on his back in the first day that they met, during which Sapnap had done the exact same motion. It appeared they were still the same people. Only taller and more jaded. And owners of a house, bought in secret for money they could only dream of before YouTube.
“Let’s get out of here.” Dream said.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
In the rear-end mirror their childhood streets had seemed like tombs for those about to be buried in the past. Now one of them had seemingly risen from their grave.
“Wouldn’t you text first.” George contemplated. “After not talking for years, wouldn’t you at least text first…”
“He hung up.” Dream hushed. “He’s coming back.”
Sapnap made his way back across the lawn with his hands in his pockets, and Dream thought that never before had the walk from the palm tree taken so long. Maybe it did if you dragged your feet and looked at the sky instead of straight ahead.
“George is on the phone.” He announced when Sapnap finally reached him, because it felt like something he’d might want to know before he decided to scream or cry or throw up. Or whatever he might do next. In all honesty Dream had no idea what the distant look in his eyes meant.
It was also a habit of his to always let Sapnap know when George (or anyone else) was present, so he didn’t accidentally start talking about things they were not supposed to know. Like the real reason Dream refused to turn on his webcam.
“Hi George.” Sapnap said. To no one, for George was not on speaker.
“Should I hang up?” Dream asked Sapnap.
“Excuse me?” George exclaimed in the background, but now that Sapnap was back his voice sounded so incredibly far away. A whole ocean away. Dream studied the expression on Sapnap’s face. Or rather, the lack thereof.
“No, no. It’s fine.” Sapnap said. “Did I say hi to him?”
“Yes, you did.” He repeated the words to George. “Sapnap said hi.”
Normally Sapnap was pretty good at guessing Dream’s position from cues like his voice and where he was holding his phone, but it was evident he was shaken up because he kept looking too far to the left. Dream decided not to correct him.
“How did she find your number?” He said instead, because for some reason a technical question felt easier than the ones he’d really liked to ask.
“Dad.” Sapnap said.
“Your dad? They talk to each other?”
“I doubt that…”
“Then how… never mind, it doesn’t matter.” Dream placed a hand on Sapnap’s shoulder, and a dent appeared in the green fabric of his hoodie. The gesture looked comforting, but his grip was just a little too hard. “Your mom just called you.” Sapnap nodded and Dream braced himself. “What did she say?”
Sapnap shook his head, and a quick smile ran across his lips, as if he’d forgotten the conversation for a moment and now suddenly remembered.
“My brother”, he said and chuckled, “is going to rehab.”
“What? Callum?”
Whatever Dream imagined would inspire Sapnap’s mom to lay down the TV remote and pick up the phone, it was not this. He’d expected anything but this, actually. Now images of a lanky teen in a camp chair, lighting up a joint the size of his ring finger, flashed through Dream’s mind.
“I’ve only got one brother.” Sapnap joked.
“What?”
“You said his name like I had another brother or something. I don’t know. Just thought it sounded funny.”
Dream struggled to keep his balance.
“Where is he going?”
“California somewhere. Apparently, it’s a nice place in the wilderness, five stars and all that.”
“Oh.”
“What is he saying?” George wheezed in Dream’s ear.
“His brother is going to rehab.” Dream answered him, barely present. He was trying to grasp a concept that was slowly forming at the back of his mind, but it kept slipping through his fingers. “In California somewhere. Five starts and all that.”
“But that’s…” George said. “That’s good news, right?”
“Yeah.”
Dream studied Sapnap’s face. Why was a pit the size of Texas growing in his stomach?
“He left yesterday.” Sapnap continued. “And he’s staying for three months. They get their own rooms and there’s chefs that make all their food. There’s a pool too…”
And then it struck him.
“Sapnap.” Dream interrupted. “How are they paying for this.”
In an instant Sapnap’s composure turned defensive and he averted his eyes. Wrapped his arms around himself like it wasn’t eighty degrees and no wind. The pit in Dream’s stomach grew.
“Yeah, about that.” Sapnap began. “They have the first month covered but the rest will be tricky, so I thought: hold on a second. I’m like, rich now. I have more money than I can spend… “
“You don’t.” Dream interrupted. “We’ve been over this. You barely have enough to buy another condo.”
Sapnap rolled his eyes. “Can we not have the whole house-conversation right now? Thanks.” And before Dream could argue he continued: “The bill won’t even make a dent! I’ll just crank out another video or two and it’s like nothing ever happened.”
Barely make a dent? Three years ago, the money Sapnap was now prepared to throw at a brother he hadn’t seen in about as long would have been the answer to their wildest prayers. Had he already forgotten what money was worth? That the circumstances that currently kept them afloat wouldn’t last forever?
“Okay.” Dream said. “Okay but answer this then. How do you even know it’s for real?”
“What are trying to say…”
“What if it’s not the whole truth? Just think for a second. If he was really going to rehab, wouldn’t it make more sense for your dad to pay…”
“She was calling from California, Dream. She dropped him off yesterday.”
“And how do you know that is true…”
“Because” out of nowhere Sapnap met his eyes with a startling accuracy, one he usually only managed when Dream was wearing sunglasses, “she’d never lie about something like that.” And then, more quietly, he added: “And dad would never pay.”
Dream knew that he’d be an idiot to keep pushing, that it would be equivalent of banging on a steel door which would be smarter to try and lock pick later, but he couldn’t help himself. With Sapnap he could never help himself.
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Sap. You always want to see the good in people…”
“I know she’s not a good person. But I know she’s not that bad.”
“But…”
Sapnap kicked the porch in a sudden burst of rage. “Do you trust me?” he shouted, “Or do you still see me as some idiot younger brother you can boss around.”
Dream took a step back, shaken by the unexpected change in volume. “No, of course not. You know I’ve never...”
“Good.” Sapnap didn’t wait for him to explain himself further. Or apologize. He just pushed past him, once again estimating where Dream’s body began and ended with an uncanny precision, and said: “I’m going for a drive.”
Before Dream could tell him to wait, he’d slammed the glass door shut and left him in the dark, alone. Alone and invisible. Dream sunk down on the porch, underneath the sky that was no longer purple but black, and cursed his own stupidity. He’d done exactly what Sapnap accused him of and treated him like a helpless child.
“Dream?”
George careful voice seeped into the night and softened its edges. He’d kept quiet as things heated up, tactful as always, and now he’d yet again read the room right. Understood that Dream was in desperate need of a voice of reason. Dream closed his eyes and let himself fall into the arms of his best knight.
*
“I’m an idiot, George.”
“No, you’re not.”
George’s voice was low and soft. It only helped a little.
“You didn’t see the look on his face.”
Red hot fury was an unpredictable emotion. It made people get into cars and hit the gas too hard and forget the difference between red and green.
“No, but I heard what you said to each other. At least some of it.”
Dream let his gaze meander through the back yard, then past the wooden fence and towards the rest of the neighborhood. Beyond the black silhouettes of rooftops and cypresses lay a dazzling string of light. The highway. He wondered if that was where Sapnap was headed.
“Should I go after him?” Before he becomes one with the shining belt by the horizon. One lonely star amongst a thousand others, heading west with his foot on the gas and his head in California. “I haven’t heard the carport yet.”
“Now you’re acting like an idiot.”
“Now?”
“He wants to be alone right now, Dream. You know that.”
“I know what he wants. I just don’t know if that’s what’s best for him. He’s not in a state to drive.”
“Well.” George said, “You’re not in a state to talk. If you try and talk to him now, you’ll just say more stupid things.”
Dream huffed. That he couldn’t argue with.
“Why are you always so smart.”
“Just looking out for you.”
Just looking out for you. He’d said so many times to Sapnap throughout the years. When saving his ass in Minecraft battle royal. When explaining to him why weighing and packaging weed in tiny zip lock bags so that his brother could sell it to high school kids was not the equivalent of a summer job. When he found him smoking hibiscus leaves with said brother and dug up the whole plant with his hands the morning after, until he barely had any nails left, just to make sure he’d never do it again.
The white hibiscus. Why was that memory resurfacing, out of all the others? Dream looked to his left. There, in the dim light from the solar powered lamp next to him, a white bell shone. The first white hibiscus of the season was flowering. He took it in his hand, mindful to be delicate.
“It’s funny.” Dream said and played with the flower. “When I say ‘just looking out for you’ to Sapnap, and I do it all the time, it always makes me feel like his big brother. In a way I know he hates. But when you say it… it doesn’t feel like that.”
“Because I’m not your big brother.”
“I’m not Sapnap’s big brother either.”
“It’s always been different with us, though.”
“I guess.” Dream sat up straighter for a revelation had just struck him. “You know what it is? With you I’m just me.”
How could he explain? How could he put the feeling into words, that out of all the people in the whole world, George felt like his furthest relative? Like he was a son of Adam and Dream of Eve.
“To everybody else I’m somebody’s something. I’m Sapnap’s big brother. I’m Bad’s little brother. But with you I’m just… me.”
“Wait.” George said. “I’m my sister’s brother, my mother’s son. I’m a friend from university and a colleague. But with you I can’t think of a single title.”
“Internet friend?”
“That sounds ridiculous.”
“Totally.”
“Maybe I’m just ‘yours’”
Silence stretched. A dog barked in the distance, until a man yelled at it to shut up. Someone kicked a bin. Or was it Sapnap, already sliding off the road? Sweet nectar ran down Dream’s arm for he had unknowingly crushed the flower. He let go, appalled, and it fell to the grass. Onto the pork chops.
“I just broke a flower, George.”
“What?” George said, as if woken from a trance.
“I was playing with a hibiscus flower and then I accidentally broke it. I feel so bad now.”
George swiftly adjusted to the new topic of conversation.
“Doesn’t it just make a new flower?”
“I hope so…”
“Sapnap and you will too. Make a new flower.”
Dream wiped his hands on the wooden deck. “What?”
“That sounded better in my head. I meant that you’ll make up.”
Dream smiled at George’s metaphor. It didn’t sound silly to him because nothing George said ever did.
“We will make a new flower.” He repeated. “He’ll come back, and we’ll talk in the kitchen and make a new flower. I like that.”
In the darkness. Two shadows, one by the bar stools and one by the stove. Arms crossed. Then, slowly, the distance between them shrinks. One person takes a step forward and then the other one follows, until the night ends in a big hug and sincere apologies. He had to make himself believe that pretty fantasy could still come true.
Out of nowhere George sighed.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything to say…” he said, “…other than stupid things.”
The unprompted comment, as well as the shift in tone, caught Dream off guard. George sounded sad.
“What are you talking about, George? The flower metaphor was good.”
“I just…” But it was evident that George had something different on his mind. “I don’t come from a broken home. My parents would never let me run away, so when it comes to Sapnap’s past, or yours… I never know what to say.”
Dream’s heart sank. But that’s our fault, he could have said (and if he was a better person, maybe he would have). That’s our fault for never telling you anything about it. How are you supposed to know what to say, when I do everything in my power to keep you in the dark?
But he didn’t say it, even though he knew he hurt George by keeping quiet. The heart is a selfish organ and when it came to George Dream had always let his heart make the decisions.
“I don’t want you to say anything special. I just want you to be here.”
“Okay.” George did not sound convinced.
“I…” Dream began. How did he assure him that he was doing so good? So very good. That the problem did not lie with him, or even Sapnap, but with Dream and his… condition. “Sometimes I don’t even want to talk about serious things.”
It could be interpreted in an unfortunate way, and he hurried to correct himself.
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk about serious things with you, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that, sometimes, distractions are better.” He swallowed. “You know I love you.” The confession sounded like a diversion because it was.
“I know.”
“It’s just that…”
“You don’t have to explain.”
It was an invitation to do the opposite. Dream declined.
“I love talking about stupid shit with you.”
“Dream.” George sighed. “I love you too.” And just like that, the matter was over with. Clouds passed by the moon, dragging shadows along the wet grass. “So where do you think Sapnap is driving?”
Before Dream could dig his hole deeper, George had mercifully changed the subject. But he was full of negative spaces, George. What he said only mattered half as much as what he didn’t. The truth always resided in-between.
“I don’t know.” Dream poked the butchered flower with his foot, revealing that it wasn’t so butchered after all. “Maybe Lake Apopka.”
“Where’s that?”
“Far. I don’t expect him back for hours to be honest.”
He knew that Sapnap had a place somewhere inland, a resting place for trailers next to the highway with a perfect view of Lake Apopka and, behind it, the darkness of the farmlands. He was probably on his way there now. For some reason Dream knew for certain that he was driving in silence.
“I’m not tired anymore.” George said, which translated to: I’ll stay up with you.
Dream closed his eyes. “Thank you.” Breaking the rules and answering something that was not said. He was rewarded with a huff. “Do you want to save the flower with me?”
He fished it out of the pork chops. If you removed a couple petals it would look as good as new. They could put it in a bowl of water and let it float like a water lily.
“I’ll put it in a bowl of water.”
“Sure.”
Had a neighbor peaked into the back yard in that very moment, they would have seen two things that could not fly do just that. A phone and a white hibiscus. They sailed across the porch as if carried by a mysterious force (and in a sense they were) and then something even stranger happened. The glass door slid open by itself, for there was no one inside, not a soul, and the flower and the phone entered the house.
Did they open the glass door? The neighbor would have thought. Or maybe they would simply have called the cops, on themselves, because, surely, they must be going crazy.
But no neighbor saw, and no cops came. The glass door remained open to let some fresh air (and Sapnap) inside. And in the hours that followed the hibiscus bowl would sit on the countertop and fill the night with sweet promises of summer.
*