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Amber Blake is having dreams, and they just might be the key to saving her best friend, Mark.
Unfortunately, she's too preoccupied pretending to hate the boy next door, Carter Hayes. Secretly hoping to rekindle what once was, Amber atte...
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When I was young, I suffered from night terrors. They'd jolt me awake at any hour, a scream caught in my throat and my sheets damp with sweat. I could never remember any details, but the fear they left behind was almost suffocating. Most nights, I tried to work through them myself; some nights, that meant waking up Carter so he could help me go back to sleep.
But before he moved in next door, on those nights when distractions weren't enough, I needed my parents. The hallway to their room always seemed longer in the dark. Each step felt like I was crossing miles as I tiptoed across the carpet to their door. It would loom over me, daring me to grab the knob. Daring me to open it.
Daring me to wake up my mother.
I'd stand there, wheezing as quietly as possible. Raise my hand, then drop it at my sides. Raise it again. Turn to go to my room. Turn back again. Stare at the door. I'd go through the ritual every time, all the while asking myself if it was worth waking her up. If the dream was scarier than her.
I have a similar feeling staring at Carter's door now, my hand resting gently on the knob. I spent hours willing myself to fall asleep, but the pull of the bedside clock won every time. I couldn't stop counting every little tick, flinching after each one. Dreading the sound of a bell shortly after.
The fear of waking up in the wrong place was too strong in the end. After what happened in Darren's office, I feel like I can't sit still. Our conversation has my mind reeling as it tries to understand why he'd lie about talking to Mark that week.
And then, the dream. If I can even call it that. That moment when two different realities seemed to warp together scares me the most because I had no control over it. The idea of it happening again, only permanently in the past, was the last push I needed to get out of bed and walk across the hall to Carter's room.
Only to freeze just outside it. I didn't see him all day after I came home from Darren's. He stayed away all afternoon and didn't show up until way past dinner. Carter didn't say anything to anyone, minus a kiss for Brynn before bed, then shut himself away in his room for the rest of the night. It wasn't exactly a secret why he was upset, and I could feel Julia and Henry's eyes on me up until I shuffled off to bed myself.
