Why Don't You Visit?

My head droops, eyes fighting for their life as I try to stay awake. I will remember; I will be aware. I repeat the words over and over as my eyelashes flutter, but just as soon as those words trail away from my mind do I snap awake and shake the square table with my knee. The noise of casual chatter hits my ears before the smell of energy hits my nose. I wrinkle my face, wondering why I am here. I hate studying in places like this, and I hate studying late, and I haven’t been here since he left me. 

I gather my bearings as I try to remember coming here. I don’t remember falling asleep here, but I’m not surprised. This is where I spent all-nighters for years, surrounded by the aromas of desperation and tiredness. This corner table I sit at, stuffed with books and notes to a class I don’t remember taking, offers a nook away from the rest of the students fighting to keep their brains churning. Yawning, I stretch and gather my belongings, stuffing them into a neon green backpack. Only when I escape from my nook do I realize I hate neon green. 

Before I can think twice about it, I am back at the counter, waiting in line to order…something. I have to do something; I came here to do something. I just don’t remember why. 

A jarring sensation flashes through my mind, telling me what I have so desperately been waiting to hear. Every time I wake up like this, I pray this voice will snap me out of it, and today it finally does. 

This isn’t right.

Wait, why isn’t it right? I can’t remember. Before I have a chance to parse through the throbbing pain in my forehead, my brother cuts me in line and asks for a drink he’s never had before. He’s only ten, though; too much energy for him will send him into a frenzy. 

Wait, why is he here? I’m not at home.  

My pupils pulse once more. Like a beacon in the sky that is hidden behind clouds, the words I will remember; I will be aware flash through my mind. For a second they grip my pupils and shake me. Only for a second, though. The world doesn’t want me to remember, so it throws more things at me that make sense but don’t make sense.

“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here!” 

I turn to see my childhood friend walking up with a drink of his own. Now him I expect to be in a place like this. He once told me if he could die with a book in one hand and a warm drink in his other then he would be happy. I smile when I see that he has both, looking as comfortable as the brown stains that have lived on the counter since my freshman year. A longing in my heart pulls for my friend, as if he isn’t walking up to me but is a 7-hour flight away. He was the first guy that was ever nice to me, back before people would make insinuations just for knowing the other gender. And again, it is as if I expected him. As if he hasn’t moved away. 

As if you aren’t dreaming, a resounding noise booms. 

What?

God damnit, I told you to remember. The voice that vaguely sounds like my own is done with me, annoyance littered in its words. 

Remember. Remember what? 

The piano jazz that dances behind the buzz of chatter pulls on my ears like a mother that I’ve disobeyed. I strain, ignoring my friend and my brother and the drink the man behind the counter offers me. I don’t remember them playing jazz when used to study here. And the brown chalk listing the specials on the wall is new, and I don’t remember ever coming here to study when it was this packed. What was it I heard? I will remember; I will be aware?

Oh. Aware that I am dreaming. Oh, God. 

As if I have awoken from a coma, I find my hands and realize they are mine. But they aren’t really mine. The cracks in my hands are gone, and the patterns in my palms are different. And yet, I know it’s me. 

To prove it, I snatch my brother’s drink from his hands and substitute it with my empty cup. He doesn’t protest like he normally would with the annoyance only a little brother can muster. His face remains unchanged and he simply accepts his new fate before snaking off through the sea of people. Yeah, if this were real he would’ve hit me. 

Only now do I realize that I don’t recognize the faces around me but everyone feels oddly familiar. And the joy in their eyes feels so real. I begin moving through the crowd, skirting the seemingly endless line waiting to pay and dodging the tables of nameless people pretending to study. And, though I am used to having to push and shove my little self into people in order to squeak by, miraculously the crowd moves for me. 

Oh yeah. Now I’m awake. Now I know that I’m dreaming. 

The relief swells me up with the giddiness of a child. I’ve been trying to lucid dream for months and I finally got it. 

Giddiness takes over. It is only right that I am with my childhood friend. I throw myself into him with a huge hug, squeezing him like I used to squeeze him after middle school. And as I look over his shoulder, I see who I came here for. I remember why I am here. 

The person I came for stands in a group of people I don’t know. He is not like the last time I saw him. The cuts are gone, his face is tanner, and he is smiling. He is just like I remember him, with a smile so bright it attracts the room. It doesn’t matter that neither of us know these people; he could talk with anyone and everyone always wanted to talk to him. Who wouldn’t want to be touched by his warmth? 

Seeing him so happy does something to me. It doesn’t tug on my heart strings or rile up the butterflies like I thought it would. No, as I leave my childhood friend behind, my skin tingles. As I walk then race toward him, I don’t feel the relief I thought I would. I feel my chest drop in that familiar feeling, that sinking hold that only my chest can bring when I wake up and when I go to bed.

When I finally get to him, the cup I never wanted vibrating in my hand, it takes him a second to turn to me. He pauses whatever joke he was about to crack with that familiar crease of his eyes that I have longed for. 

And when he finally looks at me, I slap the smile right off of him. 

I didn’t expect to. He staggers back a few feet while the crowd around us disperses like a school of fish under attack. For a second I wonder if I am no longer in control of my dream, but my legs tremble with a cowardice that can only belong to me. The sting in my hand pinches my confidence. 

But I hold my ground. In fact, I take more ground by pushing him in the chest. Then pushing him harder. Then banging on his chest with closed fists that have never been in a fight. I pound and pound and pound, even as he pulls me in, even as my tear ducts open the levee and let the last two years out, even as he grabs my hands with a gentleness that was destined for me. 

“No,” I cry as I push off of him, secretly happy that he doesn’t let go of my hands. “You don’t get to hug me like everything is okay. You don’t get to try to calm me down.”

“I’m sorry,” he answers lamely as I wipe snot away with my shoulder. Real cute look I’m giving him. 

“You should be sorry. You left me. You left me.” I wish I could say more without my voice breaking. I wish I didn’t have to ruin this for us. It’s been so long, and I’ve finally found him. But I need to get it off my chest; I need to get it off my soul. 

“I didn’t want to leave,” his voice cracks, and now I can sense the tears hiding behind his eyes. “If there was anything I could do differently, I would. If I could go back and stay with you that night instead of driving home, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would sacrifice the universe for that. For you.”

“I don’t need you to sacrifice the universe,” I snap. “I need you. Do you know how hard it’s been? Do you know how unfair it is to have to grieve? It’s not fair how lonely it is.” I wave my hands around. “And this is where you bring me, a place where I can’t go anymore because I only ever came here with you? Not that anyone else would know, or God forbid even ask! If everyone cared as much as I did then maybe it would be okay, but it’s been two years! You know the first time National Boyfriend day came around, people checked up on me? We didn’t even really celebrate it. I gave you Reese’s every year, that’s about it.” 

“I loved every pack you gave me.”

I ignore him, vomiting it all before I can’t get anymore out. “But the first time it passed, people called! They texted. They didn’t bring it up, of course, but they said they were just checking in. And sure, I don’t like to talk about it because it ruins my day, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay! And you know what happened this year? Not one person called or texted. Not one person reached out to see if I was okay. Only my Aunt! But I missed her call, and when I returned it she couldn’t be bothered to call me back. And it hurts to know that everyone else has moved on, that it’s no longer in the front of everyone’s mind like it is for me. Like, when they look at me do they not realize how I think of you everyday? How I can’t sleep at night because I run through what I could have done differently? I don’t get it!”

“I don’t get it either,” he whispers as I allow him to pull me back in. 

Up against his chest in my favorite napping spot, I whisper, “So why don’t you visit me?”

“I’m sorry my love,” he says, “but I’m gone.” 

“I know that. But why don’t you visit me in my dreams?” I know that I sound like a child when I ask the question, so naive and self-centered to believe these dreams mean anything. But if they don’t, then why do they feel so real? Why do I wake up with these emotions that only my soul could know? And if they’re not real, then what is? 

How could God be real if He doesn’t let the dead visit their loved ones?

“You visit other people,” I tell him when he doesn’t know how to respond. “Our friends tell me that they dream of you all the time. That they get to hang out with you. Do you know how embarrassing it is to say that you don’t come to me? That you won’t visit me as well? And every night before bed I pray that God will let you step out and say something to me, but every morning I wake up with a heavier heart because you’re too much of a coward to face me.” 

“Oh, my love,” he says as he guides me to a window that wasn’t there before. The brown of the chairs and tables fades away like water colors, and the nameless students cramming fade too. Gradually, the scene shifts. We overlook a park. In the distance is a circular pond with people walking around it. Ducks, with their children and their elders, waddle around as a family of three feeds them.

He points to the outside world as if he painted it himself, eager to show off his newest effort. “You are the one I miss the most. That is why I have been allowed to visit you in the most beautiful of ways. Don’t you see? Every time a baby laughs, it’s me telling you that there is still life for you to live. Every time a bird tweets in the morning, I’m waking you up as I always did: with annoying singing that I have crafted just for you. Every time the sun sets and hits the world in the perfect angle to bounce off the clouds and create your favorite color, I am giving you one of my paintings, just like before. I’m here, my love. I’m her—“

“Wake up kid,” my mother shakes me awake. 

I almost knock into her head as I sit up with an athleticism I didn’t know I possessed. 

My brain cannot process the change in scenery. There is no jazz playing, and there are no aromas to hold me. Where is the pond? Where is—

No. 

“We have to leave in thirty minutes,” my mom says as she heads out of my room. Before she exits, she pauses. “Are you crying?”

I realize my hands are still shaking when I go to touch my face and feel wetness graze my fingertips. “No, just dried eyes,” I lie. She believes me and closes my door to begin vacuuming. The roar of it doesn’t even give me time to grieve in peace. 

My dried eyes become waterfalls as I curse my mother, curse my friends, curse the world, curse God. 

I waste half of the time I have to get ready on crying. Then I do as I always do: I force myself to keep living. As I pick the first T-shirt that I find and wear the same jeans I’ve worn for the last four days, I run through my dream to make sure I remember it all. The drinks, my friend, the park. Him. 

And when I go over our time together and regret wasting it by hitting him, my mother finishes vacuuming. A twittering of birds underscores my ragged breath. And I remember the end of our conversation. I lock my door and sit on my bed, holding the stuffed bear he gave me for our first anniversary. I listen to his song.