Chapter 4: Out With The Truth

When I opened eyes, I was in my room lying on my bed, in a pool of sweat. I closed my eyes again to be sure I was awake this time and my body was under my control. “What a crazy dream to have during day,” I said to myself, opening my eyes again.

“Was it?” at the sound of that sprang up to my feet and my hands folded into fists, only to find my Rose staring at me with her eyes wide in shock.

“Rose, what are you doing here?” I asked as I managed to catch my breath and slow my racing heart.

“Start talking B, what is going on with you?” her arms were folded against her chest now, watching me like a mother would a son. “Answering a question with another question is not the way communication works Rose.” I sat on my bed running my hands through my hair. “I'm not kidding B, starting talking!” “I don’t think you should be raising your voice at me, considering the fact that I woke up from a nap only to find you watching me sleep.”

“You were not sleeping B,” her voice was low now.

“What?”

“B, if you think you were sleeping, then we have a big problem here.”

“You are not making any sense Rose,” I searched her eyes to get a read on her, but all got was fear and concern.

“You came back from school,” she began, seating next to me. “You walked into the house without so much as a glance or hey how was your day? You just match straight up into your room then after an hour you sneak out through your window and you were gone for hours then you get back and sneak in through your window and lie on bed like it was nothing.” There was silence now.

“Look at your clothes B”. It was just then I realized what had happened, just as I looked at my clothes, they were the same ones I had in my dream and dirt from the tress was still on my clothes. “Oh! no!” I whispered. I could feel fear flooding into my system at once, “This can’t be real, no it can’t be,” I backed away from Rose slowly, still looking at my clothes.

“What is it B?” “Rose, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the whole story.” She leaned close to me and smiled.

“Try me!”

“…ok, I got to admit, that’s a lot to take in”, Rose said calmly when I finished telling her all I had witnessed so far and what I thought was a dream. It was such a relief to finally talk to someone besides myself about it.

“Yeah tell me about it” I walked to the fridge to get a chilled glass of milk. She walked up to me and snatched my glass from downing its content in two seconds. “You know you could have just gotten yours from the fridge too you know!” I snared while she handed the empty glass to me. “Now, where is the fun in that?”

“But really who else knows about this and who was that girl you saw in that alley?” she sent me a worried look just she opened the fridge to pull out a bag of chips.

“I wish I knew sis, I really wish….this whole weird crap is starting to freak me out”

“Calm down B, it’s gonna be alright, we will find a way through or around It.” She was barely audible with her mouth stuffed with chips and this gave me an idea to lighten our moods. “Thanks sis, but you know you are gonna choke if you keep stuffing chips into your mouth like a vacuum cleaner” I took the chips out of her reach with nothing but an innocent smile which turned into a smirk when her expression changed and we both knew what came next. She adjusted her clothed like she was about fight a hulk

“You know, for a guy who got hit by a truck and almost died, you have a lot of nerves. Hand over those chips or I’m gonna hand your ass over to you.”

“Oh! I see! You think you are so tough! Yeah? Come get your chips girl” I began to take a step back and more, baiting her and prepping for a hot chase. She moved towards me and suddenly froze in horror.

“OMG! B where are you? OMG! What just happened?” she asked as she stared around like see couldn’t see me. “Chill princess I’m right…here…wait…what! I can’t see my body!” I yelled realizing that I couldn’t see my body either, I could feel it, but just couldn’t see it. Rose followed my voice to find me and when she finally reached me she looked like she had just discovered a gold mine, “Don’t tell me this is what I think it is”, she said in amazement as my body started appearing and disappearing. “Wow! I think I can become invisible, this is sick,” my body became physically visible. Rose held my hands tight and smiled now, “It is gonna be alright B, and we’ll face this together.”

As comforting as hearing that made me feel, I didn’t want her to be a part of this, mostly until I knew more about what was going on.

“That’s the problem Rose I don’t want you to be part of this or in the middle of this. This whole thing scares really me.” She meet my gaze, her soft blue eyes looking so calm but I could still see the fear in them.

“It scares me too, more than you can imagine, I can’t afford to lose you too and I’m not going let you figure this out all by yourself.” I closed my eyes taking a deep breath and was about to reply when she held my wrist said, “What if I’m like you, we don’t know anything about this, but what I do know is, we have each other.”

It hadn’t occurred to me until this particular moment, I had being so self-absorbed that I had not considered the possibility that whatever is going with me, might also happen to Rose. Surely the only way forward is together. In surrender and acceptance, I draw her close for a hug, “well we are in this together, but you can’t tell a soul.”