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This time, he says it more strongly, shattering the memory of my dad’s words tumbling around my head, and I wonder if I just…imagined it, the first time Jeremy said my name.
“What is it?” I murmur.
And he’s speaking, saying things that…that don’t make sense.
I hear the words, but it’s as if he’s speaking a different language.
Dreaming. I have to be dreaming.
His words start running faster together, his breaths hitching. Somewhere in the back of my mind, an urge rises up to calm him—comfort him—like a long forgotten instinct. A reflex.
Wherever it comes from though…
It’s too far away to reach right now.
Miles and miles away…
And for a moment, I’m no longer here, but thrown back to last spring. Junior year was wrapping up, with finals on the horizon. I’d gone over to the Montgomerys after Mom got home from her shift at the hospital…
“‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,’” I hear Izzy murmuring, her voice coming through Jeremy’s cracked door. “‘But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.’”
I nudge the door open to find Izzy sprawled out on her stomach on Jeremy’s bed, a book spread out in her hands, feet kicked up behind her. Next to her, her brother lays on his back, a paperback split face-down across his chest as he stares up at the star and planet stickers plastered across his ceiling.
Izzy lifts her head, grinning when she sees me. “Hey.”
Jeremy rolls his head back, peering at me from upside down.
“Did I miss the memo for the poetry reading tonight?” I say, closing the door behind me.
Izzy wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “Funny.”
Joining them, I take a seat on the edge of the mattress, as Izzy explains about the assignment she has to do for English—she has to memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class, and write a five page essay analyzing it down to the bones.
I mess up her wild hair, sending brown tendrils flying. “Well, that’s what you get for insisting on taking honors this year.”
She sticks her tongue out at me at the same time Jeremy chuckles, and says, “That’s what I said.”
I meet his gaze and smile.
“You know it’s the only way they’ll let me into AP next year.” She huffs. “‘Poetry is music written for the human voice.’” She nods succinctly, as if affirming the words for herself.
I arch her a knowing brow. “Who said that one?”
She opens her mouth, but Jeremy beats her to it. “Maya Angelou.” He flips the page in what I now notice is a weathered copy of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, attention pointedly drawn to the text filling the pages. It’s his favorite book—really the only novel I’ve ever seen him read. He became obsessed after we watched the movie years ago.
Been a while since I last saw him reading it.
Izzy shrugs, and clarifies. “Maybe I don’t want piano to be all that I am.”
I make a face at that. “Since when?”
She mock-gasps and shoves me, and I use the opportunity to tug her into my arms, before tackling her onto the bed. Jeremy makes an exasperated noise, and tosses his book to the side. Surprisingly, though, he doesn’t get up. Just meets my gaze across the rumpled bedding, where I grin breathlessly from atop Izzy.
His expression is as dry and reticent as ever as he shakes his head at our antics. “Can you, like, not do this on my bed?”
“What?” I say innocently. “You mean this?”
And then I proceed to dig my fingers into Izzy’s sides, tickling her. Her hyena laugh filling the room?—
