Page 27 of Ex Somnis

“That’s not…” I exhale a laugh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.” He’s still watching me, careful now, the usual Jasper energy dialed down. “Are you finally gonna tell me what happened with Lenny?”

“I… I don’t know. I fucked up, I guess.”

“What did you do?”

I look at the book in my hands.

Lucid Dreaming: A Practical Guide.

I can read the title, at least, but only because it’s a large print, clean font, and I have already read it fifty times by now.

“I’ve been trying to read this,” I deflect, letting my fingers glide over the title. “For four days. To understand what… what she’s doing, I guess. What all of it means.” I turn it over once. “I’ve read the same page maybe fifteen times, and I still don’t know what a reality check is.”

Jasper looks at the book, then back at me. “I don’t mind reading it to you.”

“I know.” I set the book down on my knee. “I wanted to be able to get it myself. For once.” The last two words come out rougher than I meant. Jasper doesn’t say anything, which means he heard the thing underneath them. “I think what Paul and Ridge meant is that she’s in there somewhere… in her sleep, and Ridge is in his sleep, too, and Paul is doing whatever Paul does, and I’m sitting on a swing with a book I can’t read because…” I trail off, but Jasper simply waits me out.

“Because I kissed her, and she ran. And then she was gone. And now everyone has a job to do, and I don’t even know what’s happening.”

The cold wind cuts through the branches, shifting the fairy lights. Jasper looks at them for a moment, then at the book on my knee, then back at me.

“Give me the book.”

“Jasp.”

“You said you wanted to understand what’s happening.” He holds out his hand. “Let me read it to you.”

“Jasper,” I almost plead.

“It’s not a big deal. I wanted to re-read that one soon anyway,” he adds, which is exactly the right thing to say and exactly the reason he says it.

Jasper has known since he was about seven years old that the fastest way to get me to accept help is to make the help seem like nothing. I don’t know when he figured that out, but I know he consistently uses it, and it works every time.

Reluctantly, I hand him the book, and without hesitation, he takes it, finds the page I’ve been stuck on for three days, and starts reading. His voice is the same one he uses for tarot readings, like the information is obvious and the only question is whether you’re ready to receive it.

“Reality checks…” he reads, “… are the foundation of lucid dreaming. They are small, repeated tests you perform throughout the day to determine whether you are dreaming or awake. The goal is to make them habitual, so habitual that you perform them automatically in a dream, at which point the anomalous result triggers lucidity.”

“What does anomalous mean?” I ask, feeling dumb for having to in the first place.

“Weird,” he says, without looking up. “Wrong. Different from what it should be.”

He keeps reading.

“Common reality checks include counting your fingers. In dreams, it frequently produces an incorrect number.”

She did that.

The garden drops half an inch.

Not really. Obviously not really, but my stomach doesn’t know that.

“Nev.” Jasper side-eyes me. “You okay?”

“She was doing that. That night. Before she ran.” I look at my hand, spread flat on my knee. Five fingers. “I thought she was freaking out about the kiss.”

“She might have been doing both.” Jasper shrugs before he starts back up again.