Page 4 of Ex Somnis

“This is your fault,” Ridge accuses behind me, already getting into it with Paul again.

“My fault?” Paul’s voice is sharp. “If you hadn’t been lurking around in her sleep like some kind of…”

This is my fault.

Not their fault. Mine.

“Guys.” Derek steps up between Ridge and Paul, the urgency making them shut up and take note. “I think she’s about to do something stupid, but I don’t understand what.” He looks at Ridge. “She said she is lucid dreaming, and that you could too. That you should teach me.”

Lucid dreaming.

The bookshelves in our living room flash through my head. My mom’s books, rows and rows of them, everything from dream interpretation to astral projection to things I didn’t have words for when I was ten years old, eating cold leftovers while she slept the afternoon away chasing something I couldn’t reach her in.

It’s hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.

Lennon has a whole part of herself I don’t know about.

No. That’s not right.

I push that thought down hard.

I know exactly who she is.

I just didn’t know everything.

Paul pales, then jolts into action. “I think I know where she’s going.”

“Yeah?” Ridge calls after him. “And where would that be?”

“Tessa,” Derek says quietly beside me. “I think she’s going to Tessa.”

Tessa Vaughn?

“Although,” Derek continues. “I’m not sure if she meant physically, or…”

“Or in her dreams,” Ridge mutters.

I look between Paul, halfway to his Mercedes, and then Ridge and Derek. I’m the only person in this parking lot who is completely lost. I’ve been completely lost before and know what that feels like, but this version is worse.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t kissed her.” It sounds like what I was just thinking, but it came out of Ridge Wells’ mouth in a very accusing tone.

I look down at him. “I know.”

“Fuck your ‘I know.’ I had a plan, boy. A working plan. I could have her when her eyes are closed. You could be what she needed when they’re open. Everyone gets what they want, and nobody has a crisis in a parking lot.” He gestures at me. “And then you jump the gun because you can’t read a room, which is fucking stupid.”

“You are not stupid. Not even close.”

Lennon’s voice in my head, from earlier tonight, before the kiss, when she looked like she was ready to fight every single person who had ever called me slow, dumb, or not worth it.

“This whole town doesn’t know shit.”

I close my eyes for exactly one breath.

Yeah, baby. Maybe. But I kissed you, and you ran, so right now it very much looks like they all might have a point.

“Ridge,” Paul calls from where he’s standing next to his open car door. “Get your shit together and leave him alone. I’m driving to the Vaughn mansion.” His voice is back to the controlled version. He looks at Ridge, and something passes between them that has years in it, more years than tonight. “Come if you want.”

Ridge glances at Derek beside me, who looks more than a little shaky.