Chloe Benjamin - The Anatomy of Dreams

On the other side of the trees, a group of middle schoolers, here for a summer camp, ran by, laughing. I shivered. The heat wave had long since passed, and I was only wearing a T-shirt.

“You’re cold,” said Gabe.

He put a hand on my lower arm and rubbed it until the hairs stood up. Then he smoothed them down again. Everything he touched was a nerve. I pulled my arm back, putting it between my crossed legs.

“So what did Keller say?”

“He said it had to do with sleep,” said Gabe, “and dreaming. Consciousness, unconsciousness. REM cycles. But it was Stu I wanted to know about. Keller said he had a sleep disorder, which made it so that he didn’t stay in bed when he was asleep — he got up, moved around, acted out whatever was happening in his dreams. Keller was trying to find a way to get him to figure out he was dreaming. Otherwise, Stu could hurt himself — he already had. Once, before he came to Keller, he tripped while sleepwalking and came down so hard his chin split open. Needed about twenty stitches.”

“So that’s what you were doing,” I said. “All those nights, when you left my room, and I saw you going to his house. You were helping him? On Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

Gabe nodded again.

“Why?” I asked. “What was in it for you?”

“He upped my pay — practically doubled it.”

It was the first time that day I had seen him look sheepish.

“He must have been trying to keep you quiet.”

“Yeah, that occurred to me. But it was good, honest research, Sylvie. It was clean. Some of the other teachers knew about it. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. And I was excited, for the first time, about science — I thought I might want to be a psychologist or a neuroscientist. I started to work harder in biology.

“But it got more complicated,” he added. “The farther in I got, the more confused I was. It was so much responsibility, working with Keller. I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t talk to anyone about what I was doing. I felt like a freak. And one night, toward the end of our senior fall, Keller and I got into this awful fight. I told him I didn’t want to help him anymore, that I wanted to be a regular student. He said he’d reduce my hours, but he couldn’t let me off completely. I’d signed on to assist him until the end of that year, and we were neck-deep in projects — it was too late to train anyone new.”

“Is that why you left?” I asked. “In December — were you expelled?”

“It was my decision. I figured I’d already burned my bridge with Keller, and my grades were dropping fast — I wouldn’t have been able to get into a decent school without his help. So I went back to Tracy, hopped from job to job. My mom passed the next year, right around the time you were graduating, so I went to live with my gran.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. Gabe’s head was tilted downward, but I could see his ears, pink tipped in purple light. “I’m sorry.”

Gabe shook his head.

“I spent a few years that way. But I couldn’t get Keller out of my head. I kept thinking about him, wondering if I’d been wrong. I called Mills, but they said he’d left. I couldn’t find anything out about him on the Internet. It was Mr. Cooke who finally put me back in touch. He had an old home phone number of Keller’s, a place in Fort Bragg where he thought Keller might be living.”

“But why did you want to go back to him?”

Gabe leaned back on his arms. Two honeybees had found their way to us and were circling him. But he was entirely calm; he didn’t even wave them away.

“Keller gave me the opportunity to make something of myself. Otherwise, I knew what would happen — I’d stay in Tracy, get a job driving a truck or working at one of the gas stations. I wouldn’t go to college, and I wouldn’t get out. He’d seen some potential in me. He’d chosen me. And it was like electricity, that feeling of being chosen, when he took me back. There were conditions, of course. I had to do a hell of a lot more training. He had me take a bunch of courses by extension — neuroscience, calculus, chemistry. And I had to move to Fort Bragg. You’d like it there, Sylve. Big craggy rocks, beaches with driftwood and glass. Cliffs and cold weather. It’s not far off from here.”

I stood up, a door inside me slamming shut. I was really cold now, and I’d told David I would be home by six.

“Can I walk you somewhere?” asked Gabe, standing, too. “Where are you going?”

“To my apartment. I live with David.”

“I know you must be angry with me, Sylvie. I know you must resent me.”

“You left,” I said, starting down the path again, “without even saying good-bye. We’d been together , Gabe, and I never heard from you again. All those nights I worried about you, stayed up to watch for you and asked you where you’d gone — you made me look like an idiot. And now what? You want to tell me what you were doing back then? Or did you want to apologize? It was years ago. I don’t care about it anymore. I don’t think about it. So is that all?”

“No, that isn’t all.”

He was moving briskly, trying to keep up with me. But I pushed ahead, walking so fast I was practically running.

“You said I was your person ,” I said, turning around. “The night before you left — you lay in my bed and you told me that.”

I felt humiliated that I’d remembered it, humiliated that I’d said it aloud. Gabe caught up with me now, stepped in front of me so that I couldn’t move any farther.

“You were,” he said. “You are.”

“No. That doesn’t make sense. You can’t be somebody’s person unless you’re actually with them.”

“Which is what I’m trying to do now.” Gabe inhaled. “I’m here to ask you to join me.”

“You must be joking.” I couldn’t help it; I started laughing, as involuntary a response as tears.

“I’m not joking.” There was a quiet force to his voice. “Keller needs a new assistant. Someone to help with intake, data entry. The same kind of work I do, but now there’s too much of it for just me. You’d be perfect for it.”

“Look around!” I shouted. A clump of pigeons rose and scattered from the path, where they’d been pecking at an old sandwich. “I live in Berkeley. I’m about to start my senior year of college. This is my life now.”

“I know that. But you could have a different one. You’re smart, Sylvie — smarter than anyone else in our class. You’ve got drive, and you don’t shy away from things that aren’t normal. And you want more”—he gestured to the dorms, the tall and columned buildings—“than this. I know you do.”

He was still walking quickly, but I was taller than him, and I moved faster.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m happy here. You haven’t even been to college — do you have any idea what my life is like? I can’t just leave .”

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. But I still think you want to be involved in something bigger. I know it because I’m the same way. And because of what you said to me, back in high school. You begged me to take you with me.”

“What do you mean? I couldn’t have begged you — I didn’t know about any of this.”

“But you did know. You knew all along. You just weren’t conscious.”

There was a terrible whirring feeling in my gut. Gabe wouldn’t look at me.

“One night,” he said, “I was getting up in the middle of the night to meet Keller. I was in your room, getting my shoes on, when you asked me where I was going. I told you about the research, and before I knew it I was telling you everything. At first I thought you were awake. But something seemed off. You could barely open your eyes, and you only seemed to be half listening. I realized you were asleep.”