Хлоя Бенджамин - The Anatomy of Dreams

“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.”

I stepped around him and started to walk again. He followed me, moving quickly, but I was 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.”

“So I was sleep-talking.” We passed the Mining Circle again; East Gate was in sight. “Really nice of you to fill me in, Gabe, but it isn’t the same. You could clear your conscience, and I didn’t remember any of it. It was a perfectly safe move.”

“You could look at it that way,” he said. “But I saw it as dangerous. I was speaking to a subconscious part of you—an uninhibited part of you—whose powers were a total mystery to me. I didn’t know what you’d do with the information, subconsciously or not, and I couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t remember it.”

“So you were just listening to me babble on all night? What else did I say?”

I tried to play it off as though I barely cared, but the truth is I was terrified.

“You said you loved me.”

I snorted.

“I didn’t mean it. I was sleeping.”

“More than once.”

“And what version of me do you think is more trustworthy? The waking me, or the sleep me, totally unaware of what I was saying?”

“The sleep you,” said Gabe. “Without question.”

“I probably thought you were someone else.”

“That’s exactly my point. You said things in your sleep, felt things, that you could never acknowledge in waking life. We all do. We’re too goddamn scared when the lights are on—we’re pansies. But the part of you that came out when you talked in your sleep? She shows you for who you are.”

“You took advantage of me,” I said. “You pried.”

I could feel my body heating up and my mouth began to quiver. But I didn’t want to cry in front of him.

“Why don’t you trust yourself?” he asked.

“Because I trusted you.”

It came out with more venom than I’d intended. We left campus and walked down the street again. He stepped closer to me, the curves of his face shadowed by a streetlamp.

“You chose me,” he said. “You didn’t have to, but you chose me. You told me those things for a reason, just like I chose to tell you what I was doing with Keller.”

We came to a crosswalk. The light was red, but no cars were coming, and I bolted across, the wind in my face. Just then, a car made a left turn into the intersection, and I leapt forward as it sped past me, honking.

“Jesus,” shouted Gabe, running across the street to meet me. “You trying to get yourself killed?”

“Just trying to get home.”

“Listen,” he said more frantically. “Is this really what you want? Chatting with girls in the lunch line, doing your physics homework at night? Sitting in your boyfriend’s nice little apartment, reading— I don’t know—reading poetry? That satisfies you?”

“What’s wrong with reading poetry? What’s weak about it?”

“All right. Maybe it does satisfy you, for now. But what about later? You don’t think you’ll wonder what would have happened if you’d come with me? Here”—he gestured to the shops, the students shuffling down the street in groups, the lit windows of upper-story apartments—“you have a perfectly decent life, I can see that. You could marry this— David , and maybe you’ll become a professor. I can imagine how your life might go from here, and I bet you can, too.”

I was quiet as we turned onto my block. I could see the square window in the galley kitchen lit up; David was there, cooking dinner, and all I had to do was return to him.

“There’s another thing, Sylvie. Keller’s patients—they’re not like most of us. They’ve got disorders that make them do things in their sleep. Dangerous things. They walk and talk—”