Chapter 33

Sarah

When I close my eyes, I see Graham again. This happens now and then — the things I think about the most, I end up dreaming about.

Only this time, it’s not a sexy dream like the last couple of times.

I’m with Dream Graham, walking across a perfectly manicured lawn. I don’t know where we are, but it’s peaceful, quiet and the grass is an intense shade of green. The sun is setting, painting the sky with shades of orange and purple, and I can’t think of anything more romantic.

“If you could choose anywhere in the world, where would you be?” Dream Graham asks me. He’s holding my hands, our fingers laced together.

“Right here, with you,” I say.

Dream Graham smiles at me and lifts my hand to his mouth, kissing my knuckles.

“Wish granted then,” he smiles.

“How about you?” I ask. “Where would you be?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I just get bored.”

I frown at him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if I can deal with that cabin much longer, being stuck there with you and not seeing anyone else.”

I look around. The cabin is nowhere in sight. I have no idea what’s going on.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

Dream Graham sighs. “I know you’re not doing it on purpose, but I can’t do this with you all the time. I have to let someone else into this space in my heart that you’re hogging. You’re going to have to get out.”

I yank my hand out of his.

“What?” I ask.

“This is your eviction notice, Sarah.”

When I look up at Dream Graham, it’s not Dream Graham anymore. It’s Dream Jacob. I close my eyes and shake my head back and forth. This isn’t real. It’s not happening. I’m not with Dream Jacob, and we’re not on the college campus. I’m with Dream Graham at the cabin.

No. That’s not right, either. He’s a liar. They both are.

“You can keep your eyes shut as long as you like,” Dream Jacob says. “You’re still going to be the same person when you wake up.”

His words slice through me. I’m always going to be the same person. But no, this isn’t my fault. He lied to me. About the house, about the eviction. About the girls. Wait. It’s all a mess in my head, and I don’t know which is which.

When I sit up in bed, I’m drenched in sweat, and the darkness in the room wraps around me like a blanket. It takes me a moment to realize I’m on Monica’s couch. The blankets are all on the floor. I scrub my face with my hands and try to take deep, slow breaths. It was just a dream. A nightmare.

I get up and rake my hair back with my fingers. I go the bathroom where I splash cold water on my face and wipe it off with a towel. When I look at myself in the mirror above the sink, my eyes have dark circles beneath them, and I look haunted.

I take a deep breath and let it out with a shudder.

“Sarah?” Lindsay asks, appearing like a little ghost when I open the bathroom door.

“You startled me! What are you doing awake, sweetie pie?” I ask.

“I just wanted to go the toilet. And drink water.”

I nod. “Why don’t you use the bathroom, and I’ll go to the kitchen and get you a glass of water?”

Lindsay smiles sleepily at me. I walk to the kitchen and find a glass, filling it halfway with water. When Lindsay comes in, I hand it to her, and we sit down at the kitchen table.

“Do you still like that Santa guy?” Lindsay asks after she gulped down half of the water.

I shake my head. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?” Lindsay asks.

“Because it turned out he’s a jerk.”

“Why?” Lindsay asks again.

I take a deep breath. “He lied to me.”

Lindsay drinks the rest of the water.

“Lying is bad,” Lindsay says. I nod. “But sometimes, people lie for good reasons.”

“Like what?” I ask.

Lindsay shrugs. “Like to protect people’s feelings, so they don’t get sad about the truth.”

I sigh. Lindsay is growing up so fast. She’s wiser than I realize sometimes.

“It’s still better to tell the truth,” I say.

Lindsay nods and puts down the glass on the table. She slides off the chair. “Sometimes, when I do something wrong, Mom says it’s okay if I say I’m sorry and I won’t do it again. She says people always make mistakes, so you can’t always be mad forever.”

“Your mom’s right,” I say. I can’t tell her that I don’t want anything to do with Graham, that with how I feel, I might be mad forever.

“Will you tuck me in?” Lindsay asks.

I nod, and she holds out her hand to me the way she used to when she was a toddler. I walk with her to her room and tuck her into bed. When I kiss her on the forehead, she closes her eyes and falls asleep almost immediately. I’ve always envied that about her.

When I return to my couch and lie down, I can’t fall asleep right away. My mind is full of Graham. The dream is still fresh in my mind, and I feel horrible after dreaming about Jacob again. But Graham has never been like Jacob. Jacob always made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, like I was the problem in the relationship.

Graham always made me feel like I was everything. Even when he lied, he never made me feel like it was my fault.

Great, just what I need. A guy who fucks up right.

I close my eyes. Lindsay is right. People make mistakes, and forgiveness should be an option. I don’t know if I’m ready for that, though. I don’t know if I’m ready to forgive him for kicking me out of my own home before Christmas, or for how long he lied about it.

Lindsay said people lie to protect other’s feelings sometimes, and she’s right. That’s often how it works. Maybe it applies here. Maybe Graham didn’t lie to me because he knew I would be furious when I found out he was my evicting landlord, but because he didn’t want me to feel terrible. But why did he lie to me in the first place? I don’t understand what the problem was, or why he couldn’t just be upfront with me from the start.

That’s the problem. It’s not just that he lied. It’s why he lied. I can’t help but feel like he lied to me to be able to get into my pants, to get closer and closer to me to get what he wanted. He never made me feel like a piece of ass, but no matter how many times I turn it over in my mind, I can’t find any other reason why he would want to keep the truth from me. He must have known that I would reject him after what he did to me, if I knew. But then again, Monica pointed out that he still planned to get me a place to stay, and he didn’t even charge me rent at the cabin. Not that I was there long enough, in the end, but still. And he bought me groceries and Christmas decorations.

Nothing makes sense to me. The only thing I know is that he hurt me badly, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for that.