Almost to fifth period biology. Outside the door, I see some random guy and girl about to enter in front of me.

The guy holds the door open and slyly says, “Ladies first,” letting the girl enter before him. The girl giggles and does so. Then, after she does, the dude, without even looking at me, enters and slams the door behind him.

Fucking prick. What a disrespectful piece of shit. I have a mind to tape him to the floor and perform a live in-class dissection. Of course, I’m not actually going to do that, because I don’t need another lecture from Mom.

So I just take a loud breath and go through the door. I take my seat near the back at a table by myself as usual, not caring about how much noise I make. I see a few heads turning towards me, but I ignore them.

“Okay class, today we’re going to be talking about the circulatory system,” Coach Everheart begins. As if we didn’t already learn this shit in 7th grade science class.

“The circulatory system is basically how blood travels throughout your body,” he explains. I sure would like to drown this classroom in blood. Fuck all of these assholes.

“All blood flow travels to and from the heart,” he rambles on. There’s nothing in my heart right now but burning rage.

I mean, why would anything else be there? A lot of people think that everyone is out to get them, and those people are usually crazy. But I think that I actually have a pretty legitimate case here. Let’s review the facts.

My classmates are out to get me. The teachers and school staff are out to get me. It’s a miracle that the fucking government isn’t out to get me. If we hadn’t done what we did to Pavia, my parents might be being dragged into a phony kidnapping trial right now. LITERAL DEMONS are out to get me. And they are doing so extremely aggressively, to the point of spying on my friends and I and possibly planning to target our families. SATAN HIMSELF is most likely out to get me at this point. He’s out to get a lot of people, but I’m pretty sure he’s literally out to get ME SPECIFICALLY. Fuck my life. Fuck everything.

Nothing to do but to just keep on scribbling notes, though. I’ll get a rare moment of happiness tonight, that is if that doesn’t somehow get fucked up too. But for now, just gotta get through the daily business of misery.

As usual, Ashley and I meet briefly in between our respective biology classes.

“Hey. Hanging in there?” She asks me.

“Yeah. I’m staying focused as well as I can,” I reply. “I’m looking forward to tonight.” I can’t help but to grin to myself as I think about it.

“Me too.”

It’s then that I notice it. Something seems a little weird about her today. Something about the look in her eyes…

“Ashley... are you upset about something?” I ask timidly.

“Well, I’m actually upset about almost everything,” she answers bluntly.

I bite my lip nervously. That’s not really an answer I particularly wanted to hear. “Awh… Just please, don’t get into any more fights, okay?” I urge her.

“I’ll try,” she says flatly. She gives me a quick hug, and then is off to her next class. I make my way into the room for mine…

After walking away from biology, something unexpected happens as I am approaching the staircase. A vaguely familiar looking boy with a lean build and glasses makes eye contact with me, after seemingly having waited in that spot.

“Hey, Ashley,” he says awkwardly.

I don’t say anything. I just look at him.

“Um… you don’t know me, but we’re in the same English class…”

“What do you want?” I ask. My next class is on the other side of campus.

“I, umm, do you… would you like to go to Homecoming tomorrow with me?”

He immediately recoils slightly at the look I give him.

“Is this some kind of fucking joke?” I ask.

“Uhhh… Noo? I’m being genuine…”

I’m not buying that. As if what’s going on between Zoe and I isn’t already known about school-wide. “Please, just… get out of my way. Now,” I tell him.

I am satisfied to see that he gives me a fearful look and does so, and I head to sixth period. Some people think they’re so funny…

It’s much later in the day. All of our classes and rehearsals are done, and the sun is setting. Ashley and I are going out for a while, as we had planned the previous day. It’s traditional for dates to happen at restaurants or movie theaters, but Ashley thought it would be nice for us to get away from other people for a while. So instead, we’re walking to a nearby park. It’s only about a ten minute walk away from our house.

“Um… Ashley? Are we even supposed to be out here this late?” I ask her as we arrive at the park.

“Who cares? What are they gonna do?” She answers. And with that, I suppose the matter is settled.

The park is pretty simple; it’s a river with a dirt path running alongside it. Still, it looks serene and beautiful at night. We walk past the river, our reflections showing in the water by the moonlight. On the other side of the river, we can see fireflies flying about. Unusually for this time of year, a number of pretty pink flowers float at the surface of the water.

I try to figure out what she’s thinking- but it’s hard to do. Sometimes trying it read her is like trying to read a brick wall.

“What were you upset about earlier today?” I ask her tentatively.

“Oh…” she shakes her head. “Honestly, it could’ve been anything. I didn’t exactly sleep the best last night, so I’ve been irritable. Something about the idea that I might have to wake up at any time and fuck someone up doesn’t facilitate a great mindset for sleeping.”

This is more or less what I guessed. Now that she seems much calmer than she did earlier today, I decide to press the topic.

“I know… I heard you up at 2 AM,” I say. “You were in the bathroom for a while.”

“Well, sometimes it helps to bring my hormones into better balance, if you know what I mean.”

“I… actually don’t know what you mean,” I admit. What on earth could she be talking about?

“Don’t worry about that, then. Wait, why were you up at 2 AM?”

“I… I’ve been having nightmares recently,” I confess.

She turns and locks eyes with me. “Let’s sit down for a moment.”

I nod in agreement.

She walks me over to a small patch of trees right by the river side. In the middle of the trees are a small wooden bench, as well as a large rock that it looks like someone might be able to sit on. We sit down on the bench, and Ashley takes my hand.

“Do you mind sharing about the nightmares you’ve been having?” she asks.

“I don’t mind.” I take a deep breath. “They’re mostly the same thing over and over again. The police come to our house in the middle of the night, break down my door and put me in handcuffs. Then, they take me back to my parents, who yell things at me and tell me I’m never allowed to leave the house ever again.

“Last night, it ended differently than usual. Some doctor came into the house and said that there was only one cure for my condition. He got out a hammer and drove a nail straight into my head… and that’s when I woke up.”

Ashley seems to be looking deeply into my eyes. “Hmm. That’s pretty frightening.”

“It is,” I say. I close my eyes for a moment and focus the warmth of her hand. Then, I suddenly get curious about something.

I open my eyes. “Have you ever had recurring nightmares?” I ask her.

Ashley takes a deep breath, and stretches out her posture a little, extending her relatively long legs.

“I’m not sure if this exactly qualifies as a nightmare, but… In seventh grade, I did have this really odd recurring dream,” she explains. “It'd start with me being high up in a tree by the river. Aiko, my ex-best friend, would be with me. I’d tell her I wanted to dive into the river. However, right before I would jump, she would shake the branch I was jumping off of, and I’d stumble and fall straight to the ground. But I wouldn’t actually hit the ground. I’d just sort of fall through blackness for a while. It was very reminiscent of that one scene from Toy Story 2, when Woody thinks that Andy is going to throw him away because his arm is torn.

“Anyways, after falling for a while, I’d somehow end up being at our church. It’d be like the first time I ever went, the day we met. Except I could somehow manipulate time, and sort of float around through space without being bound by the walls. I kept on saying things to people to see how they’d react, and then just rewinding time if they got mad at me.

“These dreams never ended the same way. For example, one time, the dream ended with both of your parents loudly talking about how I was such a fine young lady and I’d be a great friend for you, all the while you just sat there and looked at me with a terrified expression. There was a different time that the dream ended with my parents whisking me out of church, because apparently my mom was pregnant with a new child, or something like that.

“However, there was one ending that’s always stuck in my memory more than any other. One time, I walked up to you, and suddenly the church’s organ played a really loud C Major chord. I pulled a grenade out of my pocket, and said, ‘666 is no longer alone; he’s getting out the marrow in your backbone.’ Then, I pulled the pin, and there was a brief flash of the explosion before I woke up.”

Wow. This utterly surreal description leaves me very confused.

“What you said to me in the dream… what does that mean?” I ask her.

“Oh, it’s a line from a song I like. I have no clue why I said it then, though.”

For a few minutes, we sit there in silence, looking out upon the still water. To my surprise, she eventually starts talking again without being prompted.

“It reminds me of another dream I had near the start of this year. Us two and a bunch of random girls from band were walking through the woods on some sort of field trip. At one point, they all just randomly turned around, pushed me to the ground, and started repeatedly kicking me until I started bleeding this weird, glittery purple substance that stained my skin. You didn’t kick me, but you also didn’t stop them. You just kind of looked at me sadly. Anyways, the other girls then pushed me into a hole in the ground, and then just left me there. The dream cut to me being inside of a cage at a dog kennel. My parents were outside the cage, looking in at me and trying to figure out if I was actually their daughter or not. I tried to tell them I was, but I couldn’t talk, so I had to resort to making hand gestures at them.”

“Ashley… why are your dreams so weird?” I ask, not able to help myself.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I never eat sugary food before bedtime or anything.”

Another moment passes. The sun is gone now; the night is out. I finally decide to say it.

“I know it’s probably stupid, but… what if my dream happens in real life? Or something like it, at least?” I ask.

“I promise you, that’s not going to happen. You haven’t done anything wrong. The police aren’t going to come hunt you down and put you in cuffs.”

“But… remember what almost happened to Nova? Couldn’t my parents do that?”

She turns her eyes up and starts looking at the sky. “Well, they could try. But the cases are very different here, so they probably won’t. You’re legally considered a runaway until my parents are able to get legal custody over you. So if your parents wanted to make you come home by force, they probably would’ve done it already.”

This confuses me again. I start unconsciously knocking my knees together. “That doesn’t make any sense. They told the pastor that they wanted me home. Why won’t they just come get me, if they can already do so?”

“To put it in plain terms, because your parents are full of shit. My theory is, they’re not as concerned about where you are as much as they are about saving face at this point. If they came over to get you back, that would mean they’d have to admit that they did something wrong. Nobody in the community would buy that a goody-two-shoes girl from a rich family with no prior disciplinary issues ran away from home one day for no reason. By spreading this narrative that you’re actually being coerced into staying with us, or being indoctrinated into some sort of weird cult, that gives them the ability to absolve themselves of responsibility.”

This analysis is very disheartening. Unfortunately, her theory makes way too much sense to ignore, given how my parents usually are.

“So you’re saying that… they’re not gonna come get me, because… they don’t want me. They just say that they want me back so they don’t look like bad guys.”

“Essentially, yes. They’re not trying to get you home. They’re just trying to stir up a big fuss so they can tell the others that they tried.”

“But what about that stuff Collin said about… conversion therapy? Is that just part of their story?”

She pauses for a moment before answering, now turning her head down and staring at the water. “You know… I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I have to wonder if they’re plotting something, now that that option is available to them…”

Part of the wave of terror I feel must have shown on my face, because she quickly says, “But we’re not gonna let that happen, no matter what. My parents are proud second amendment supporters, after all.”

This makes me feel a little better. “You’re really going to try and protect me, no matter what?”

“Absolutely. Even if I have to actually kidnap you…”

Suddenly, she swoops down on me and grabs me around the waist. “I got you. There’s no getting away…”

“Eek! Somebody help me!” I say, giggling.

She pulls me towards her, so that I’m sitting in her lap. She’s looking down at me with an odd look; it’s like an intense expression, but also somehow fun at the same time. “Nobody’s coming for you. You’re mine,” she says. My face feels really hot for some reason…

For a while, we just sit together like that. She starts brushing my hair with her fingers again, and I just sit there and enjoy it, melting into her.

After a while, she stops, gently lowers her hand to my shoulder, and then sighs. “In all seriousness. If your parents were to actually try something like that... We’d be looking for an unconventional solution to our problems,” she explains.

I gulp. “You mean… going back to that strange world?”

“Yes. I’d really rather not bring you there, but we may have no choice.”

Something seems weird to me about the way she says this.

“Why don’t you want me to go in?” I ask.

“Because, Zoe… That place is dangerous, and it can be extremely scary. I would rather not have anything happen to you.”

“Ashley… I don’t want anything to happen to you either,” I tell her. “I get so sick with worry every time you guys go in there…”

“Don’t worry about us. We can take care of yourselves.”

I shake my head. “Ashley, you don’t get it. Whenever you’re over there, I can’t think about anything clearly. I’m always just so anxious that you won’t come back, or that you’ll come back hurt.”

She puts her arm around me. “Zoe…”

“If it’s what needs to be done… I’ll go with you guys in there,” I state. “I know it’ll be scary… but I’d rather be there with you, helping you. I- will try my best to do so.”

Ashley seems troubled. She closes her eyes and puts her free hand on her face for a while. But then, she says, “You’re a great girl, Zoe.”

I blush. “Th-thank you,” I say. “Ashley… I really want you to know that you don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

“I’m not doing it alone,” she counters. “I have Ted, and Anja, and Nova…”

“I don’t mean just that. I want to know when you’re hurting… I want to be here for you.”

“Oh, Zoe. You have enough woes right now without also having to deal with mine…”

I shake my head at her again. “No, Ashley. That’s not how this is supposed to work. We’re in this together.”

We lock eyes again. She puts her hand back into my hair. “I love you, Zoe,” she says.

“I love you too, Ashley.” I feel a sudden rush of emotion and latch onto her with both arms.

She embraces me back, and lowers our head so that our lips touch. I feel something odd… like a sort of electric shock going through my body. I pull away in surprise.

I look up to her, to see a rare smile on her face. “That one was good. You’re getting better at this,” she says.

I smile back at her. We lean in to kiss again.

And that’s what we did for quite a while. I don’t know how long it was that we did. It felt like it could’ve been thirty seconds, or it could’ve been two hours.

At some point, we are unfortunately interrupted by a voice from the darkness.

“You two?” It says. It’s a man’s voice, that I know I’ve heard before. “What are you doing out here?”

I jolt and pull away, while instinctively clinging harder to Ashley and looking out in the direction of the voice. I’m surprised to see that it’s none other than Mr. Castro, our band director.

“I might ask you the same question,” Ashley replies, sheltering me with her arms and coming off of as surprisingly standoffish.

Mr. Castro gives us a strange look. “No kids should be out here this late at night. You ought to head home.”

For a moment, I wonder if Ashley is going to argue with him. Ultimately, she stands up, pulling me up as she does.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Don’t want to make Mom and Dad worry,” she says. I’m relieved that she isn’t trying to fight him.

“Alright. Have a good evening, you two,” he says.

So the two of us take off into the darkness. As we are departing, I look behind us at Mr. Castro, who is standing around as if he’s waiting for something.

“What is he doing out here?” I ask Ashley curiously.

“Well, we can probably scratch off ‘Klan meeting’ from the list of theories,” she says. “It’s for the best, anyways. We better get some sleep tonight. Big day tomorrow.”

I giggle, knowing her well enough to know she’s being sarcastic.

The school scheduled her to do her detention during the Homecoming Dance. They probably thought this would serve as an especially harsh punishment, but that sort of backfired. Ashley assured me that she had “No interest in going to some stupid ****ing dance anyway.” Since she’s going to the school anyway, I’m going to go ahead and hang out at the dance since Anja and Nova are going.

At about 1 AM, I hear someone opening my door. Thought it’s almost pitch black, and I can barely make out Zoe’s figure moving towards the bed. She seems to be trembling slightly

“I’m awake,” I tell her, slightly hoarse. “What’s up?”

“I had another nightmare. Is it okay if… I join you for a little bit?”

I shift over a little in my bed and roll back the covers the covers for her. She climbs in and snuggles up right beside me, putting her head on my chest. As usual.

I wonder if my parents would be angry if they found us in bed together. Ah, who am I kidding? I don’t really care. This is honestly pretty nice. I just…