Bridget Fifan was the very first friend I made in Portsmouth. We’d become inseparable over the past couple years, but I could still never quite figure out why someone like Bree would want to hang out with me. She was just so full of life in a careless way. She had the kind of fiery, curly red hair that should only exist in Disney movies. Her hazel eyes always seemed to shimmer with glee and mischief, and her face was dusted with freckles that everyone said made her adorable. She was as loud and quirky as her Goodwill clothes, and being the de facto leader of the school’s ‘thespians’ (as she liked to call them) came naturally to her. On top of all that, she had the annoying habit of being crazy smart in just everything—nothing seemed too difficult for Bree, not even dealing with the taunts or catcalls that her edging-toward-marshmallow curves occasionally earned her. Instead she could just smile and laugh and flick her hair at whatever life threw her way. She was a perfect friend, the life of the party—

Being friends with Bridget Fifan could really make a girl feel inadequate. Not that that was her fault! Bree would never do anything to put a person down. I just couldn’t help it. Bree was just so much… more than me.

I sighed deeply. “I had the weirdest dream last night.”

She lifted a ginger eyebrow. “Was it the one with the guy in the panda mask again? Because that was kinda wicked hilarious.”

“It wasn’t funny, Bree,” I snapped softly. “It was just… weird.” And nice, I thought suddenly, surprising myself.

“It was that kind of dream, then?” Bree questioned, and took a sip of her pop. She set it down on the step and gave me a look. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d rather not hear about—”

“No, it wasn’t like that!” I ejaculated exasperatedly. “There was this boy, and—”

“And no offense, Andi, but I think you should probably keep this to yourself,” she said, her face reddening. “I’m glad you had a, er, ‘weird dream,’ but it’s not like you’re the only one. It’s totally normal. So don’t worry about it, huh?”

“No, you don’t understand!” I exclaimed irritably. “Just let me explain, okay?”

Bree sighed in resignation and took another sip of her pop as I told her everything I remembered from the vivid dream. The eldritch stone ruins, the thick blanket of fog, the creature in the deep, the godlike boy who had saved me from it and the crashing of the waves that punctuated every moment.

“And then I was falling, everything crumbling away… and I was home,” I said softly.