“Sounded bad?” she said. “You—you’ve been inside my head. Without my permission. Without me knowing. That’s—”

She sounded so disgusted, so betrayed. We both just stood there, ten feet apart, crying and barely looking at each other.

“And your brother—oh my god—” Realization dawned on her face. “Your dad! I’m not crazy, at Thanksgiving, he really did move something with his mind.”

“I’m so sorry.” I sniffed. “I never meant to—I couldn’t control it for so long and then I just—I wanted to feel closer to you—”

“That’s why you were asking about my abuela, why you asked me to show you how to make pozole, because you saw me, with her, in my dream—”

“You seemed so sad after we woke up and I thought if you talked about her, if we cooked the food she taught you … I don’t know, I thought it would make you miss her less. Or that it would feel good to share that with me—”

“It did feel good, Rose,” she cried. “I want to share that kind of stuff with you. But it has to be my choice.”

“I know—”

“I think you should leave,” she said, crossing her arms again, closing herself off to me.

“Em,” I whispered. “Please—”

“I just—I need some space, okay?”

“Okay.” I nodded. I hadn’t respected her boundaries up until now, so I had to get this right. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Rose, wait—”

I spun around, hope beating against my chest.

“Here.” She stretched out her arm. “I think you should have this.”

The shell necklace was sitting in her palm.

“After all,” she said, “you basically pulled it out of a dream, right?”

“Em—”

“Just go.”

So I took the necklace and I left. I got on the bus, my ears ringing, and walked into the house and up to my room like a zombie, not paying attention to any of the calls from the kitchen from my family asking if that was me.

GOD, I really was falling in love with Emily. And I had this idea in my head that I wasn’t allowed to, not fully, until I told her the truth. But what a lie that was. My heart wasn’t listening to my head and I fell just the same.

I can smell dinner from downstairs but I’m going straight to the dreamworld.

LATER

It’s the middle of the night, but I want to put the dream I was just in in amber and hold it up to the light and look at it forever.