Catastrophizing won’t solve anything! I scold myself mentally, the voice in my head barely breaking through the sound of blood pumping in my ears. I rub my palms together, feeling the rough grains of dirt, the dew, and the sharp grass sticking to my palms. It feels so real.

But no matter how real it feels, it can’t be real. That’s what happens when you have two parents who swear up and down by the scientific method. It rubs off on you.

“Sleepwalking…or dreaming,” I reason, dusting off my jeans. That’s something I can wrap my head around. Maybe hallucinations are a side effect of the antirejection meds.

Reaching back, I gingerly touch the back of my head, which hit the ground hard when I fell, and wince, feeling around the inflamed skin, checking my fingers.

No blood. Good.

Or bad?

Is this what being in a coma is like? Had I drifted off to sleep and something went completely wrong, and now I’m in the hospital, hooked up to dozens of tubes, fighting for my life while my mom and dad decide to keep me on or take me off life support?

Oh God.

Oh God.

Oh God.

“Uh, hey?” a voice says to the left of me. I see him in my peripheral vision, waving at me as he walks around the front of a white car that’s just cruised into the driveway.

He’s dressed in a normal outfit: a white undershirt with a pair of jeans and boots. It’s a simple look, and he wears it well.

His shaggy blond hair falls over his bright blue eyes, and he brushes it back in a nonchalant way that tells me he does this maybe a dozen times a day.

But something feels…off.

“You lost?” he asks, throwing his leather jacket over his shoulder like he’s a half-price James Dean.

How do I answer that? Honestly? Because that answer would be: Yes. I’m completely freakin’ lost.

But instead, I turn back to the house, willing it to look familiar. Hoping I’ll wake up from whatever bizarro dream this is.

But nothing happens.

I turn back to the stranger and open my mouth, close it, and open it again. He simply grins, his arms now crossed over his chest, waiting patiently with an open, if slightly confused, smile on his face.

“Where am I?”

“You took all that time to think up something to say, and that’s what you settle on?” He shakes his head and grins. “Boston, Massachusetts.”

He’s from around here, I think. Says it like all other natives. Baws-ton. Good. That’s at least something I can work with.