A Very Merry Superhero Wedding (Adventures of Lewis and Clarke) (10 page)

RUNNING and running. Monsters in the darkness. Chasing her. Running.

Mom screaming. Monsters in the dark.

A dark corner with a mirror. Hiding from the monsters. Looking in the mirror.

Monsters in the mirror.

She was the monster.

Tori fought against the monsters in the dream, fought to wake up, fought the darkness and the fear. She kicked and kicked, finally realizing only blankets trapped her legs.

She fumbled for the bedside lamp. Breathing heavily and blinking against the light, she told herself it was just a dream. There were no monsters in her room. No monster under the bed.

She began to cry and rolled into a ball on her side. She hadn’t had that dream in years. What brought it back? Shivers ran down her spine.

Still crying, she reached for her phone. She texted Hayley
,
you awake?

Beginning to shiver, she pulled the covers back up and wrapped them tightly around her. She hated feeling so alone after a nightmare. She wanted to go get in bed with Lexie like they used to in bad times past, but Lexie had to go to work today. She shouldn’t wake her.

God, help me not to feel so alone.

She opened the texting feature on her phone again. No reply from Hayley. Probably asleep at 3:49 a.m.

She stared at the list of names on the list of recent texts. She shouldn’t wake him. Did he turn his phone to vibrate at night? Everyone did, right?

This is what Aunt Flo meant — she didn’t know Joe well enough to know if he slept with his phone nearby, if he turned the ringer off at night or not, if he was a light enough sleeper to wake up at the ding of an incoming text.

Tori buried her new sobs in her pillow. She didn’t want to wake her sister. Though she also hoped Lexie would miraculously hear her and come in and hold her until the fear left and the tears stopped.

She stopped crying enough to type a text to Joe
,
you awake?

Please be awake, she begged him from three-quarters of a mile away.

But no one answered. No one came. And she lay alone in her bed until she cried herself back to sleep.

When Tori awoke again, it was 8:52 a.m. She couldn’t believe she’d slept so long. Thankfully, the last few hours held weird dreams, but not nightmares.

Her eyes felt gritty and her mouth was dry. She reached for the glass of water she always kept by the bed. As she drank, she heard the light whirring sound of her phone vibrating on a soft surface. It took a minute to figure out where it was coming from — under the covers. She’d fallen asleep with it in her hand.

She pressed the middle button and saw that she’d received texts from Hayley, Lexie, and Joe. She flopped against her pillow and read them, rubbing her sore eyes gently.

Lexie teased her for still being asleep, and wanted to know if Tori would be eating there tonight.

Joe apologized for being asleep when she texted him, asked if she was all right, and said he missed her and loved her.

Tori ran her finger over the words. She loved him, too. So much.

Another text from Hayley flashed in and Tori read four from her. The last one said
,
Wake up sleepyhead, I’m walking to your door.

A knock on the front door made her jump and then chuckle a little. She got up, pulled on her warm fluffy robe and sheepskin slippers, and let Hayley in.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I called and asked Brie to hold down the fort. She is turning out to be the best employee I’ve ever hired.”

Hayley stomped fresh snow from her boots, took off her outerwear and followed Tori into the kitchen.

“Hot chocolate?” Tori asked.

“Sure, or we could go out to breakfast, my treat,” Hayley said.

Tori thought about it for a moment. It was the sort of fun, carefree activity she should be enjoying two days before her wedding. “If you don’t mind,” she started to say, and then she started crying.

“Oh, Tori,” Hayley said in the exact right tone of voice. She came over and wrapped Tori in a big hug. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Tori tried to talk, but she couldn’t. Images from her nightmare scuttered through her head. She shivered and hugged Hayley harder.

It took a minute for her to get hold of herself enough to tell Hayley about her nightmare. She couldn’t say any more. She didn’t want to tell he
r
wh
y
she sometimes dreamed she was a monster. There were some secrets she kept close, even from Hayley, her best friend since elementary school.

It was only Dixie’s lies and shaming that kept the truth of the shrink and meds from Hayley when she lived with Tori’s family during their senior year of high school. The last thing Tori needed now was for Hayley to decide she was a freak and no longer worthy of friendship.

Hayley looked around and pulled a paper towel off the roll. She handed it to Tori and pushed her into a kitchen chair. Then she got another paper towel, wet it with warm water, and handed that to Tori as well.

“I’m sure this is perfectly normal nerves,” Hayley assured her. “Remember how Sarah cried before she got married? And Margie told us that funny story of how she cried so hard the night before, she still had hiccups the next day at the wedding?”

Tori nodded and tried to chuckle. It came out more like a grunt. She gently wiped her face with the wet paper towel. That felt better.

“It was just a bad dream,” Hayley continued. “Let me guess. You had a fight with your mom yesterday, and you ate way
,
wa
y
too much at both parents’ houses.”

Tori nodded.

Hayley got up and put some water in the electric kettle. “I told Bull to get you one of these for a wedding present,” she said with a smile. She turned it on and rummaged through the tea canister. “Then I told him if they were on sale, he could get me one for Christmas. I love this thing.”

Tori smiled at her friend and patted her face with the dry paper towel. Hayley always made things seem not so bad. Of course, Tori’s troubles weren’t nearly as awful as the things Hayley had gone through, but Hayley hardly ever talked about her past and rarely complained.

Usually Tori did the same, but it seemed like everyone was stressing her out. “No hot chocolate?” she asked. It occurred to her that Hayley was heating water not milk.

Hayley turned, hand on hip, and raised her eyebrows. “You really think you need more sugar in your system right now?”

Tori giggled for real this time. Ah, that felt better.

“Aunt Flo said some terrible things yesterday and Mom didn’t stop her.”

Hayley shook her head and muttered something under her breath.

“Not just about me, but Lexie, too. Even about my cousin, Jessie.”

The kettle button popped and Hayley poured hot water into both mugs. Then she covered each mug with a small plate.

“If I’d been there, I’m sure she wouldn’t have left me out.” Hayley pulled two eggs from the fridge, and got out a frying pan.

Tori raised an eyebrow wryly and nodded. Hayley became one of the family in more ways than one when she came to live with them. Aunt Flo had decided she was fair game, too.

Hayley cut holes in the middle of two pieces of bread, buttered both sides, and lay them in the frying pan. She cracked an egg into each hole, then checked the tea.

“I’m not really hungry,” Tori said. All the bad dreams and crying had made her feel a little sick to her stomach. That reminded her of the queasy feeling she had arguing with her mom. She got up and took the mug of English Breakfast tea, and doctored it with milk and honey before sitting back down at the table.

“Your long silence is making me uncomfortable,” she told Hayley.

“Sorry.” Hayley sent her a quick smile. “Just trying to figure out what to say that doesn’t make things worse.”

“Worse as in trying not to call my family members a-holes,” Tori half-laughed, “or worse as in trying not to agree with everyone that I shouldn’t get married right now?”

Hayley flipped the eggs and toast, and pulled two plates from the cabinet. She didn’t smile.

Tori felt her stomach drop. Hayley didn’t think she should get married either?

“Eggy in a basket for two,” Hayley said, setting the plates down. She got two forks out of the drawer behind her and sat next to Tori. She took a bite of her breakfast, chewed, smiled, and swallowed. “I was so hungry. You know I can say the wrong thing when I’m cranky, and I was getting close to cranky-hungry.”

Tori just stared at her, waiting for the bad news.

Hayley gestured. “Eat.”

Tori sighed. “Talk.”

Hayley looked down at her plate. “Okay, if you eat. You’ll feel better.”

Tori took a bite and closed her eyes for a moment. No one made eggy in a basket like Hayley. She took another bite. Maybe she did feel a little better.

“Pinky-swear honesty?”

Tori nodded. If her best friend couldn’t be honest with her, how could she figure things out?

“Ever since you introduced me to Joe, I haven’t stopped being shocked. I mea
n
shocke
d
, Tori,” Hayley said. “How in the world did you two find each other? To only live a few blocks apart for years and then suddenly run into each other? And then
,
ba
m
, you fall in love just like that. And then you decide to get married a few weeks later?”

Hayley shook her head and chewed another bite. “You two are like a romantic comedy. I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, but it hasn’t. And I’m beginning to think it won’t.”

Tori looked up, feeling hope wash away the sick feeling. “But Mom is positive things will be easier if we wait to get married. Do you think so?”

Hayley shrugged. “You know how we used to laugh at those old re-runs o
f
The Love Boa
t
, about how people would fall in love in seven days? Did you know Kelly’s boyfriend’s dad did that? Apparently, he and the woman he married two weeks after they met have been married for something like four years. So who’s to say what’s the right or wrong way to do this?”

Tori cut a corner of the toast and a piece of the middle of the egg and put them in her mouth together. It was true, no two courtship stories were the same.

“A couple weeks ago,” she told Hayley, “Stacy who runs the youth group at church told me that when she and her husband Gary were dating, they broke up and got together again seven times in five years. Now they’ve been married for eleven years.” She looked at Hayley and they both shrugged.

“So who’s to say?” Hayley asked.

“But not everyone who gets together, stays together. What if my mom is right and things would be easier if we waited?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, Tori,” Hayley said, pointing her fork at Tori, “but I’ve seen you two together. You really think you can make it until next summer without giving in? And how are you going to feel about this magical love you have if yo
u
d
o
end up moving the wedding date up because you’re pregnant?”

Tori thought about Friday night. No matter how strongly she believed in her choice to wait, she wasn’t sure she could make it six more months. “Not being able to keep our hands off each other isn’t much of a good reason to get married.”

Hayley tilted her head. “Is that why you’re getting married?”

Tori shook her head firmly.

“So what’s really bothering you?”

She thought about it for a moment. Thought about yesterday’s conversations with various family members on both sides. Thought about her nightmare and the other bad dreams and what they might mean.

She chose her words carefully, not wanting Hayley to know about the shrink and the meds any more than she wanted Joe to know. “What if there is something wrong with me? Something that would be bad for our relationship? What if our previous pinky-swear to never get married was wiser than we realized?”

Hayley finished her last bite of breakfast, staring at a space on the far wall. “I worry all the time that we’re broken, permanently broken, you and me and Lexie.”

Tori nodded, running her fork lightly over the designs on the plate. That’s why they’d made those promises years ago, and she and Lexie had renewed their vow to remain single when Lexie’s boyfriend Rodney left her.

“So why do I feel this overwhelming certainty,” she asked quietly, “that I can be whole again with Joe? It’s not that I think I need him in order to be okay.” She tried to find the right words. “It’s more that when I’m around him, I feel like I can conquer the world. He’s big and strong and he makes me feel safe, bu
t
I
feel stronger around him. Even when I’m not around him, really. I feel like…I don’t know how to say it…like I’m th
e
real m
e
when we’re together. The “me” God had in mind when he made me. I feel beautiful and strong and confident.”