But I’m not exactly my sharpest these days. It’s possible my thumb slipped on the key fob.
The drive home is only ten minutes, but it feels like it takes forever as the shadows dance in my periphery. I don’t know how to stay both awake and sane, so I’ve learned to accept that at a certain point in my bouts with insomnia, the shadows take on minds of their own and do what they will in the night. The branches seem to reach out as if they want to swallow my car. The potholes in the road look unfathomably deep, as if they lead to a whole other world that would chew me up and spit me back out—much like this world has done.
I blink and scrub at my eyes while I try to get a grip. I should have driven home twenty minutes earlier, so I could be at home and not swerving on the road like this.
When a car approaches in the lane next to me, I slow down, wincing at the headlights that are far too bright. I veer away from oncoming traffic, my heart hammering so loud; I can feel my pulse drumming behind my eyes.
I shiver when I feel the whisper of something touching my ear. I want to scratch it, but that would give credence to my creeping madness. It’s a battle I fight all the time—proving to myself that I haven’t gone crazy. I am buried in this dinky town far away from anything that might prove interesting or terrifying, so my burgeoning insanity is at least kept quiet.
My car veers again. Even though I am going at a crawl, it still spooks me.
Suddenly a voice slices through the madness I have fended off for far too long. “My gosh, I don’t want to die like this. Pull over, dummy.”
I shout incoherently, slamming on the brakes because the voice I heard is simultaneously foreign and familiar. It can’t be Avet.
And yet, when I turn around, there he is, sitting up and sprawled across the backseat of my car. His crooked grin stretches across his face, daring me to yell at him or smile at the sight of his charming mug. He’s strong yet lean, despite his ridiculously juvenile diet of breakfast cereal and gas station food. Though we are both thirty, he looks the part, while I look ninety, if the bags under my eyes are any indication.
“Avet? What are you… How did you…”
It’s finally happened; I’ve actually tipped the scales of insanity, because there is no way Avet would be here. We went from inseparable to forever apart three years ago.
I stumble out of my car and stagger across the empty road, not stopping until my car is on one side of the pavement and I am on the other.
Avet emerges from the back of the car, his hands raised. He never surrenders, except to me, apparently. “Keran, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He grimaces, looking like a little kid posing as a grown man. “Or maybe I did, hiding in the backseat like that. I don’t know why I thought it would be funny.”
I press my hands to my temples, confused as to how it could be real that Avet is standing before me, when for so long I have worked to make my peace with never seeing my best friend again.
Yet there he is: short, dark hair with a slight inch-long wave on top, an angular jaw that matches the slant of his nose, and a leonine build that’s ready for anything.
My voice comes out unsteady. “You’re not real. I’m dreaming again.”
Avet tilts his head to the side. I know my words hurt him, but he muscles through my denial and gives me a caddish wink. “Do you often dream of me? Does it go a little something like this?” He does his attempt at a sexy club dance, shaking his butt because his sense of humor never graduated from high school—not unlike him.
I won’t play along with his juvenile demeanor. This isn’t real. He’s not real. I’m sleeping. I don’t usually get to interact with the plots of my dreams. Nothing I do affects anything anymore. I’ve long since made my peace with that.
Avet takes a cautious step forward, dropping his dance and donning a more serious expression. “I know it’s been three years, but I can’t have changed that much. It’s still me, brother.” Compassion glints in his green eyes. “I’ve been looking for you for the better part of a week. Never thought I would find you in a boring little nowhere place like this. Do you really sit alone in restaurants reading The Hawker? That’s sad, Keran.”
I don’t like that he saw that. I don’t like that he’s here. Or maybe I’m so glad to see him that I cannot fathom something good like this lasting beyond a fragment of a moment. “I’m going to wake up soon,” I warn him. “I don’t want to see you.”
Avet jerks as if I’ve slapped him, but if he is truly Avet, then he will understand.
Maybe I’m not dreaming, because Avet chews on his lower lip, measuring his response before it comes. “You’re not sleeping, Keran.” He shakes his head. I’m not sure which of us he is more disappointed in—himself or me. “You shouldn’t have left me. My draughts were helping you sleep without your awful dreams. You’re exactly as I expected you to be after this long without relief--you look haunted, brother.”
And I truly am. I have no rebuttal because whether I am awake or asleep, the shadows rarely leave me.
I swallow hard, daring bravery because at this point, life is either about to get better, or it is about to end with me drooling in a corner, unable to remember my own name. “I don’t want to see you because I know I shouldn’t have left. I didn’t want to be a trapper anymore, but I shouldn’t have left you. Every day, I worry your stupid mouth has gotten you into some sort of trouble you can’t talk your way out of.”
Avet grins at me, looking every bit the clown he’s always been. “Never doubt my charm.” He points to me as he takes another step forward, his hands still raised. “You look like you’ve taken on the whole of Bel’s children without me and lost the battle ten times over. It’s a good thing I came back when I did. You need me.”
I scoff, shooting Avet a wry look. “Is that so? I need someone to push us into battles we have no business fighting? I need someone to fill my brain with delusions that we would never fall?”
Avet’s defiance flashes. “Tell me, did we fall, or did you quit? I am still out here, walking the trapper’s path.”
I point to the pavement between us. “And it led you here?” The cool air hits my body, raising the hairs on my arms. “If you are real, then tell me: why are you here?”
Avet Astghik steps into the moonlight. The glow overhead slices through the shadows to highlight the scars I remember well, and showcases several that are newer.
I should have protected him.