Chapter 15 [KRIS POV]

I’m at Aimee’s door, because she’s my friend, and I feel bad. Plus I need to get my mind of Ana. Last time I saw Aimee I was a dick so I have to apologize. I should probably apologize to Kale, too. He did save my a*s. But Aimee is more important to me. I knock on the door. Knockknockknockknockknock, knock knock. Then I wait, and wait. Like forever… Okay, like 5 minutes. Some random girl opens the door, only wearing a T-shirt. She has long brown hair, straight across bangs.

“Hello? What do you need?” She says.

“I’m looking for an Aimee. Is she here?” I ask. The girl looks a little lost for a second, almost confused.

“Oh… Um, maybe.” She says, “Is an Aimee here?” She yells back into the house. A girl with pink hair walks over. When she lifts her head I see its Aimee.

“That would be me.” She says, bags under her eyes.

“Okay, well, Aimee, this man seems to want you.” She tells her, me watching.

I bet they hooked up. Oh, that would be so hot, I can picture it. Just super drunk and making out, then bangs girl starts to-

“Kris?”

“Yes!”

“What do you want?” Aimee asks. Both of the girls look at me, weirdly.

“Well… uh, first of all, who are you?”

“Ruby Tompkins, who are you?” She asks. What I meant was why she was there… but… okay, that’s good, too I guess.

“Kristofferson Bishop, thank you very much, but please, please call me Kris.” I plead. She laughs.

“Did we… do it last night, Ruby?”

“Probably, I don’t really remember, Aimee. It’s Aimee, right?”

“Yes, Aimee.”

“Well I should go… Nice hooking up, maybe.”

“Yeah, see you…?” Aimee says, awkwardly. Ruby walks away, and gets into some car.

“So,” Aimee says, “Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to apologize. I was being a dick.” I say. She sighs.

“Okay fine, come in.”

Then we talk for a long a*s time. She accepts my apology. She gets to talking more about Skye. Her eyes, they light up when she’s taking about her. She tells me about how they met, there inside jokes, everything. After a while, I stop her.

“Aimee, I have to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Are you okay with your death? Like, have you accepted it?”

“I haven’t. But I need to ask you something now.” She responds.

“Anything.” I say.

“I was wondering if you could tell Skye that I was sorry. Like, in a dream.”

“Of course I will, Aimee. What all do you want me to say?”

“Thank you so much Kris!” she says, and hugs me. “Here, I’ll write her a note, and you can read it to her.”

“Sounds good,” I smile, “Just tell me when you’re done!”         

“Great! You’re amazing, Kris!” She says, and hugs me again. I see she has tears in her eyes.

“Oh come on, you aren’t going to cry on me, are you?” I ask. She hits me in the stomach, hard.

“Shut up!” She says laughing. I laugh, too. Then I hear something fall off the shelf in Aimee’s room.

“S**t!” I hear a fairly familiar voice mumble. Aimee and I both look at the shelf, only to see Ruby, the girl from earlier who was with Aimee, standing next to the shelf. She stands there for a second, looking guilty.

“Um, hello?” She says.

 

“Okay, Maybe I was ease-dropping a little. I came back to get my underwear, cause I left it here. And, I walked in the back door of your room, to find you guys talking. So, I don’t know, I decided to listen. And then I overheard you guys talking about how you, Kristopher,”

“Kris” Aimee and I both say.

“Yeah, You Kris, can go into peoples dreams?”

“I can.”

“Wow. Could you help me out, too? It won’t take long, I swear.”

         Aimee and I both look at each other, dubiously. Aimee crosses her arms.

         “Why should he help you?” She asks.

         “Yeah. Why?” I add.

         “Well, if you help me… I’ll… have sex with you.”

         “Okay-!” I say walking closer to her, and Aimee grabs my shoulder.

         “Hell no!” Aimee says. “That’s f*****g prostitution.”        

         “Whatever, I don’t care. I need this.” Ruby says.

         “Well I do. You need some self-respect. Who do you need to contact, anyways?” Aimee states.         

         “My father. He didn’t know I was a lesbian, because I have a religious family. Please, I’ll do anything.”

         “Okay, okay. I’ll do it free of charge.”

         “Really?” Both of the girls ask.

         “Really really.” I say. “So, what’s your fathers name?”

         “Christian Tompkins. Just tell him that I send my love to the family, and that I’m a lesbian, and proud. So he needs to accept it.”

         “Alright, cool. I’ll even do it right now, if you want.”

         “That sounds great!” She smiles. Maybe if she like, holds onto me or something, she can come with.”

         “Maybe you can come with, into the dream. If you hold onto me or something.” I say, and then explain the green button to her. But then I realize that it’s morning, and then I can’t go into his dream yet.        

         “Well you guys can just stay and hang, if you want. You know, until it’s night.” Aimee says, clearly wanting our company.

         “I’m down for it!” Ruby says, smiling.

         “Same here, I guess.” I add in. So Aimee goes to get us some tea, and we sit down on the couch.

         “So tell me about yourself, Ruby.” I say. And she does. Turns out she’s 23 years “young,” as she puts it. She’s known she was a lesbian since she was 10. She had a super religious family, so at first she hid her sexuality. But when she turned 16, she turned rebellious. Started stealing things, first just food, and then it got more serious. At 18 she’d been arrested four times. She and her girlfriend at the time, she had many girlfriends, decided one day that they were going to rob a bank. They bought guns from people at school. They had it all planned out, and they would have gotten away with it. But the cops came, Ruby pointed her gun at one of them, and they shot her.

         “Tell my dad I’m sorry.” She tells me. “I was fucked up.”

         “Ha-ha, no offence, but yeah, you were. But it’s alright, we all got our bad days.” I say winking.

         “Were you bad, Kris?” Aimee says as she enters the room with her tea.

         “I was pretty bad.” I say, taking the tea.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Ruby asks.

The worst thing I’ve ever done. That’s easy.

“Well…” I say.

“I feel a story coming on.” Aimee says, bleakly.

She’s right. So first I explain to them who Celia is. And how she ruined a big part of my life.

         “Alright, now I can begin. Ana and I had lived together about 8 months. Celia had moved in, too. She was completely fucked up. She was high all the time. What Ana and I didn’t know was that she was actually hiding. Hiding from drug dealers, which she hadn’t paid. The a******s found her, somehow. They found her at my apartment. Well, actually, they didn’t find her, they found Ana and me. But I guess Celia told them about me, or something, because hey knew who I was. One man, and one girl, both looking grimy and skinny, knocked at my door. I didn’t know who they were, so I opened the door. Ana, behind me, not knowing either, trying to see whom it was. Right as I opened the door the guy punched me in the face, making my vision blurry. I fell to the floor because I didn’t see it coming. I would have kicked his a*s if I knew he was going to punch me. Maybe, I would have. Anyways, after he did that, they both grabbed Ana. She was kicking and screaming like hell, so they taped her mouth, and tied her up right in my living room. I got up and threw a punch at the dude, but missed. They did the same thing to me they did with Ana, except tape my mouth. I asked them what the f**k they wanted, and they said they wanted their money. When I told them I didn’t know what money they were talking about, they responded by beating Ana and I. Finally after a while, I gave them all the money I had in my wallet, which was about 100 bucks. They said they would be back. They left us there in the chairs, tied up. We were there for hours, until Celia got home. She was just sober enough to call 911 and split. Ana was really hurt. Bruised five ribs. So, I guess the worst thing I’ve ever done was allow Celia to move in with us because it endangered Ana’s life. Looking back at my life, I guess that’s what I regret the most.”

         It gets silent after I tell my story.         

         “That must have sucked.” Ruby says, awkwardly. After that we all go silent again.         

         The Aimee tells Ruby the story of her and Skye, and we go back and forth telling old stories, some funny, some sad, and some really creepy. We talk till 9:00.

         “Well, my dad goes to bed early. He’ll probably be asleep. Can we do it now?” Ruby finally says.

         “Fine with me” I say. I just hope it works! I stick my arm out and she grabs hold of it. I smile at her and she smiles back.

         “See you later Aimee!” I say. She waves. I pick up the green button, and press it hard.

Almost immediately after we get to the room, the setting changes into the inside of a large house. A mansion, more or less.

“This is where you lived?” I ask Ruby.

“Yeah… I know it’s lame. Shut up.” She says and hits me in the stomach.

“Hey! I didn’t say anything!” I say. Then a man walks up to us. He’s short, but otherwise good looking. He has a full head of brown hair. The same shade as Ruby’s. They actually looked quite alike. He looks at her. Then he hugs her. They both start crying.

“Dad, before you start thinking I’m alive, remember, I’m not. I’m just in your dream.” Ruby says, trying to calm herself down. They break from the hug, and he cups her face in his hand. “Also, I have to tell you something.”

“What, dear?”

“I’m gay.” Ruby says.

That’s when I start to space out. This bores me. I’m not that attracted to Ruby or anything, and we just met, so why should I watch this? I just run everything that’s happened in Hell so far through my head. For some reason I just thought of something. Charlotte has an English accent. But Sam doesn’t. I need to ask her about that. As I run everything through my head, I realize something. All of my thoughts are leading back to Charlotte. I keep thinking about her. I’m f*****g dead; it’s not cheating to have a crush on another girl. I still love Ana though.

Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte. Her name’s so beautiful. Just like her. I feel like every time she smiles, I want to smile with her. Okay, I’ve only met her like 3 times. But I need to see her again.

New mission. It’s called Operation Charlotte. Step 1: Make her think that Kale is a huge d****e, and she can do so much better. Step 2: Help her say goodbye to someone, so she can get over being dead, which leads us to Step 3: Helping her say goodbye will get her to like me, because, you know, she’ll see what kind of guy I am, and then we will be together!

“Kris?” Ruby says, snapping me back to reality. We’re standing in Aimee’s house again.

“What?” I say, loudly.

“You were spacing out like a dumbass.” She tells me, and then impersonates me. Aimee laughs.

“So how did it go?” Aimee then asks Ruby.

“It was great! I feel really good. Like I got closure, and my dad was totally okay with it.” Ruby says, and coughs. She starts to cough a lot. Why is she coughing so much?

“Do you need some water… or something?” Aimee says, awkwardly. Ruby can’t say anything because she’s coughing so much, so Aimee just walks into the kitchen, and gets some water. While she’s away, Ruby falls to the floor coughing, and finally, stops abruptly.

“Are you ok-” I start to ask, but then, she disappears.