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punched my fist into my pillow. I’d find a way to tell them goodbye. I wouldn’t leave them wondering, the way Dad had left me.

    The familiar rippling sensation came as I moved from my own dreamless white void into Megan’s dream. A warm awareness slipped over me and I hoped the rest of her dream stayed this calm. Too bad I couldn’t thank her for staying up late and giving me a couple hours of this peaceful solitude. I’d probably never see her again, and even if I did, that would be a really creepy thing to thank someone for.
    I listened for a long moment to the thrumming inside my head. I used to wonder if it was my actual heartbeat that I heard or just some part of the dream that even the Dreamer wasn’t aware of. I decided it must be mine. The Dreamer didn’t even know I was here—why would they bother giving me a heartbeat?
    Besides, I liked it better this way. It was the only thing I had control of in the dreams. If I breathed quickly or got excited, it would speed up; if I relaxed, the gentle cadence would slow. My heartbeat was my tether to reality.
    I braced myself for the sound of her dream to come, waiting for it, but when it hit, I barely noticed.
    Birds were chirping in the distance, and there was water sloshing around somewhere.
    Smell hit next, sweet and earthy. It reminded me of a wheat field on a warm day. When sight arrived, it didn’t disappoint. There were vivid colors everywhere. I sat in a wide pasture at the base of a tall purple mountain. The ground was covered with soft red grass. Nearby, a stream wound down to a wide silver lake. The sun hung high in the sky, but a soft breeze cooled my face and moved my hair.
    Her emotions jolted me when they hit. A deep sadness, but it was less disturbing than it should have been—as though it was thinned by water, diluted to make it less painful. Still, I ached with an unexpected emptiness. It echoed my own day-to-day feelings in a strange way. Megan and I had much more in common than I’d have guessed.
    Something felt different in her dream, though. Not bad, just different, unlike any other I’d watched. It nagged at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t place it.
    I turned, and froze when I saw her.
    She stood a few feet behind me, wearing a white sundress and standing before an easel. Her left wrist twisted in circles, winding one dark curl tight around her pinky. She studied the canvas before her. She lifted her other hand and I expected her to paint, but instead she chewed on the end of the paintbrush. I had to admit, she might have acted a little psycho but she was also pretty cute.
    I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I’d learned a long time ago that physical contact while watching wasn’t possible. Whether it was the Dreamer or some other person in the dream, we just passed over each other. I couldn’t interact. When I was twelve, the first year I started watching dreams, I must’ve tried to touch my mom a thousand times, begging her to help me understand what was happening. I’d tried to hold her hand, hug her, hit her, anything to make her see me, make her hear me.
    It was probably better that it never worked. Just being here felt like a violation of the Dreamer’s privacy—touching them was a line I didn’t think I should cross.
    I hopped to my feet and walked over to see her painting. The canvas was blank, not even the slightest dot marred the white sheet before her. It was peaceful in her dream, but she was so focused she looked almost frustrated. She kept shifting her weight back and forth between her bare feet.
    Strange. If there was any dream-world built for painting, this was it. And her deep sadness felt almost foreign in this place. Everything around us was so quiet, calm, and beautiful. This wasn’t a memory, but it probably wasn’t a fantasy either.
    I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my face; a feeling of serenity soaked through my skin. What was so different?
    In that instant, it hit me. This dream had only