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weekends.
    Okay, so the guy wasn’t his dad. But his emotions, crazed with worry in the dream, couldn’t seem to grasp the fact. When the girl said, “Oh, please, Daddy, wake up!” he felt every shred of her heart wrenching fear.
    His too-slender fingers scrambled over the buckle until the seatbelt released him. His neck protested, but he paid no attention as he reached over to shake the man’s shoulder. His clean-shaven chin bobbed on his chest. Those eyes remained still.
    He shoved open his door. Clumsily, frantically, he ran around the back of the car and ripped open the passenger-side door.
    “Daddy! Daddy, you have to wake up!” His small hands curled around the man’s shoulders. He shook him.
    No. Shouldn’t shake him. Might have neck injuries.
    He couldn’t tell if the thought belonged to him or the female.
    It didn’t matter. The need to save this man consumed him, and he gave himself over to it. A small backpack purse nestled between the seats. Somehow, he knew it would have a cell phone inside. He lunged over the man to grab the bag and dumped the contents on the wet ground. A purple phone caught the light of a streetlamp. He snatched it and dialed 9-1-1.
    Rain and tears blurred his vision as he pinched the phone between his ear and shoulder and reached around to unfasten the man’s seatbelt. He argued with the emergency operator about where to perform CPR. He wanted to get the man flat on his back on the hard surface of the ground, but the operator insisted he shouldn’t be moved in case of injury.
    He didn’t suspect injury. The man wasn’t bleeding. The passenger-side airbag had deployed. The man’s seatbelt had been secure. He must have had a heart attack or something. Derek needed to get him breathing again.
    He wanted to argue with the operator or simply hang up and do it his way, but he heard himself sniffle and say, “Okay. I’ll try it in the car.”
    Fuck that. He overrode the dream and tossed the phone. Emergency response was on the way. That was all he’d needed from the operator.
    Ignoring the pain shooting up his spine, he wrapped his arms under the man’s armpits and levered him from the bucket seat. Frustrated with his smaller body and lesser strength, he lowered the man to the ground, feeling muscles in his back give. He cried out in agony and fell on top of the man.
    Pushing through the pain, he scrambled up to the man’s head, tilted his chin back and breathed into him. He pumped the man’s chest to the count of thirty, breathed again, pumped again.
    No response.
    He kept pumping, even though his back was on fire, even though he couldn’t stop sobbing.
    “Just a dream,” he heard from somewhere outside the terror of the rainy night. It was a female voice, too, but a mature one, trustworthy in its quiet, confidence. “It’s just a dream. It’ll be okay. I’m here with you.”
    “But he won’t wake up!” he cried.
    “Shhh. It’ll be okay. It’s not real.” Caring fingers brushed his temples, traced the sensitive edges of his ears.
    How could he be dreaming two things at once? In the one dream, rainwater drenched his knees through his jeans, a sodden ponytail tugged at the back of his head and he worked desperately to save this man he didn’t know but loved with all his heart. In the other, he was in his bed with someone sitting beside him. A calm feminine voice grounded him, and the scent of honeydew melon chased away his horror.
    “Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real. Don’t be afraid. Just let it go.”
    That voice pulled at him, encouraging him to abandon the clearly futile effort. The man was gone.
    I killed him, said the young woman in his head. Guilt scrabbled for a foothold.
    “It’s not your fault,” he said to the girl in the dream, the girl whose body he shared. He wished he could shake her by the shoulders and tell her the man had a weak heart. The accident might have triggered the attack, but it would have happened anyway–next time a