Dave Loves Alexis

Chapter 11 - Alexis Unhinged

Many weeks later and early one morning Dave was driving his bread truck toward the Price Chopper when he heard Prince’s “Take me with U” begin to play on his phone. He had just bought that ringtone and set it to Alexis’s number, so he knew it had to be her. The song had only cost him two bucks. Back then if he knew how much he’d be smiling every time he heard it play. he would have paid so much more.

“What’s up, my beautiful bebe?” he said cheerfully, answering her call.

She was hysterical. She was shouting, swearing and sobbing in a frenzy. He couldn’t understand her, she was in such a panic. As he wheeled his truck into an abandoned parking lot and said, “Alexis, I can’t make out anything you’re saying. Please, slow down. Are you hurt?”

“No,” she said, but then everything else she said after that was just another string of unintelligible stuff, although he thought he caught a “where are you?” in the middle of her babbling, alarming diatribe.

“I’m working, covering a route,” he said. “I’m in my truck, in a parking lot, off of Rt. 11 in Livingston.”

She murmured, ”Thank God.” He heard she was still crying, but she was calming down some.

He parked and then turned off the truck. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

She couldn’t manage anything other than some crying for a time, but she seemed to be gathering a hold on herself more, so he waited. Eventually she said, “Listen, you have to listen to me carefully. You have to do exactly what I tell you. You have to do it without question, even though it’s going to sound weird and fucked up. Got that? No questions. You’re going to just do it. Understand? No questions.”

His forehead crinkled. He thought about this. He said, “OK.”

“You can’t ride your motorcycle today,” she said. “When you are done delivering today, you come straight over to my apartment. In your car. Do not ride your motorcycle here. Do not ride your bike at all today. If you ride your bike before I see you, we are through. Done. Is that clear?”

“That’s clear, “ he said. “But why?”

Alexis screamed at him so loudly it startled him and he almost dropped his phone. “I just said no fucking questions!” She yelled. “What are you, a fucking idiot? Why is this simple concept so fucking hard to understand?” She started crying and ranting and, once again, it was getting hard for him to understand her.

“Alexis,” he said, but she kept going. “Alexis,” he said again, but she ignored him. “Alexis!” he said firmly and this was the closest he had ever come to raising his voice at her. She did not stop crying, but she did stop talking.

“I got it,” he said. “The minute I’m done working, I’m coming straight to your place. In my car. And I won’t ride my bike until I see you. I’m not riding it today. And I don’t have any questions for you as to why.”

Her crying lessened a little and she said, “Say it again, so I know you got it straight.”

He said, “When I’m done with work today, I’m going directly to your apartment, in my car. I won’t be riding my bike today. I won’t be touching my bike today. I won’t even be thinking about my motorcycle today, except to remind myself that I won’t be riding it today.”

She chuckled and he heard her blow an audible breath in relief. He knew she could be explosive, but he had never experienced her being so absolutely unhinged she wasn’t coherent. She was calming down now though, and this was good.

“You forgot one part,” she said.

He ran through what she had said. It took him a couple seconds, then he had it, “If I do, we are through.”

She was quiet for a bit, then she started weeping again. But it sounded like it was a helpful type crying now, so he went with it.

“If I ride my bike today, if I put my sorry ass on my bike, you’re kicking said sorry ass to the curb,” he said. “I will not ride my bike with my feet, I will not ride my bike on a street,” he continued with Dr. Seuss type rhythm.

Her sobs seemed more controlled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just really important, no, absolutely crucial, that you don’t.”

He thought about all this. He said, “You’re right, you know.”

“About what?” she asked.

“It isn’t a hard or complicated thing you’re asking me,” He said. “It is really quite an easy thing, now that I think about it.”

This, maybe, was a misstep, because this got her bawling again, but he thought he heard that in addition to her crying, that she was laughing a little too. “I’d ask if you’re in bed and what you’re wearing, but I have to remember my instructions. No fucking questions!” he mock shouted, imitating her.

She definitely laughed at this. She was getting it together. She said, “I’m home. I’m skipping class today and I’m going to cancel my house cleans. I’ll be here when you get here, and I promise I’ll answer all your questions when you get here.”

“OK,” he said. “I’m going to ask you a question now? Are you good?”

“Not good, but I’m better,” she said.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll finish up early by cutting every corner. I think I can be there by four, does that work for you?”

“Yes,” she said.

Chapter 12 - Alexis Loves Dave

Dave pulled into Alexis’s apartment building’s parking lot (in his car, needless to say) at a quarter past three. He had tried like hell to get there earlier, so she wouldn’t worry, but this was the earliest he could make it. He saw her pull her curtain open to see who’s car it was. She’d been listening and watching for him.

He went up her steps and she met him at the door. Once inside, she hugged him like a python and she started crying again. She cried for a long time. He just held her, waiting her out.

Eventually she let go of him. She told him to sit down, which he did. She didn’t sit though. Instead, she started to pace the room.

“Why don’t you sit down too?” he suggested. She shook her head no. She looked bad, and it was pretty much impossible for Alexis to look bad. Her hair was greasy and her eyes were all puffy and red. It was obvious she had been crying more during the day. He chided himself, he made the wrong call. He should have nixed all the deliveries and driven the truck directly here when she called.

“So what’s going on?” he asked.

She stopped pacing and closed her eyes. She looked like she was in pain. She didn’t know what to say or how to begin. She just stood there. absolutely still, with her eyes closed. Then she opened them, looked straight at him and said, “I had a dream about you last night.”

He was already leaping ahead. This was making sense, but he stayed quiet. She continued, “It was nighttime in the dream. Dark, and it was raining. But I saw you. You were lying in a ditch off a road.” She started to sob in such agony it jarred him. “You were bloody and dying and your mangled motorcycle was lying next to you.”

He nodded his head. “I get it,” he said. “You had a nightmare about me.”

“No, you don’t get it. Nobody ever gets it,” she said. She closed her eyes. “It wasn’t just a fucking dream. It’s going to happen.”

He was completely puzzled by this. “Why do you think that?” he asked.

She opened her eyes and the tears flowed down. But her mouth was clenched hard, like she was very angry too. She tried to speak, but couldn’t. She just stood there, with her tears streaming down. She held up three fingers, that was all she could manage at the moment. She tried to speak, but couldn’t.

“Alexis, I think I should call Dr. Magil,” he said, reaching for his phone.

“No!” she fired out immediately, almost like a growl. She flung herself at him and grabbed his hand, hard. “No! He’s the absolutely last person who should hear any of this.”

“Any of what?” he asked.

She was crouched before him with a wild, desperate look in her eyes. “Any of the truth,” she said. “He already knows about all this. He thinks they’re delusions. All of the psychologists, psychiatrists and fucking shrinks I’ve ever had have all said my dreams are delusions. They’re not. And they aren’t the only ones. Everyone else thinks I’m totally fucked up, too. Nobody has ever believed me.”

“They all think your dreams are delusional?” he asked. She nodded her head yes.

“But you don’t think they are?” he asked. She shook her head no.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because they’ve come true,” she said. “Three times before last night I’ve had nightmares about someone dying, like the one I had about you last night. They all ended up happening just like I dreamed. Just like I saw they would.”

He sat stunned by this at first. But then his mind went back to their meeting with Dr. Magil. This must be her problem that she wouldn’t talk about with him. This was why she was in therapy. His mind was trying to figure all this out.

“So, what happened to you last night, that’s happened to you before? Three times before?” he asked.

Alexis got up and started pacing the room again. “Yes,” she said.

“With who?” he asked.

“The first dream I had was of my grandfather when I was six. I saw him lying at the bottom of his stairs in his house, dead. Three days later my grandmother found him there in the morning dead, with his neck broken. He had fallen down the stairs the night before. Just like I saw he would.”

He, again, was stunned. “The second dream?” he asked.

“My father, when I was eleven,” she said. “I dreamed of him bleeding out in his humvee in Iraq after it hit a mine in the road, seven days before it actually happened.”

He was going to ask about the last one, but she beat him to the punch. “The third one was about my first boyfriend, Brandon. I saw him, in my dream, commit suicide by drug overdose. That one was sweet because I had two whole weeks with him, before he actually did it.”

He sunk back into the couch. He didn’t know what to say to all this. He just watched her with heartfelt concern as she paced her living room like a caged animal.

“Please, don’t look at me that way,” she said and he lowered his eyes to the floor. “Like I’m crazy. Do you know how many people have looked at me that way in my life?”

“No,” he said quietly.

“Well, I don’t know exactly how many either, but I can tell you one thing for sure,” she said. “It was all of them.”

“So, you think I’m going to die riding my bike?” he asked.

“That’s what I saw, so it’s not think so, it’s know so,” she said. “The dream I had of you was exactly like the dreams I had of my grandfather, my father, and of Brandon. They’re different from my regular dreams. They’re vivid and crystal clear. They don’t contain anything fantastic in them. No dinosaurs, no flying monkeys, none of that shit. And they don’t fade. I remember every detail, every color, every aspect of all three of them. I remember all three of them clearly, to this day. They are etched in my mind. And they aren’t fucking pretty pictures either. My dream of you was exactly like those first three I had. You, bloody and dying in a ditch, next to your motorcycle, alone, during a rainy night. I see it right now, just as clear as I saw it last night when I was sleeping.”

He was running through this. His mind went back to the nobody believing her part. “Did you tell anyone about any of those dreams, before these events happened?” he asked.

Alexis went ballistic and yelled, “Oh, here we fucking go again! Do you know how many times I’ve been down this fucking road?”

“No,” he said quietly. “But I never have with you, so please, do it once more for me.”

His words seemed to reach her. She gathered herself and said, “I told both of my parents of my dream about my grandfather, days before it happened.”

“So I don’t understand, why don’t they believe you? They should believe you, if they heard you say these things were going to happen, before they happened,” he said.

“Well my father’s currently fucking dead, so he doesn’t believe much of anything,” she lashed out.

“OK, why didn’t they believe you? After you called it beforehand,” he said.

“They chalked it up to being an educated guess, instead of a premonition. My grandfather had fallen before. In fact, he fell down those same stairs a year before, before the second fall that killed him. I’ll never forgive my parents for dismissing me. I told them. I told them! I fucking told them! I told them to call my grandparents before it happened, but they wouldn’t. Then, after my grandfather had died, they said I shouldn’t talk openly about it. They said it would just make the family look weird and crazy. But I honestly think at the time they thought I hadn’t seen it as it actually happened. They thought I just got “lucky,” so to fucking speak.”

“And your father’s death? Did you tell anyone about that before it happened?” he asked.

“Again, I told both my father and my mother. I told my mother first. She told me to keep it to myself, so I wouldn’t worry him. But I was frantic with fear. So the next time I talked to my dad on the phone, I told him. I described to him exactly what I had seen. He said for me not to worry. He told me it was only a dream. One week later, he was dead.”

“Well your mother should be able to vouch for you then, right?” he said.

“My mother is bat-shit crazy,” she said. “She’s worse than me, if you can even fathom that. When my father died, she mentally snapped. Completely. She can’t vouch for shit now.”

“And Brandon?” he asked..

Alexis got completely berserkly animated at this question. She threw herself at his feet with a crazed look in her eyes. She raved, “Oh, this is my favorite part! I love this part of my story so fucking much. Who did I tell that I dreamed of Brandon, sitting in his squalid bedroom, finishing off the last touches on his suicide note before he injected himself over and over again with H, weeks before it actually happened? Who do YOU think I told?” she said as she jabbed him in the chest hard with her finger.

He said quietly, “You told him.”

“Yes! Yes! Fucking Bingo! Yes!” she shouted. “I told him I saw him drugging himself to death, just like I’m telling you now you’re going to die from a bike accident. But I didn’t just tell him. Oh, I had wised up by that point. I wasn’t a dopey little girl anymore. I had learned a thing or two, by then. Guess who else? C’mon, this is a fun game! Guess who else I told! I’ll give you a hint. There is no wrong answer here! C’mon Dave! No fucking guesses?!” she asked loudly .

“I don’t know,” Dave said, sitting stone still.

“Everyone! Everyone! Everyone!” she erupted at the top of her lungs. “His friends, my friends, his parents! I told everyone! I grabbed every fucking stranger I ran into on the street and told them my boyfriend was going to kill himself!”

“So why didn’t anyone believe you then? You told them all that Brandon was going to commit suicide, and then he did,” he said.

“Because, just like with my grandfather, in everyone’s minds there wasn’t anything fucking prophetic about that at all,” she said. “Brandon was a fuckin’ junkie. Just like I was. Just like I am now, even though I’m not using. That’s what we junkies do. We die from overdoses. Intentional or not. Self-inflicted or not. The cops, his parents, and some of his friends actually tried to blame and pin his death on me. It was my fault. I put the idea in his head. I told him what I saw, and it looked so fucking good to him, he decided to put it into action. Or I convinced him to do it. Or whatever. But I’m telling you, when I told him first, before anyone else, when we were alone, I saw that look in his eyes, that I had seen what he was thinking about doing. He was already thinking about doing that, I didn’t put the idea in his head!. He knew I saw what he was thinking about doing. I saw it in his eyes, but he lied to me. He told me he wasn’t contemplating suicide at all.”

“Have you had any other dreams, where you saw someone in trouble, or dying, and they didn’t come true,” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Just those three and they all came to happen. Unless, you count the one I had of you, last night.”

“Do you have other types of dreams?” he asked. “Like, I don’t know, where something good happens to somebody, before it actually happens?”

Alexis laughed crazily and got up from below him. “That would be pretty fucking nice, wouldn’t it?” she said. “But no, all of mine have all been the horrifying variety.” She walked over to her window. Now she seemed unsure how to proceed and she looked thoughtful. Everything up until now that she had told him had come pouring out quickly, because she had said all of these things to her myriad of therapists many times before. But her next words were more tentative, as if she were searching for them. She said, “Actually, a few months ago, I had a dream. In some ways it was like those first three. It was vivid and I remember it clearly. So in that way it was like those first three, and like yours. But it wasn’t plausible. Unrealistic and surreal things in them happened. It was weird. In that way, it was more dream-like. And I was the only one in it...really.”

“Was it bad? Did you die in it?” he asked.

She shook her head and said, “It was bad, but no, I didn’t die in it.” He was about to ask her something else, but she cut him off. “That’s enough about that dream for now. One psychotic, psychic crisis at a time here. Believe it or not, we are doing you right now, not me. You think I’m the one in trouble? You think I’m the one in danger? You’re a dead man and you don’t even know it. You don’t believe me, do you?”

He answered, “Alexis, honestly, I don’t. Nobody can foresee things like that for certain. But I do believe it when you say you did have those dreams first, dreams of your grandfather, your father and of your boyfriend before they died. But, I attribute them to your intelligence. I think you have a lot of common sense, but not a sixth sense. It’s you just being perceptive, and not using some kind of clairvoyance that you have when you dream.”

She slumped defeatedly and closed her eyes in abject pain. After a time she said, “You know, Dr. Magil has all these fun theories about me. He says my dreams, my delusions, are a specific mixture of delusional types. They have elements of persecution, grandiosity, and the bizarre. But only some from each. The dude loves me...as a patient. I’m a potential goldmine. I think he wants to write a treatise on me, you know, si he can become world famous in the field of psychology for treating the most fascinatingly fucked up patient ever to walk the planet. See? Yet, more delusions of grandeur on my part. I could go on and on. He thinks that I make up the dreams as false memories, to deal with the traumatic loss of male father figures in my life. Men that I have deeply loved, and then lost.”

Dave smiled and said, “Did you just tell me, for the first time ever, that you love me?”

She froze, as if she suddenly realized what she had just owned up too. She walked over to him as he was still grinning. When she got close to him she reached out and slapped him hard across the face.

“You think this is a fucking joke?” she wailed while sobbing. “You think this is a game?” “Yes, you stupid mother fucker. I’ve fallen in love with you.” She grabbed his jacket and shook him. “Yes, God dammit, I love you! I tried to fight it all the way, right from the fucking start. I’ve fallen in love with you. Congratufuckinglations! You pulled it off, completely and thoroughly. I love you! Are you fucking happy with yourself?!”

He felt his face, hoping her slap wouldn’t leave a mark. He said, “Actually, I am, but I wish you had told me in a more traditional manner. You know maybe with a kiss, or something sweet like that,” he said.

Alexis, who started pacing frantically around her living room again, through her sobs said, “I’ll tell you again some other time that way. I’ll do it sometime soon. I promise. Time is ticking.”

“It’s a date,” he said. She laughed, just for an instant, but then true to what seemed to be her new default move for the day, reverted back to anguished crying. Her body was heaving and she was gasping for breath. She kept clutching her chest and she seemed to him to be in a lot of physical (as well as mental) pain. She was becoming unsteady on her feet. Now she staggered from the exhaustion of it all.

Dave said, “Alexis, come over here, sit with me here on the couch. Please, I’m begging you.” Reluctantly, she did. Now that he finally understood what was traumatizing her, he knew the next thing to do was try to allay her fears, as quickly as he could.

“Listen, even if I don’t believe you, there are still precautions I can take to ease your mind,” he said.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well, you said it was dark when I died,” he said. “Night time, right? And raining? Well, it wasn’t either one of those things today. So I could have ridden my bike this afternoon with no worries, right?”

“I was already thinking of that when I called you this morning,” she said. “I looked out the window and saw a small, wispy cloud in the sky. That was fucking close enough for my taste. I can see where you’re going with this, and you’re going to the wrong place. It’s going to come down to the bike. You’re going to have to pick your bike or me. You can’t ride your bike and have me. I never liked the looks of that thing from the start. You’re going to have to pick. And I don’t want to hear any - it’s daytime and sunny out bullshit I won’t play that game. And no temporary storing the bike for a while, either. You get rid of it, forever. And you never ride again, ever. I’ll definitely understand if you pick the bike over me. I mean just look at me,” she continued as she comically waved one hand up and down her wracked, shaking body while using her other hand to draw an imaginary circle around her emotionally ravaged face. “What man wouldn’t choose all this beauty over a completely glorious, kick ass motorcycle? Is there really a choice to be made? You know when you’re dead, I’ll be stuck with the thought that if I was actually beautiful and pretty, then maybe I could have saved your life. I know it’s going to be dump city for me. I’m just praying when you pick your bike over me, it will take a little of the sting out of the pain for me when you die from it. But who am I trying to kid? I know it won’t, not one bit.”

He was quiet for a time, deep in thought. Eventually he said, “You know that bike was the only joy and release I had in my life, before I met you.”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t,” she said. She closed her eyes in abject pain and smiled very sadly, “I understand what you’re saying. I get it. I lose, as I should…”

“Actually, you’re not getting it at all,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Alexis, sshh, geez,” he said as he smiled. “Can’t you see I’m trying to make a call here?”

After a moment he said, “Hey, Walt, this is Dave. You got a few minutes?......Good, listen, I’m getting rid of my bike. I’m selling it. I know you’ve been drooling over it in our parking lot for the past few months, so I thought I’d give you first crack at it…...For you, a grand and a half…..No, there’s nothing wrong with it…..(he laughed), No, I’m not drunk…..I got the latest numbers from your route and you’re killing it. The receivers and store managers don’t despise you, you don’t sleep in the truck on the clock, you don’t steal product from us, and you haven’t wrecked a truck yet. Around Marconnelli’s that makes you top notch. So, I have no problem offering you a sweetheart deal on my bike………...Well, we’ll figure something out. I can take it out of your future pay in installments if you want…...OK, one more thing. You’ll have to figure out a way to get it, I can’t ride it over to your house…….Well, here’s the thing, I had a close call on it and now I’m scared of riding it. Actually, come to think of it, there is one thing wrong with it. I pissed and shit my pants on it, so the seat’s a little compromised……....(He laughed a lot), Yes, I fully understand you’ll be telling all the guys that tomorrow........Yeah, I could come by and pick you up in my car to get it, that works…… Tomorrow after work sounds fine......All right, we’ll work the rest out tomorrow during the day…….Alright, sounds good…..See you tomorrow bright and entirely too early…….You got it, bye.” Then he hung up his phone.

“Problem solved,” Dave said, looking pleased with himself as he settled deeper into Alexis’s couch. He groaned, then said casually, “Whew, what a day. My shoulder is killing me. I pulled it taking loaded trays off the truck at Value-Mart by hand. I should have used the truck’s ramp. That’s what I get for rushing. Haste makes waste. Would you rub it for me later? Nice and gentle like.”

Alexis was flabbergasted. That had happened so quickly. She couldn’t think of a thing to say and she just stared at him dumbfounded.

“What? It’s just five minutes of massaging, that’s all I’m asking,” he said rather off-handedly.

She didn’t fight her tears any longer and wept unabashedly. She could feel the anguished, vicious, pain slowly leaving her body as it was replaced by a warm sensation of relief - relief unlike any she had ever felt in her life. For a time she said nothing, and just looked at him while soaking up the perfect, subtle sweetness of his being. She said, “I want to be there tomorrow, when all of that happens with the bike.”

“My, my, aren’t we a suspicious girl? You don’t trust me?” he asked.

“Getting there quickly. But I trust my eyes more,” she said, while still crying. But now they were silent tears and she relished them because their release felt so wonderful.

“Sure, you can come with,” he said as he smiled. “I’ll pick you up before I go get Walt. It will be fun. I’ll get a little more you time in. That’s my fav. Nothing beats riding around town with a pretty girl, right? Plus, you can intercede on my behalf if Walt starts ragging on me again. You might be able to kick my ass, but let’s see what you can do when you take on someone your own size.” He held his arms open to her.

She curled into him and said, “I can’t believe you just did that for me.”

“Did what for you?” he said trying to sound stupidly confused. “Oh, we’re still on the bike thing topic,” he said, feigning understanding. “You said it was you or the bike, right? That’s a no brainer. I pick you. You didn’t see that one coming, did you? Ha-ha, get it?”

She laughed, slid her arms around him and hugged him, hard. Really hard. “You’re sleeping here tonight,” she said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight till that bike is gone.”

“Hmmm, you don’t have to ask me twice,” he growled. They sat for a while, saying nothing. Alexis had stopped crying and was getting the first peace she’d had since daybreak. Dave’s stomach rumbled loud. “Are you hungry?” she asked and she started to get up, but Dave pulled her back to him.

“Yeah I am, but just stay here with me for a bit. You can make me a snacky-poo later. Right now I need a little snuggle-wuggle time. It’s soothing. It sure does beat getting slapped and shaken like a rag doll by you,” he said.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she said. “That will definitely be added to my exhaustive list of things I’m ashamed of. I’m fucking nuts.”

“I know you’re nuts, nuts about me that is!” he exclaimed. He settled deep into thought and after a time he said, “Hey, you know when your dream last night doesn’t come true, you’ll finally be able to put that cruel issue to bed.”

He felt Alexis freeze up for just a second, thinking about what he said. She said, “I didn’t even consider that. That would be so nice, but a long time will have to pass before I’m sure it won’t happen.”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “Say tomorrow I slip in the shower and crack my head, or I have an aneurysm, or I get electrocuted while trying to wiggle a stuck, burnt bagel from out of a toaster with a fork, and I die. You’d be proved wrong, right?”

“That’s a very comforting thought,” she murmured into his chest. She was getting drowsy.

Dave said nothing more and just held her for a long time. Eventually he tried to sneak out from under her, but this roused her. She went to get up, but he told her to stay on the couch. He told her he was just getting up to use the bathroom. He said he’d be right back.

He got up, put her favorite blanket on her and went into the kitchen and watched her with concern until she fell back to sleep on her couch. Carefully he turned on the radio with the volume on low, for cover noise. This didn’t wake her, so he quietly started looking around her kitchen, seeing what he could make for them to eat while she slept.


The next day Dave picked her up in his car after work and they went to Walt’s house. They picked up Walt and they all went to his house (or rather Dave’s mother’s house, as he still lived with her) and Walt rode what was now his bike home. It was done.

Days went by, then a week, and then a month. At first Alexis had been texting and calling him constantly. But as more time passed, she grew more at ease. Eventually, she stopped worrying completely. She was happy and giddy and in love. She was happier than she’d ever been in her life. She was never happier to have been proven wrong.


Chapter 13 - The Screams of Alexis

Dave didn’t know it, but two months to the day that Alexis had her nightmare of him, was this day. He was driving to her apartment. It was late, all day long he had run into just about every possible snag a bread man can run into. It was already getting dark. The drizzly, misty, spritzing afternoon had finally made up its mind and kicked up into actual rain.

He turned onto River Road which was a windy, curvy bitch of a road. He was rounding a tight, blind curve when his car’s lights lit up a body in the road. He torqued his steering wheel, just barely missing that person in the road. Luckily, no one was coming the other way so the other lane was free, but his car fishtailed on the slick road and he had to quickly counter steer to straighten his vehicle. By the time he finally got control of his car and back into his lane, he was a good piece down the road. He quickly brought his car to stop, off the road and onto the shoulder.

He flung open his car door and looked back to the body in the road. He saw the man raise his arm a little. He was hurt, but alive. He threw his gear shift into park, quickly opened his door, and then took off on foot toward him.

Another car was approaching. He yelled out to them to slow down, but he knew they’d never hear him. The rain was pouring down now. The car’s light’s were approaching fast. That car was going to plow right into the prone man.

He reached the man in the road and grabbed his leather jacket by its front. He was just starting to drag him to the shoulder of the road when the approaching car rounded the corner. He yelled out again for them to stop, but they never heard him. The car’s headlights finally swung around far enough to light him up. The driver locked up his brakes, but the pavement was wet and the car was booking. Dave threw the hurt man of the road but this left him vulnerable. The car slammed into him and flung him off the road.

He landed hard. The pain was searing. He couldn’t see anything at first, but then his eyes adjusted and the first thing he saw was a motorcycle. Just a few feet from where he was. He got it instantly. It was the other man’s bike. He had lost control of his bike when rounding that curve. When he hit the pavement, he had stayed pretty much put, but the bike, which was heavier and had more momentum, carried further. All the way down and into this ditch off the road.

Dave saw that the bike, while it certainly wasn’t his, did look a lot like his all mangled up, especially in the rain, and especially in the dark.

He heard shouts from above. Other cars were stopping on the road and people were getting out. He tried to stand, but he found that he couldn’t move at all. Hazily, he realized that his phone in his pocket was playing “Take me with U.” ‘Ahh, that would be my beautiful girl,’ he thought. He wished he could move his arm to answer it.

That she was calling him made him feel good. He loved her so much. He decided that was the first thing he was going to tell her when he saw her. The pain he’d previously felt was slowly going away. He knew it was because he was thinking of her, and she was thinking of him. He was going to see her shortly, that’s where he was going before...before...before whatever had happened to him. He couldn’t remember. Funny, he thought, while it was somewhat hard to see just a little bit ago, now it was so dark he couldn’t see a thing. That felt good too. Then that darkness, that deep, different, warm darkness that was taking the last of his pain away, washed over him completely.


Alexis was terrified. She looked nowhere other than out her apartment window for Dave. But all she saw was a rainy, dark parking lot. She was texting him like mad. She called his cell phone over and over again. He was always super good about getting back to her in a timely manner. He was two hours late from when he said he’d be there and she was distraught almost to the point of madness.

Finally she heard his phone’s familiar click sound it made whenever he answered one of her calls. She immediately wailed, “Oh, thank God! I’ve been worried sick about you! Where are you?”!

There was silence on the other end. She froze rigid from fear. “Dave?” she sobbed.

“Alexis….this is Rachel.”

She screamed. She screamed the way only a woman can scream when she has lost a husband, a child, or anyone they love above all else. She screamed, the way a woman screams when she knows her mind and her soul will never be the same again.

Alexis screamed knowing her dreams always have, and always will, come true.


Chapter 14 - Alexis Dreams of Dave

Months later, Alexis sat on her couch with her TV on, although she was not watching it. She turned it off and laid down on her couch and wept in misery. She felt a strange weight at her feet, as if someone had just sat down there. She looked up and saw Dave.

He smiled at her and said, “How’s my beautiful girl?”

“I’m awful,” she said. “Everyday I’m in pain. I can’t go on anymore. I miss you so much. I can’t think straight. My heart hurts all the time.”

He looked at her in sympathy and said, “I’m sorry, Doll. I’m sorry, I had to leave you. Come over here and snuggle against me.”

She laid upon his chest and said, “Where have you been?”

“Far away,” he said, stroking her hair.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I miss you everyday. I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t,” he said.

She slapped his hand away from her hair, grabbed the other one he had wrapped around her and threw it off. She pushed herself away from him. “What do you mean I can’t?!” she cried.

Dave chuckled and said, “I’m glad to see you haven’t changed a bit. But, you can’t come with me. Not now anyway. Not for some time. But eventually we’ll be together and when that happens, it will be for a very long time.”

She was still furious and so she said, “I want to come now. I don’t want to wait. It’s not fucking fair. I’m coming too. I’m done here.”

Dave shook his head. He said, “You’re needed here. You have a gift. A gift that you’re going to use to help others. You need to stay for a while. You have things to do.”

She said, “I don’t give a shit about helping anyone else. I need to take care of myself and what good has my so called gift ever fucking done for me?”

“It hasn’t done you any good, and it isn’t going to do you any good, and I’m sorry about that,” he said. “But it is going to help many others immensely. Things are going to be different. People are going to start listening to you. But Alexis, help me now. Come over here and be next to me. I’ve missed you as much as you’ve missed me.”

Alexis crinkled her forehead and asked, “Where the fuck have you been exactly? Are you telling me you’re in heaven?”

“No, no I’m not,” said Dave. “You’d have to be with me for that to happen, Doll.”

She smiled despite herself and said, “And I see you haven’t changed a bit either. Still as fucking smooth as a baby’s butt.”

“Please, Alexis. I’m begging you, lay with me close. I don’t have much time here,” said Dave.

She acquiesced and curled up back into him. After a while she said, “How much time do I get with you now?”

He said, “Until you wake.”

They lay together quietly, and she felt better than she had felt since he had gone. But she was sad nonetheless. Eventually she asked, “How do I know I’ll get to see you again?”

Dave smiled and said, “Because right now you’re dreaming. And tomorrow you’ll remember this dream. You’ll remember it all vividly. Every detail. Every color. Every aspect. It will be etched in your mind.”

Alexis smiled, knowing that what he said had to be true. But that would be tomorrow and this was now, so she just enjoyed laying upon Dave’s chest and she tried her very hardest not to wake up.