Truth Is, You're Still Dreaming

By Matthew L. Williams

Let's face it, being a teenager is hard.

High school is depressing, your mother's overbearing, the only friend you have in your new school doesn't have any time for you, and your therapist wont get off your back.

Oh, and yeah, you might have narcolepsy.

Great start to your sophomore year, right?

Fifteen-year-old Daniel wants to leave the past alone, but his inner demons keep him up at night. When theyre not keeping him up, though, he is dead asleep in all his classes and dreaming. Wild dreams. Fantastic even! Are they nonsense? Are they memories? Hell have to stop running from them to find out.

Truth Is, Youre Still Dreaming is a novel for young adults about that time in ones life where being a grown up seems both imminent and a lifetime away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496946737

Matthew L. Williams

Currently in a master’s program, Matthew Williams is a clinical mental health counseling student from New Jersey. A recent Rider University graduate, he is an advocate for those with differences – a topic that, because of the lack of knowledge and empathy for those who have them, had a great impact on the writing of this piece. A lot of what goes on in the narrative of the novel comes from his work with young adults through field work in the therapeutic community.

Book preview

Part 1

Chapter 1

Oh high school cafeteria. May I count the ways in which I hate you? Is it your—

Dude, wake up! says Jake, his hand snapping in my face. I shoot him a dirty look, before smiling and reaching over the table to lightly jab him in the shoulder. We were talking about dreams that we’ve had. The weirdest ones, the scary, the silly; just killing time before the bell for all of us to go back up to class rings.

Jake then turns to Oliver saying Tell him the dream you told me about last year, remember?

Which one are you talking about?

Jake says Don’t play coy.

Seriously, Oliver says. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.

The one about the twins from last year’s Spanish 2… Ring a bell?

Oliver’s face lights up like a candle. That was personal Jake! he says a bit too loudly.

Laughing Jake says Monique and, oh, what’s the other one’s name—

I said shut up!

Jake laughs out Fine, fine, just go then. Weirdest dream. Share.

Oliver closes his eyes and presses his fingers against his temples and says Remember that old-timey show that used to come on in the 90s where they would look at messed up crackpot legends about animals and supernatural creature stuff?

Yeah? I say.

Well, Oliver continues, there was an episode about this thing called the chupacabra that chills out in Mexico or some something that’s said to hop into people’s yards and—

Oh not this story again interrupts Jake.

Do you want to tell it? Oliver replies.

Oh, gladly… Jake turns to me and says It ends with this thing climbing in his bed and staying there all night, he wakes up still in the dream, leaves his bed to brush his teeth, again, he’s still dreaming this, it’s night time by the way, comes back to his bed, thought it was a pillow, pulls the covers down, it’s there, it screams, Oliver gets killed.

I hate you says Oliver smiling.

Please… says Jake. Then he turns to me and tells me that the torch is mine to top that story.

I glance over at Oliver who’s got this really skeptical, bored-already look on his face that I quickly avoid by looking around the room and then at my hands.

There isn’t much to describe Oliver outside of the look he’s giving me. Rich kid, but isn’t showy about it. Quiet, but opinionated. He can be witty I guess, but getting to know him has been a fruitless thing that I’ve all but given up on honestly. It’s mid way through the third marking period and I still don’t know him outside of the movies that he spouts off about with Jake—real film junkies they see themselves as—and the fact that he doesn’t like me. Never really has. Unless Jake is around, we usually sit in awkward silence or entertain dumb topics like homework and school assemblies so we don’t have to talk to each other about anything deeper. Not that I mind though.

No great loss. Seriously.

I say Well there was this dream that I had a couple of nights ago, see I get this dream now and again, where…you know, it’s kind of stupid actually.

Acting exasperated, Oliver says Just get it over with dude, come on.

Yeah man, just go. Tell us says Jake.

Mostly looking at Jake, I say Okay-okay. So it usually starts off with me in this field of flowers that I’ve never been to before. It’s at sunset or something, a really dark and creepy setting, but I don’t care so much since I feel really calm, you know? It’s in the first person, so looking ahead of me, every time I take a step the earth shakes. Am I a giant? I look down. I’m on someone’s shoulders. A guy’s shoulders. And here is where I realze I’m a kid, like a little kid, in the dream I mean, and for some reason that makes sense. I don’t know.

Keep going, keep going! says Jake like he’s wants me to hurry up because he can already tell that he’s got something better up his sleeve to share.

So my legs dangle on this guy’s chest, he’s holding my ankles and we’re just walking. Now I still don’t know who the guy is but whatever. Everything’s so peaceful. Like, I’ve had this dream a couple of times before, but the first time, it was really weird because I start having this déjà vu moment like I’ve done this before and I know the guy, or I should know the guy. So I finally look down to get a good look at him and of course he’s got no face. Like a cue ball, just blank! I can’t even care though. That’s the crazy thing. I don’t even care. I just close my eyes and fold my arms over his head and I lay on him, then I wake up. I wait for them to comment, but neither does.

After a pause Jake says So who was the guy?

Let me guess, says Oliver. Your dad or something?

I say I don’t think so. Maybe. Never thought about it like that. Always just figured the no face thing was the funny part…

Oliver raises his eyebrows as if to say that I need counseling or something, and goes back to his macaroni and cheese.

Jake looks at us both and says Yeah…so that was weird. Let me go, let me go.

I reason Well I said it was going to be weird.

He spouts on. I try to listen, but to be honest I didn’t get any sleep any sleep last night so I’m not even trying all that hard. I rest my head on my hand, slumped over the slop that I should be eating, but I opt not to. I just nod and I smile when he does as I space out again figuring that things are just better when I stay silent.

Jake’ a ‘god guy’, ‘real laugh’, ‘manic’/‘introvert’, laid back type. Also a movie buff—much of the reason he and Oliver are friends. Have been since elementary school or some sappy crap like that. Jake, he was one of the most happy, silly people that I’d ever had the pleasure to have met. Always cracking jokes and jumping on peoples’ backs in the halls. The type of person that volunteers to show the new kid around a school ‘just cause.’ Now though, ever since we all found out his parents were getting a divorce—a topic we all just don’t touch—he hasn’t been the same. He’s also been sneaking his older sister’s antidepressants and they make him off. I mean, compared to the guy that he used to be. He’s either as exhausting to be around as a coke fiend or, when he’s down off the stuff, as fun to be around as a comatose patient.

It’s kind of like that feeling that you get when you pop into a new group of people, they call you a friend, and then you sort of assume their problems, whether or not you want to. This is definitely that.

I snap back into Jake’s rant. Then he announces to us that he plans to go to the mall and that the both of us should follow after school.

We both agree.

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Never has this food court seemed so small. I’m sitting here with the guys who are all peachy, smiling and out-witting each other about girls they both almost dated and embarrassing sleep over moments form summers past. I’m here quietly trying to stay awake.

It sucks when you haven’t slept for as long as you should have. Ruins the entire day afterward. If I could put my head on this table without anyone else noticing, I’d wake up after even the janitors had gone home. I’m not even making any sense anymore…

I have to get up and walk this off for a sec I mumble to myself.

I wobble when I get up and start for the bathroom ’cause I my head feels like its floating and my eyes are getting watery. Like most times though, after a few steps the feeling disappears. I continue towards the men’s room even as I get my footing back. I put my face under the stream of water from the fountain and wipe it off, passing it through my hair and leaving my neck and collar soaked with cool-damp. As I walk back, no one really notices when I sit back down. That or neither noticed that I left in the first place.

I dig through my book-bag for my portable game system, figuring being antisocial is a better look than up and leaving for good. I find it. Then I sort out a couple of rubber bands from all of my paper clips pencil shavings and put them around my wrists.

A pretty effective way to stay awake if you’re tired—snap them against your arms.

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After the mall, I bike it home.

Swerve, turn, duck for the tree, keep pedaling. I could do this trip with my eyes closed now.

This not sleeping thing—it’s this been messing with me. Sort of like that moment that you give up on staying awake and your pillow and your head suddenly become magnetic to one another. It’s that split second that’s lasting more and more throughout the days lately. Weekends help though. The only time in my depressingly vacant-besides-school schedule doesn’t look like I have a problem. (If you haven’t woken up at two in the afternoon, you haven’t lived.) I would search this stuff up online as symptoms for something, but everyone knows not to search up medical advice like that. Everything leads back to having cancer so I leave it all alone.

Turn left into the cul-de-sac and done.

I pull into my drive way. No car present so the house is empty. I lean the bike against the house and I go into the back yard and lay down on the grass. The ground that touches my bare skin is warm. The sky is just cloudy enough so I can look at it without the brightness giving me a migraine. I suck my teeth at the fact that I don’t do this as much anymore and I turn on my side to think and rip up dandelion stems. Then, I turn over back on my back; I close my eyes, and before I know it the universe blanks out into deep black nothing and I’m asleep.

Chapter 2

I almost fell asleep on the floor walking down the halls to my last class today. I dropped a pencil. I bent down. Then I sat down. Then I felt my entire body droop as if I couldn’t muster the energy to pick myself up. Then, just as quickly, I startle myself to get up as the late bell sounds. I’m so happy no one saw me…

It’s been like this all week, me in this fog, this zombie-like state where I can’t for my life pay any attention to anything around me. It feels awful. Nothing matters. I go from class to class, not remembering anything because I feel like I’ve been awake for weeks.

It hits me at the weirdest times too, walking around, sitting and thinking for too long in one spot, when I laugh really hard at something. It’s like torture just to keep my eyes open.

Take today for instance. In almost every period of class today, I nodded off at least once. It was the weirdest thing. Not that today was particularly more boring than any other day or that I didn’t go to sleep any differently than I did usually. But I just can’t gather up the damn to do anything but keep my head firmly on my desk. I’m really confused. I laugh to myself at the state of my notes—scribbles and sentences that trail to and fro off the page.

Right now though, I don’t fret too much about it since I just got out of last period and after a quick stop to the restroom, I’m out of here.

Now I’m in the bathroom, standing in a line for the only working urinal.

My lucky day, I know.

I’m so bored that I decide to lean against the nearest wall to rest my head. As I do, I close my eyes and let out a loud yawn, hoping to make the guy going feel self-conscience enough so that he’ll hurry up. No dice. I close my eyes, only for a second and right as I do, I feel the room around me slowly disappear and the floor become soft enough for me to kneel on. To sleep on even.

I don’t though.

It’s getting to hard to focus.

I could just drift off for just a few seconds.

Though my eyes are closed and I can feel myself literally falling asleep against this graffiti laden marble, I hear soft murmurs from the stall adjacent to me. Someone is in there. Cackling? Grunting? No, it’s laughing. A little girl’s laugh? Why is there a girl in the guy’s bathroom? If that’s a girl in the stall, I’m not sure what you’re doing, but leave me out of it. I’m trying to take a piss… Hello? Hello? I’m not sure if I said that out loud or in my head.

I snap my head forward, stumble, and I’m back. Whoa! I was falling asleep. How’d that even hap—?

FLUSH…!

A guy comes out of one of the stalls. Was he the thing that I heard? I see a phone in his hand and we make eye contact. I look back down at myself. I must have been out for a few seconds. Or minutes. I don’t even know. That was weird. As I zip up I notice the guy that left the stall stuff his phone in his pocket, rub his fingers under the hand dryer once or twice, and leave without having actually touched soap. I think Seriously dude?

I straighten myself back up in line. There’s only one other person before me now. He goes. I go. Mission complete. I stand in front of the sink and let the water run across my hands. I stare at myself in the mirror, the place where I do all of my thinking, and I ponder away. See this whole sleeping thing sucks like you wouldn’t believe. Like because I don’t sleep as much as I should, or more than I should, I wake up more tired than ever. Or not. Sometimes it’ll be normal, the feeling that you get when you first wake up and everything is right in the world. But it’s the other times, the times recently where the only way that I can describe it would be that I have three gears that I get into when I’m tired. I’m awake. I’m tired/sleepy/asleep or this one where I’m hearing things and walking and talking like I’m not in my right mind so I sort of float days on end in auto pilot. Especially with days like these where I have to fight off knocking out every five minutes. Ugh. My mattress might be prison-thin, but come on. That can’t be causing all this, could it?

Whatever.

Next time I go to a doctor’s appointment, I’ll bring it up if I can remember. I popped and snagged all of my rubber bands so I can’t even do that to stay awake. Also, I’ve been snapping them so hard against my wrists that I’m now a bit bruised on one side, and I have a bunch of red marks running up and down my other arm’s forearm.

I can’t even care at the moment though. I just have to survive getting home.

I stick a piece of gum in my mouth and continue walking out of the bathroom towards my locker.

Flicking my on my combination lock, still in the mental haze that just won’t quit I read the blurry numbers out in my head as I turn the combination disc side to side.

24-08-09.

Click.

Nope.

24-08-19?

Click.

Of course not.

23-09-08??

Jingle, jingle, click.

Why today?

It takes a couple more tries before I get the combination down. No sooner do I open it up though, does Jake appear leaning into the locker next to mine. He’s giving a weak smile and his eyes are glassy so I guess he took something today.

Lazily he nags "Dude, hurry up. It’s not like you weren’t assigned