I was surprised when he led me towards the senior housing across campus.

"I thought you were a freshman," I said warily.

"No, the real-world is calling my name as much as I try to pretend I'm deaf," he said.

"Why are you in a freshmen philosophy class then?" I demanded. This had a bright red flag stuck in it, but strangely I didn't feel afraid.

He shrugged, "I just never took it and it's a requirement to graduate."

His words were nonchalant, bored even, but the stiffness in his shoulders said he was uneasy.

We stopped at a run-down house that had clearly seen its share of parties.

"It used to be a frat house," he said by way of explanation, watching my eyes take in the peeling paint, scuffed porch, and crooked shutters.

The inside was nicer than I expected. The walls had been painted recently and the lights were all new. A cracked leather sofa took up space in one corner facing an enormous flat screen TV mounted on the wall. A video game console hummed on standby. Call of Duty, FIFA, and NHL game covers were placed haphazardly on top.

"Do you play?" he asked.

"A little," I replied.

Call of Duty and FIFA weren't my strong suit, but my record for NHL was impressive enough. Danny and I had used to play a lot.

"You'll have to come by for the next tournament."

He walked over to a coat closet and pulled out a small towel for me to wipe feet.

"Tournament?" I asked, scrubbing at the mud and grass.

"My friends and I set up brackets-loser has to buy alcohol for the next party and clean the house the next morning."

I chuckled in spite of myself. "Couldn't get any more creative?"

"You know, maybe I will make you sleep outside," he said, tugging the towel out of my hand.

He headed into the hallway, tossing the towel into a side laundry room, and stopping outside another door farther down. Floorboards creaked as I followed. His room was plain, most of the space given over to a queen-sized bed with a dark blue comforter. A black dresser hosted a crooked mirror opposite the bed, and a window dressed in standard blinds and a limp blue curtain let a slant of moonlight fall across the floor to just barely hit our feet in the doorway. An Arsenal flag hung above the bed; the wooden floor was half-covered by a blue rug that looked like it was an afterthought.

A stack of books crowded his small end table, most in danger of falling off. At first glance, I figured they were just textbooks, but a closer look revealed 1984 holding up an impossibly thick chemistry book, and a battered copy of the Count of Monte Cristo leaned drunkenly against the wall, a few loose pages peeking out.

"It's not much," he said, drawing my attention away. "But you can take the bed since it looks like my roommate decided to come home for once." He jerked his thumb to another closed door down the hall off the tiny kitchen. "I'll sleep on the couch."

"Oh, no really, it's okay," I said, quickly. "I can take the couch. "

"Trust me, you don't want to sleep there with all of the parties my roommate throws," laughed Tyler. "I need to burn that couch and get a new one."

"Lovely," I said. "Well I can sleep on the floor if you just give me a blanket-"

He laughed louder. "If the couch is bad, do you really think the floor is any safer?"

"Outside is starting to sound better and better," I grumbled.

"Stop being stubborn and just take the bed, Dash."

The way he said those words, like he already knew me, that he already knew where and when I would dig my heels in, reminded me so much of Danny, I felt my breath catch in my throat.

Will you quit being so goddamn stubborn and just cut me some slack, Danny snapped. His hands tightened on the steering wheel, raising veins in his arms.

Danny, if I cut you anymore slack you'd be floating out to sea without a life preserver. Why can't you see this is a bad idea?

It's different for you.

Why? I demanded. This is stupid. You're going to get yourself caught or killed!

No one's ever died-

No one's ever done it! I yelled. No one's ever died trying to swim across the Atlantic Ocean but you don't see people lining up to try it.

Actually, I think someone did die trying to do that.

I slapped his arm. That is not the point, Danny, and you know it.

It's only an hour.

In a fucking tiger's cage, you moron!

Dash, if I do it I have an automatic in, I won't have to go through any of the other shit pledges have to do-

Yeah, if you survive.

Listen, I wanted you to come with me to record it for proof, but if you're going to be like this, I'll ask Chris.

That won't increase your chances of living-it might actually worsen your odds.

Are you coming or not, Dash?

I glared at him. Fine, but only so I can say I told you so when you get mauled.

Fair enough.

That was back when I thought Danny was invincible. He was a thrill-seeker, an adrenaline junkie, someone who infected the room with his sense of adventure. He was the person who thought breaking into a tiger's den at the local zoo was 'fun' when everyone else would have said 'stupid.'

It was something I hated and loved him for. It was something I wish I had, that kind of fearlessness of life, where you thought it wasn't worth living unless it was inches from the edge, or just hanging on by your toes. But he needed someone to talk him down from the unquestionably stupid and reckless. At least that's what I told myself. I was in awe of him, and a little afraid too. Afraid it was going to kill him in the end; but someone else took even that chance away from him.

The unbidden flashback set my heart racing almost as hard as the night I had followed him into the tiger's den. But this was a different kind of adrenaline; that had been euphoria, and this was survival.

I swallowed hard and dropped my gaze so Tyler wouldn't see the tears welling in my eyes.

"Um, thanks. For the bed." The less words I said, the less of a chance he would hear my voice catch on them. "I'll be out of your hair first thing in the morning."

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Just tired, goodnight." I stepped backwards into his room and closed the door.

I pulled back his covers and climbed into the bed; the pillows and blankets might have been cocooning or suffocating, but I couldn't tell. The sheets were freshly washed and smelled faintly of lemon-I stupidly wondered if that was his preferred detergent or something he just chose, or something his parents had given him when they dropped him off. It was that thought that carried me to sleep.

Stars exploded, throwing their cataclysmic debris in my face. Ripping into my face, hands, arms, neck. Star dust hurt. Something caught me as I was flung forward and then flung me back the same way.

My face pressed into the dirt while stars, burning, hot, white, continued to fall from above. A whimper escaped my throat. Something was pressing into my back, crushing the air slowly from my lungs, just slowly enough so that I realized once I ran out, I wouldn't be able to breathe any back in.

Just when the blackness threatened to knock me out, the weight lifted. I turned over inch by inch, every nerve in my body on fire. Dirt clouded my vision and I squinted in the wind that shook leaves from their branches but couldn't lift my matted hair sticky with blood. Someone stood over me, throwing the car door that had pinned me to the ground aside.

Danny? I croaked, choking on more dirt.

Another star exploded in the distance, throwing his face into sharp relief. It was Danny, but it wasn't.

His eyes were pitch, dark, sightless. Half his head was covered in blood. Ribbons of flesh were ripped off his arm. The white of bone was poking through his thigh, but still he stood. His clothes were barely more than tatters. His mouth was slack.

The hand he reached out was a skeleton.

I woke up screaming. Blankets twisted around my legs and chest only tightened the more I flailed and struggled. Cold sweat dripped down my neck.

Hands closed around my wrist and I screamed louder, remembering the bones of Danny's fingers.

"Dash! Dash! It's okay, you're okay!"

The voice echoed in my skull like it was bouncing through a tunnel, far away and disconnected.

Dash! Dash! It's okay, we're going to be okay!

I shrieked again, the darkness pressing on my eyes and blood roaring in my eyes.

"Dash! Wake up! It's a nightmare!"

The voice pinned my wrists to my side, and a weight dropped onto my legs, holding me down. I sucked in deep breaths not able to get enough air. Brightly colored spots erupted in my vision.

"I need you to breathe slowly for me, Dash, okay?"

My breathing faltered as his words registered and I tried to control it. Slowly, it fell back into a steadier rhythm.

"Good," he said, gently. The weight lifted and the sheets were slowly peeled off my legs.

A window was opened and I drank in late summer air greedily, shivering as the breeze hit my sweaty face and neck. The darkness at the edge of my vision receded and Tyler came into view.

He was bare-chested, wearing only gym shorts. The moon in the window behind him washed him out in its pale light. He was lean, not overly muscular but not lacking for it either. His chest rose and fell in time with mine. A hand reached out to help me sit up, while the other simultaneously bent my legs at the knees so I could put my head between them. Bile rose in my throat with the motion, but I would not allow myself to get sick in his bed.

"Feeling better?" he asked. A soothing hand rubbed my back, swaying me gently back and forth.

I just nodded, not trusting myself to speak. His weight lifted off the bed, and I peeked up from my knees to see him rummaging through the closet for a T-shirt before leaving the room. He came back with a glass of water that I drank eagerly, but when he rose to get me another one, I waved him off.

"I'm okay," I said hoarsely. My throat burned with needles; I must have been screaming for a while.

"That must have been some nightmare," he said, once more perching on the edge of the bed.

I moved over to make room for him, but he didn't take the invitation, or maybe he thought I wanted to get away from him.

"Sorry I woke you up," I mumbled. The familiar feeling of shame washed over me in the wake of this latest episode. It sat in my joints, uncomfortably warm and aching.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he said, shrugging.

Silence stretched as I refocused on breathing. The question he wanted to ask hung heavy in the air. His fingers twitched and his eyes flickered in my direction as he tried to decide what to do.

"He's dead," I said bluntly.

"What?" asked Tyler. His face seemed to pale at my statement; a trick of the cold moonlight.

"My friend. Danny. He's dead, died in a car crash. That's what the nightmare was about." I paused, feeling silent, renegade tears run down my face. I felt their ghosts too. But, my voice was steady when I said, "That's what the nightmare is always about."

"I'm sorry, Dash," he said. His voice was quiet, low, sad.

I could tell that he meant it, that he genuinely felt bad, but I hated those words all the same. Pity wasn't going to fix anything. But what did I expect, he didn't know me anymore than I knew him, and he certainly didn't know Danny.

I looked at the digital clock on his bedside table; it was 3 in the morning. My throat itched for more water, but I didn't want to get up and I was too ashamed to ask. Wind sucked the limp curtains out the window and then spit them back into the room. Tyler watched it with blank eyes. His fingers smoothed the crumpled covers over and over to no avail.

"Sometimes it helps to go back to the nightmare, think it through, rather than bury it," he said, not looking at me.

"Now you sound like my therapist."

The corners of his mouth twitched, and his fingers stopped moving. A small line appeared between his eyebrows.

"There's a therapist in everyone," he said, sounding tired.

"So you've done this before?" I asked.

"What?" he asked, distractedly. He was still staring at the window, watching the curtain go back and forth, back and forth.

"You've been someone's therapist."

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You could say that."

I felt bricks sliding into place one by one as a wall I didn't know was missing in the first place was built between us. It was suddenly much colder on the other side.

"Anyway, I'm sorry for waking you," I said, sliding back onto the pillows and pulling the covers around me once more.

"No need to apologize." He stood up and went to close the window. As he walked by the bed, he tugged the covers straight so that my feet were covered. He did this wordlessly, almost like a habit. In the doorway, he paused.

His eyes had regained a flicker of life, and his voice was soft when he said, "I really am sorry, Dash."