A loud thunk tore me from another restless sleep. I was in the river in a storm again, bobbing in the waves, with the same boy's terrified face inches from mine. But this time the current swept him away from me and he disappeared into the wild gray-green waves. I woke up on the floor drenched in sweat, with the bedsheet tangled around my legs.

I sat up quickly and was still gulping panicked breaths when I heard a light knocking on the door.

My dad's muffled voice asked, "You alright?"

"Yeah. Can you come in for a second?" My voice sounded so small and scared.

I sipped some water from the glass on my nightstand and straightened the bedsheet. It was glowing in the light of the full moon that shone through the window. My dad's tee shirt was the same eerie bluish white.

I sat on the edge of the bed. "Sorry to wake you up. Bad dream. I can't believe I fell out of bed."

"It was the scream that woke me up. Scared the shit out of me. Must have been some nightmare."

"Yeah, it was. Dad, did I ever fall off Grandpa's boat? In a storm?"

He silently dragged the chair from the desk closer to the bed and sat down before he spoke.

"You did. I didn't think you remembered that. I'm so sorry, Skater."

My eyes watered when he called me by my old nickname. It had been a long time since he'd called me Skater, and since he'd repeated all those familiar stories about how I was the "biggest littlest Avril Lavigne fan" when I was four years old. Supposedly I loved Avril so much that I wore my dad's one and only necktie around the house and asked for a skateboard for my fifth birthday. I got a scooter instead, but my dad still called me "Skater Girl."

When I was thirteen, and Avril started calling her fans "Little Black Stars", my dad had a tattoo of a black star added next to the Black Flag four bars on his arm. By then, I wasn't obsessed with Avril anymore, and the tattoo bothered me for some reason and that's when I asked him to "get over it" and stop calling me Skater.

"Is that what your dream was about?" he asked.

"Yeah. I have the same nightmare a lot. I still don't know how much of it matches what really happened."

"Well, how about you tell me what you remember and I'll fill in the gaps as best I can?"

"Okay, so I was playing with Barbies in the cabin and then the sky got really dark."

"Your punk Barbies," he said quietly.

"My what?"

"You gave them haircuts and used markers to color their hair black and green and blue and give them makeup. I called them your 'punk Barbies'. Sorry. Go on."

"The waves were so big and the boat was tipping back and forth and I thought I was going to puke, so I leaned over and fell in the water." I hesitated to ask the question I really wanted answered. "Was there a boy there?"

"Jason was with us. It was you, me, your grandpa and Jason on the boat that day."

"I mean in the water with me. In the dream, there's a boy. I'm wearing a life jacket and he's not."

He scratched at his facial hair and thought for a moment. "No, you were alone. We didn't see you for a couple of minutes, and when we found you, you were passed out. Just bobbing there in the water with your head resting on the shoulder of your life jacket. But when you woke up, you acted like nothing ever happened. That storm came and went so quickly, it didn't seem real to any of us. It, um, kind of got swept under the rug."

"Wait, does Mom know this happened?"

"We weren't on good terms at the time and I didn't want to...I didn't want her to..." He paused and sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

"Okay," I said. "It's okay. I think I get it."

He stood and lazily patted my shoulder. "Do you want to come downstairs and sleep on the couch? Or on the floor in our room?"

"Oh, no, thanks but no thanks. I'll be fine. And thanks for checking on me."

"I wish you would've told me before that you were having these nightmares." He sighed heavily. "I don't know if talking about it and clearing things up will make them go away, but if it does I guess I should've talked to you about it a long time ago."

~~~~~~

After school, I stood at the counter at Lou's waiting for a hot chocolate and for Eric. We were supposed to meet there to finish our letters for government class. I told my dad it was pointless to drive home and then back into town for work and he agreed.

It seemed that my ungrounding was going to be gradual and unofficial. I always asked him before doing anything outside of the usual routine, and lately the answer was yes more often than no.

After Sophie served drinks to the customers ahead of me, Lou came through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen while tying the railroad striped apron that hung from her tall frame.

"I'll cover the front for a minute," she said to Sophie. "Can you make those sandwiches? Aiden's on break."

Lou hummed to herself while she tapped her fingers along the shelves that displayed her colorful and eclectic collection of mugs. While everyone else who worked there grabbed any mug within reach, Lou liked to personalize her selections.

She served my hot chocolate in a bright blue mug that said, "You are free to dream a new dream" and pushed it across the counter toward me with a knowing smile.

"I think you're going to be just fine," she said.

"Thank you?"

Her dark bobbed hair swung into her face as she quickly turned around to peer into the kitchen. "I know it's none of my business," she said in a low voice, "but Sophie spills a lot of tea around here. Not actual tea, I mean, she blabs a lot. Sorry. My daughters cringe when I try to speak the language. Anyway, if you want to be a fashion designer, you should go for it. It's your life, not Sophie's or anyone else's, and you get to decide what to do with it."

I wrapped my hands around the warm mug and gave her a tight smile. "Okay."

Easier said than done, I thought.

"I never thought I'd own a coffee shop slash laundromat. My daughters were always complaining about how there was nowhere to hang out in Palmer, and I was burning out in my old career, so I quit, and opened this place." Her blue-green eyes sparkled as she grinned. "Then I fell for the chef who makes the quiche, and we live in the country with chickens and a goat. Nice surprises around every corner, really. All because I took a chance on an idea that almost everyone in my life thought was terrible."

Sophie pushed through the swinging doors and Lou quickly crouched down and flung open the mini refrigerator under the counter.

"Cold brew," she muttered and then she was gone as quickly as she came.

I sat at a table near the window, feeling grateful that Lou had decided to open this place. Her daughters were off at college, but those of us left in Palmer still got to enjoy the inviting, cozy atmosphere she originally created for them and their friends. The entire wall behind the espresso machine was covered in square blue and green tiles that matched all the shades of the river, which was visible from the huge front window. Broken-in leather chairs faced the fireplace, which was flanked by tall bookshelves at the back of the room and work by local artists hung on the brick walls. The retro Formica tables and mint green metal chairs gave the place a fun vintage vibe.

Lou's was open late on weekends and hosted open mic nights twice a month and really was the only place outside of our own homes to hang out in Palmer. Maybe there was something to Eric's parents' theory that it was easier to make a positive impact on a smaller community. Lou had made an impact on ours.

Senior discount coffee guy, also known as Pete's friend, Jimmy, walked in with a gust of cold air. Sophie greeted him with a polite smile.

"You're early," she said. "For here or to go?"

He pushed up the sleeve of his navy blue jacket to check his watch and said, "I guess you're right. It's that Daylight Savings time. Throws my clock off. To go, please."

As I watched him slowly stir creamer into his coffee, my heart began to race and I had a strong feeling I was going to do something stupid. If he would have come to Lou's at four o'clock- his normal time- I would have already left for the Shipyard. I considered that maybe I should take his early arrival as a sign. Or maybe I should bite my tongue and stop being such a chaotic weirdo.

Jimmy took his coffee to go, and I watched him walk down the sidewalk while I wrung my clammy hands together. My curiosity won the battle with reason, so I stood up and followed him. I caught up to him as he reached his truck.

"Jimmy?" I cringed, as I realized how disrespectful I sounded addressing an eighty-year old man with what was probably a childhood nickname. "Sir?"

He turned around, eyed me curiously and chuckled. "No one's called me Jimmy in a while."

"I'm sorry. Mister..."

"Claflin. Or Jim is fine."

"Mr. Claflin, I have a question, about something, someone, well, it was a long time ago."

"I might be able to help. I was around a long time ago," he said with a grin.

"Thanks. Do you remember Pete Harrison?"

He nodded in recognition. "Sure do. He was one of my good friends when I was a kid."

"Then what happened?"

"Well, he left town. When we were about twenty or so."

I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. I ran out of Lou's without a coat and the cold went right through the loose stitching of my sweater.

"Do you know where he went?" I asked.

"Nah. Nobody knew where he went. Not even his own mother, if I recall correctly. People said he ran off with the girl he was seeing. Why do you ask?"

"I'm doing some investigative journalism. I'm writing an article for class about people from Palmer who've disappeared."

"I don't know if Pete disappeared as much as he left and didn't come back. Nothing too mysterious about that." Then he grimaced. "I assume you've heard about those sisters who vanished twenty-some years ago."

"I have, yeah."

He shook his head sadly. "Who was it that mentioned Pete, if you don't mind me asking? I haven't heard his name in years."

"My grandpa, Walter Brooks? He passed away this summer, but before that he got all nostalgic, you know?"

I felt a twinge of guilt for lying, and because the reason Grandpa got all nostalgic was due to my constant pestering for information about his past.

"Oh, I know!" Jim chuckled and then turned serious. "I was sorry to hear about Walt. He was, well, both of your grandparents were good people."

"They were."

I looked over Jim's shoulder and saw Eric frozen in place on the sidewalk, watching us.

"Hey!" I said with a wave.

"Sorry I couldn't help you out more with your investigation," Jim said. "You have a good day, now."

"Friend of yours?" Eric asked as we walked toward Lou's.

"No, just, um, someone who knew my grandpa."

Eric made a gruff noise of acknowledgement. He seemed tense and his face was stony and pale. When it dawned on me why he might have been acting strange, I was horrified.

"That wasn't him," I said under my breath. "If that's what you're thinking."

"Geez, Ness. Thank God," he sighed. "I can't say it didn't cross my mind."

He opened the door to Lou's, where we were greeted with a warm blast of air and Sophie with a perplexed expression on her face.

"Why did you accost senior discount coffee guy?" she asked.

"I didn't accost him. I had to ask him a question. It's not a big deal," I mumbled.

Eric and Sophie looked at each other and shrugged.

So Pete really left. And never came back.

The life he envisioned for himself had been derailed. He'd bought land near Palmer where he planned to build a house. He wanted to watch the sunset from that house every evening. Thanks to my interference in his life he lived beyond his twentieth birthday, but it wasn't the life he imagined.