Dream took a deep breath, then jumped--
And landed in the arms of a dark-haired grinning boy.
"Ugh, put me down," Dream complained.
"I told you it wasn't hard," Zac said, laughing.
"Yeah, I am sooo not doing that. Ever. Again. In my life!" Dream groaned.
"You don't have to. I thought you were running away from home? Unless you're having second thoughts and plan to jump back into your own room and face...well, whatever it is that you're running away from."
"All my life I've been moving around," Dream said.
"What?" Zac said, confused.
"I thought it was because of my dad's job. It was, at first. But I found out yesterday that eventually, we didn't really have to move. My dad was moving to different places because he wanted to. He didn't care that I had depression for six years."
Zac looked down, and for the first time since meeting him, Dream thought his expression was slightly more empathetic compared to the indifferent look he almost always had. "Oh. I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I know how you feel."
"Huh?"
"My parents don't care about me either. We're far from well-off, it's not like they're always working. But they're never home. I used to have my brother. But he left for college and never looked back. So...it's just me now."
"Oh."
"Well, what are we doing?" Zac grinned, as if he hadn't just shared a depressing aspect of his life. "School starts in thirty minutes, we should probably get going."
"Yeah," Dream said.
"I'll put your suitcase in the guest room!" Zac called, leaving the room.
That was when Dream suddenly realized, "Oh, shoot!" she said.
"What?" Zac walked back into the room.
"My backpack! It's still in my room!"
"Ah. Need to make that jump again?"
"No!" Dream said. "I'm already going to get nightmares from doing that jump once."
Zac shrugged. "No biggie. I'll get it."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Like I said. Not. Hard."
"Besides," Dream grumbled. "You're tall. Like, your height is twice the distance between our rooms."
Zac raised his eyebrows, turning around. "I'm not a nerd, Dream. But I'm six feet tall and even I know that six feet is not twice the distance of four feet."
Dream rolled her eyes. "I knew that."
"Sure," Zac said, as he jumped to her room. Dream closed her eyes, holding her breath.
"Geez girl," Zac called from inside Dream's room. "Don't act so nervous. You're not even the one doing the jumping. This is your backpack right?" he said holding up a navy blue backpack.
"Yeah," Dream said.
"Okay," Zac said, effortlessly jumping back to his own room with Dream's backpack in one hand.
"No more jumping?" Dream suggested. "It's making me sick."
"Okay, okay," Zac said. "That's fine. Come on, hurry, we need to get to school."
---
"I'm worried about Dream," Dream's dad confessed to his fiance, Ava.
"She'll come to terms with it. She sounds like a sweet girl."
"She is," he responded. He looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. "It's six thirty. She should be getting to school already, and she's not even up yet. She's going to be late."
"Why don't you go wake her up," Ava said. "Maybe she forgot to set an alarm or something."
"Yeah, I will," he said. "You should come with me. I want her to get used to having a maternal figure in her life."
Nodding, Ava followed him down the hallway to Dream's room.
"Dream?" he knocked. "You awake?"
No response.
"Dream? You okay?"
Still no response.
"I'm going to come in, okay?" he paused. "Dream, you can't keep ignoring me forever." He opened the door.
The room was empty.
The bed was perfectly made. Dream's desk, which was usually scattered with books, papers, and pens, was completely bare.
"Maybe she decided to organize her room last night to cope with the stress?" Ava suggested hopefully.
Dream's dad shook his head. "It's not like that. Dream is a messy person. She wouldn't organize her room."
"Maybe she's in the bathroom," Ava gestured to the closed bathroom door.
Dream's dad, sighed, knocking on the door. "Dream? You in there?" When he got no answer, he sighed, cracking open the door. His jaw dropped open and he slammed the door, his hands pulling at his hair.
"She's gone, Ava. She's gone. She's left."
"Don't say that, Trent," Ava said. "I'm sure she's--" Ava looked in the bathroom. It was completely empty. No towels, no toiletry items, nothing.
Dream's dad sighed, opening Dream's closet. Nothing. He swallowed, walking over to her desk, opening some of the drawers. Still nothing. He looked at the drawers of her nightstand too.
"She's really gone."
"There's only one thing left to do, then," Ava said.
---
A/N
OKAY IS ANYONE ELSE MAJORLY SHIPPING DREAM AND ZAC RIGHT NOW? Lol... (because I maybe am... just a teensy weensy lil' bit... Oh who am I kidding, I ship them a lot)
Also... POV shift! I was debating whether to include this scene, but I thought the next scene would be much more interesting if I did. There's going to be like one more of these POV changes in the entire book, otherwise everything is from Dream's perspective.
Thanks for 1.3k reads and 600 votes! Love you guys 🥰💕💖
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Next update is going to be on Friday, so don't forget to stay tuned for that!!
💙, Stella Rose
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The Mrs. Woods Mystery
Teen Fiction"Between you and me, I specifically requested to be in Mrs. Woods' class," Zac said, slightly louder so Dream could hear him. "What?! Why would you do that?" "To investigate," Zac admitted. "Investigate what?" "It's a horrible thing," Zac sa...
