Kylie knew all about unwanted dreamscapes. Then she remembered Derek's pain at dealing with his dad, the man who had abandoned him when he was really young. "Do you communicate with him now?" she asked, remembering he'd said he was going to look for his dad when he'd left Shadow Falls. When he'd come back with Ellie, she hadn't thought about Derek's problems, only about feeling betrayed by him. A touch of shame filtered into her chest at her selfishness.
"Not really. But I now know how to work the dreamscape, so I..."
"You what?" Kylie asked.
"Started using it again. But that's not important. Look, the other night when you came to me in the dream."
"I'm sorry about that," she said. "I'm just now learning how to control them. But as soon as I realized what I had done, that I had gone to your bedroom, I left."
His frown tightened. "I know. But before you took off, in that second that I saw you, it dawned on me that I didn't feel it here."
"Didn't feel what?" she asked, obviously still half-asleep.
"I didn't feel the surge of your emotions." He smiled. "When we dreamscape, I can talk to you, be this close to you without it making me crazy."
Kylie felt so many mixed emotions sitting on the rock, staring at his smile. She took a deep breath. "I'm not sure this is a good thing."
"Why not? I just want to talk. To see how you're doing. Is that a crime? I thought you said you cared about me? That you wanted to be my friend?"
"Okay, let me put it another way. I don't think Ellie will think this is such a good idea."
He frowned. "I keep telling you that it's not like that with us now. Ellie and I are just friends."
"Really?" Kylie let sarcasm leak into her tone. "Because it's hard to believe after the picture I saw of you two making out."
He hesitated and then said, "Fine, you're right. When I first ran into Ellie, she was so happy to see me and I was hurting. Lucas was back and you cared about him. I was just as confused as Ellie was. We kissed and ... Look, the important thing is that we both realized it was wrong."
It was that little pause that caught her attention the most. "You kissed and then did what?" Kylie asked.
Obviously in the dream world, she felt braver, able to ask questions she might not ask in real life. "Just exactly what happened between you and Ellie in Pennsylvania?"
Chapter Twenty-four
"Is it important?" Derek asked.
"You had sex with her, didn't you." Somehow Kylie had known this all along. It sucked being right, too.
Guilt filled his eyes. "It didn't mean anything."
She shook her head. "How can it not have meant anything? It's the ultimate form of intimacy between two people."
"Not always," he said. "Sometimes it's just two people searching for something. And a lot of times, they don't find it. We didn't find it, Kylie. Ellie knew it. I knew it. And the romantic relationship is completely over. It was a mistake and we both knew it."
"But you brought her back with you."
He flinched. "She's not a bad person, I couldn't leave her there at the commune. It was awful. She'd have been in a gang in a matter of weeks."
Kylie pulled her legs closer to her chest and tried to sort through the emotions bouncing through her. She felt hurt. She felt justified in her feelings of jealousy. And she felt ... relieved. The last one didn't make sense, though. Why would she feel relieved that Derek and Ellie had sex?
Then the truth hit. She felt relieved because now there was no reason for her to experience guilt over being with Lucas. Not that the truth still didn't hurt. And if she was completely honest with herself, she still felt a tiny wave of jealousy. But she pushed it away, because now, more than ever, she could accept it. She was Derek's friend. Just his friend.
"We're just friends," she said.
He looked at her. "Yeah," he said, but something about that one word didn't seem as honest as his earlier words.
"All I want to do is talk. To make sure you're okay. Give me ten minutes." He studied her frown. "Five. Hell, give me three minutes, Kylie. Is that too much for a friend to ask?"
She looked at the stream and then up at him. "Three minutes. Then this ends."
"Deal." He looked at his watch, and then, as if competing with the clock, he started talking. "How are you? What happened at the cemetery? I heard about it."
She gave him the really short version. Namely, that she thought the ghost was buried there. And she'd discovered her spirit might be a child killer.
He didn't flinch like the rest of them. "What are you going to do?" he asked instead. "How are you going to get to the truth?"
"I'm waiting for the ghost to come back. She hasn't visited me since then."
"She will," he said. "And don't worry too much. I'm sure you'll figure everything out. You always do."
Kylie gazed up into his gold-flecked green eyes. "How do you know I'm worried?"
"Duh, I can feel it."
"I thought you couldn't feel my emotions here?"
"I can feel them, but they're just at a lower voltage. Normal range."
Normal. That word seemed to be popping into Kylie's mind a lot.
She nodded. "Did you ever find your dad?" When he looked upset by her question, she added, "You told me when you left that you were going to try to find him."
He nodded and then swallowed. "I found him."
She felt his mixed emotions as if they were her own. "It didn't go well?"
"I don't know. I thought I'd see him and it would make it right. It's still not right. I still don't know if I want anything to do with him. I'm pretty sure I don't."
"Why? What happened?" Kylie asked.
"He offered me a hundred different reasons why he had to leave me and Mom. His life was a lie trying to live in the human world with my mom. He told me it hurt too much trying to stay in touch. He said he'd like to get to know me again. He said a lot of things. And not one of them meant a hill of beans to me. Maybe it will in time. I don't know. But right now, it just feels totally awkward."
"I understand awkward," she said, and offered him a bit of a smile. "Sara is supposed to be coming with my mom on Parents Day."
He reached for her and then pulled back. "I'm sure it'll be okay."
There was a moment of silence, then Derek started talking. "So, with your ghost ... have you figured out what to do? I mean, how can you find out who she is?"