Read Online Dreamland by Sarah Dessen - Free Book Online Page B

corridor and having someone crack a door, just for a second, and let a slant of light peek through. For one instant, I could have been anyone else.
    But now, sitting in front of my neighbor’s house, with all the landmarks—fire hydrants, streetlights, sidewalk pavement I’d played a million hopscotch games across—I was quickly becoming just me again, plain and simple.
    He was leaning back in his seat, eyes on the dim green glow of the dashboard. Waiting, I knew, for me to leave. I had my hand on the door handle, ready to slip out, when he said, “Caitlin?”
    I turned to look back at him: his green eyes, wild hair, so foreign and strange, a million miles from Mike Evans and the defensive line. And I could understand why Cass had rolled around the bed, so giddy and stupid, saying good night a hundred different ways just to keep that voice there, one more second.
    â€œYes?” I said, and before the word even fully left my mouth he was leaning forward, one hand rising to brush back my hair, and kissing me.
    We made out for thirty minutes in front of the Richmonds’ mailbox, parked behind their blue Astrovan. There was something especially wicked about this setting. I realized as he struggled to unhook my bra that I didn’t even know his whole name and this, suddenly, seemed wrong.
    â€œWhat’s your last name?” I said, coming up for air somewhere near his left ear.
    â€œBiscoe,” he said, still working the clasp.
    â€œOh,” I said.
    Just then a shadow passed over the car, and we both froze. It was Mr. Carnaby, from down the street, with his so-old-it-was-almost-dead Irish setter, out for a late night walk. They were about to go right by us.
    Rogerson reached down next to my seat, grabbed the reclining lever, and in a split second we dropped quickly together out of sight, whump. I looked up into his face, those green eyes, and felt something all the way down to my toes.
    â€œRogerson Biscoe,” he said, right into my ear, and then I went under again.
    At some point I saw on the little digital clock on the dash that it was past midnight, my curfew. “I have to go,” I said, buttoning my shirt so fast I forgot to put back on my bra, which I stuck in the pocket of my cheerleader jacket. One tumble off the pyramid and look how far I’d fallen.
    â€œGo where?” he said. His lips were right on my cheek, salty and cool.
    â€œHome.” I brushed my fingers through my hair. “I have to be in by midnight.”
    â€œIt’s only five after,” he said.
    â€œI know. I’m late.”
    He leaned in and kissed me again, a good long one, then kept his hand on my knee as he drove up the street, turned around at the pool, and cut back toward my house.
    He slowed down in front of my house, idling the engine.
    â€œWell,” I said. “I’m going now.”
    â€œSo you said,” he replied.
    I opened my door and got out, noticing the light next to my father’s chair, by the window, was still on.
    â€œBye,” I said, walking around the front of the car, wondering if I’d ever see him again or if he just cruised the county, seducing cheerleaders on some eternal quest, obsessed with letter sweaters and pom-poms.
    It was a full moon as I walked up my front steps, bra in my pocket. In less than seven hours my entire life had shifted and changed, starting with that man yelling Cass’s name and ending here, as I listened to Rogerson Biscoe start his car and rumble slowly down the street. It was like it had all happened to someone else, but each thing, each kiss and thought, were strangely mine. He beeped the horn, once, and I turned back to watch as he hit the gas, taillights growing dimmer as he picked up speed over the bridge, to the highway.
    Once inside, I washed my face, put on my pajamas, and crawled into bed, reaching under the mattress to pull out the dream journal. I flipped to the first page again, where I’d