I dreamed of Ryan

I dreamed of Ryan.

We were riding Petey and Sasha up in the Colorado National Monument. We were trying to find Weeping Rock. We wanted to stand under the ledge and let the cool water drip down on us, and water the horses. We were young, so young, neither of us 16. He was so beautiful, with his curly tobacco-brown hair and those hazel-green eyes looking pensively out from under the brim of his cowboy hat. He was smiling, just a bit, and I knew he was feeling relaxed, because like me, Ryan rarely smiled. Such a serious boy. We rode in companionable silence, watching the eagles circle on the thermal updrafts, pointing out to each other the various hoodoos and what the shapes reminded us of.

It was like a memory, but it wasn't. Ryan and I never rode this far west, and I remembered thinking that in my dream, thinking that my rides on the Monument came later, and alone, because there were things I sought solace from that even he did not know about.

And then he turned to me and spoke, and he was no longer a boy. His face was leaner, the planes harder, the freckles gone. And the voice was deeper, stronger. He said, "You never told me about Randy."

I was astonished by his transformation and his words. There was no accusation in his words, but I still felt guilty.

"He was your friend," I answered him.

And then he said something else, and what he said was something that was dredged from my unconscious, obviously, something that had never occurred to me in a waking moment.

"It was my fault. I told him about us."

It jolted me out of sleep. My heart was pounding. My mind was racing. Cyn implied to me that there were things Ryan never told me, and of course I know it is true, just as there were things I never told him. If I had told him about Randy, what would he have said? I was always convinced he would have gone after Randy, that it would have been ugly, ugly, so ugly, because Ryan had so much anger after Demming, after what she did to us and caused us to do to each other, and I was so convinced he'd try to be the hero. But maybe... maybe I didn't tell him because I was afraid to find out he'd said something to Randy and that was why... why he'd been after me so relentlessly... why I ended up in a basement with my best friend's older brother using my body like it was his... why, when I finally crawled home and went to my father for help, I was told I got what I deserved for being a tease... and why, a few nights later, I held a handgun to my father's head and have felt the coward ever since because I could not pull the trigger...

Ah the power of dreams to illuminate the subconscious. I wonder what my therapist will think of this one?