This briefcase is too damn complicated. Inside it was a list of options and instructions. Locked shut / locked open / not locked but latched / open. "Minimize air" would kind of vacuum-seal it shut, "to reduce paper shuffling and document damage within the briefcase."
While I was trying to figure out the fucker, my car rolled away. Edebroux went running after it and she rounded a blind corner - we were at a busy gas station and I had a brief flash of I really hope she doesn't get squashed in this dream. And she doesn't.
edebroux chases my car while I stand frozen, praying that it will flatten no one and not crunch itself into a pole or building either. It rolls and rolls, just out of her reach. Across a street and into a roundabout. I am freaking out.
Suddenly edebroux is gone and I am in her place. The cars have turned into people, running in a circle. My car has turned into Tobey Maguire, running with blind eyes. I scream EVERYBODY OUT! but no one listens. I duck in between the running people, who seem just as dangerous as the cars. I lean and manage to snag the cuff of Tobey's jeans, and he goes down on his face and I fall over too, but we are out of the traffic pattern so we are safe.
Flash to somewhere inside. My mother is fussing around bringing Tobey soup and so forth. He has a bloody nose and won't stop smiling at me over his soup. I am watching him from a doorway. Standing next to me is the weird son from Roseanne. I feel very warmly toward him because he is my brother and had something to do with Tobey's rescue.
Tobey says to the boy, "I hardly recognized you," and points to his mustache. The boy blushes, he's not used to it yet, and is used to people making fun of it. But Tobey means it. He tells him it makes him look older. I do not mention that Tobey himself looks about 17, and his facial hair is making him look like just a kid.
I hug my brother before he goes to bed and it hurts to press my face against his shoulder because I have a bloody nose too, from falling. My brother and mom disappear. Tobey tells me he is going up to bed, still smiling around his poor swollen nose.
Before I go to meet Tobey I pick up a book and it falls open to this:
Let's say you are growing old and one day you realize,
she's no longer the same person you always wanted to be
buried next to. Somewhere along the way, she peeled back
the girl and stepped out, unrecognizable. Don't say it to
her, she would weep for the loss as well; it's sad.
It hit me so hard I stood in the doorway gasping, eyes shut trying not to cry, trying to make sure I would remember it. I ran into the bathroom to look at my face, and was instantly awake.