After You (Because of You 2)

Smiling brightly, she asks, “How did you sleep? Daddy said you were tired this morning. He’s in the kitchen making you breakfast.”

I’m losing my mind. I am losing my mind. It’s lost. It’s gone. Someone paper all the telephone poles with posters, because my mind is officially missing.

The little girl looks at me for a moment longer, then turns her gaze back to the TV.

I grab the wall to steady myself, then continue into the living room. I wait for more children to pop up, but it’s just this one.

Past the living room is an arch that leads to the kitchen, so I walk in there, my stomach even less settled now than it was a moment ago.

Derek’s back is to me as he stands at the stove, cooking. He’s wearing a pair of gray sweats and no shirt. His hair is still short, not long, so this can’t be a dream. I would give him long hair in a dream.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

He turns, smiling warmly when he sees me wearing his shirt. “Hey, babe. Sleep okay?”

What?

I step inside the kitchen and lean against the wall, needing it to hold me up. I can’t think straight. I’m too hung over for thinking, and this situation would be monumentally fucked up even with a fully sober brain. What the hell is going on? I’m so confused.

I stand there for a moment, not moving. Waiting for the world to right itself. Maybe this is a dream. I have never been hung over in a dream before, never felt physical discomfort so acutely, but it’s really the only explanation at this point. There’s a little girl in the living room calling me mom, and Derek just called me babe. I was just melting down at my father’s wedding about the life I couldn’t lead, so maybe my brain is… tripping out, and this is happening. Or maybe I have finally lost my mind. It was bound to happen eventually, I guess. If ever there was a woman built for madness, you only have to look at my genes to see it is definitely me.

My eyes widen as Derek turns around to grab a shaker of pepper off the counter. This is definitely a dream, because I gave Derek a tattoo. On his left side, over his rib cage, he has words tattooed on him. My Derek did not have a tattoo—at least, not at 18.

This is the most realistic, fucked up dream I’ve ever had, but it’s literally the only explanation. Movies flash through my mind, like that old Nicholas Cage one The Family Man, where you suddenly wake up in the life you could have led, had you both made different choices. But… stuff like that obviously does not happen in real life. Therefore, this has to be a dream.

I smile, feeling a little relieved. It still doesn’t make complete sense, but it’s the only possible explanation—aside from madness. I guess I shouldn’t rule that one out.

What do I do? Derek is making breakfast for me, and we have a child, apparently. What is our child’s name? How do I find that out without alerting Dream Derek that I don’t know? I’m a horrible dream mom. Maybe I’ll just give her one and go with it.

“Um, why is… Peyton having dry Froot Loops if you’re making breakfast?”

Derek turns back, cocking a dark golden brow at me. “Cassidy?”

“Yes, that’s what I meant. Cassidy.”

“She’s a weirdo,” he tells me. “She doesn’t like breakfast food.”

“We have clearly raised her wrong,” I state, walking over to see what he’s cooking.

Smirking as he looks over at me, he says, “We clearly have. I like you in my shirt.”

If I had known there was a child in the living room, I probably would have put on pants, but what the hell? This is a fantasy.

“Do you work today?” I ask him.

“Nope, I never work on Saturdays. I’m all yours today.”

A bubble of happiness bursts open inside me, spilling all over, leaving a blanket of everything lovely in its wake. It’s as if a Disney movie has burst open inside my heart, the ice soldiers of my waking life a memory, replaced by this glorious dream. Maybe I will drink more if this is the kind of fantasy I get when I fall asleep. I’ll become a mad, alcoholic hermit, but every night when I close my eyes, I’ll get to live my fantasy life, so it’ll be worth it.

I have a daughter. With Derek. I can’t resist walking back to the arch between rooms and peering back in at her. “Does her unicorn have a name?”

“Princess Purple,” he states.

“But it’s pink and white,” I point out, turning to look back at him.

“I have no logical explanation for you.”

“Do you know who Kayla is? Do I still have a publishing company? I have a lot of questions.”