A Glimpse of the Dream by L. A. Fiore

actual day, Kane detailing the scents coming from the kitchen to rub it in. He sounded happy, which I thought was surprising with how upset he’d seemed about me not coming home. I tried not to think about why he’d be happy, namely by spending time with Doreen, but I did anyway. A pain had started in my stomach, an ulcer most likely, and I called it Doreen.
    After my study session on Friday, Kane and I talked, but I hadn’t heard from him since. Each day that went by without word, the more worried I got. He’d had a long weekend with Doreen, and now he wasn’t calling me. It seemed like a reasonable jump to believe he wasn’t calling because he was spending time with her. There weren’t words to describe the sensation that moved through me when I thought about Kane moving on with someone else.
    As the days turned into weeks, I began to get scared that it was something more, that something bad had happened. I couldn’t get through to him or anyone at the house, which never happened. Focusing on anything at school was impossible, so I made arrangements with my professors and headed home using the open-ended tickets Mrs. Marks had purchased for me to use at Thanksgiving.
    As soon as I landed, I called for a cab, which was going to cost a fortune, but I wanted to get home as fast as possible. Until the moment Raven’s Peak came into view, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed being there. After paying the cabbie, I grabbed my bags and ran up the front steps. Mr. Clancy wasn’t there to open the door, but then, he wasn’t expecting me.
    As I placed my bags just inside the door, I was met by silence. I ran up the stairs right to Kane’s room, but when I entered, my feet just stopped. His room wasn’t just unoccupied, it looked nearly cleared out. Most of his personal stuff, things he didn’t use but didn’t want to part with, was boxed in the corner, but all his clothes and those things he used daily like his iPod and speakers were gone. I didn’t know how long I stood in his room that was no longer his room. Where the hell was he? Had he moved to Boston already and was waiting to surprise me? But it seemed like a cruel joke to not contact me. We never went so long between calls.
    I searched the house for the others, but the place was empty, and, from the look of the pile of mail on the kitchen counter, it had been for a while. Reaching for my phone, I called Mrs. Marks, but as was the case lately, her phone went to voice mail. An uneasy feeling moved through me. Something was definitely not right.
    Someone was bringing in the mail; they’d know what was going on. I started from the house to head to town to find that person. Halfway down the drive, a car I didn’t recognize pulled in. I recognized the driver—Camille. Pulling over, she climbed out. Surprise filled me, because Camille had gone off to school only just the year before. The timing of her decision, not long after Kane had told her no way would they ever be together, made it clear to both of us that she was off licking her wounds. Considering her motivation, I guess it wasn’t a surprise to discover she hadn’t stuck with it.
    “Teagan? What are you doing here?”
    I was tempted to ask the same of her, but I honestly didn’t care. “Came home for a visit. Do you know where everyone is?”
    “Oh.” I didn’t sense understanding or even sympathy in that one word, but I did see a giddiness that turned my stomach. “You don’t know?”
    “Know what?” What the hell did she know about my family that I didn’t?
    “They’ve been gone for a while, getting Kane settled in his new apartment.”
    I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly, but excitement mingled with my confusion, because it sounded like he was in Boston. I was going to kill him for the way he did this, but I was thrilled with the end result. “New apartment?”
    “Yeah, to be closer to his girlfriend.”
    “You mean me?”
    “No, his new girlfriend.”
    All the air left my