For Nevermore Season 1

and yelled, “And no phone for two weeks! Blackout means blackout!”
    Noella was too humiliated to finish what she was saying. She whispered, “Bye, Sam. See you at school,” then turned the phone off and handed it to Randy.
    “And the laptop. No Facebook or email for you either.”
    Randy waited as Noella unplugged her computer and handed it to him reluctantly.
    “Thank you,” Randy said, and left her room, closing the door behind him.

    **

    Sometime after her second pint of tears, Noella fell asleep.
    Though her father had been gone for a decade, Noella felt some comfort in knowing that he was never farther away than her dreams. No matter how bad things got, he was always there to listen to her. And he always had the right thing to say. Of course, it wasn’t her real dad. It was some dream version, maybe even another facet of her mind, Dr. Foster had suggested. But that didn’t lessen how much she looked forward to seeing him, and how real he felt to her while she was in the dream world.
    She wondered, if she had created her dad, why hadn’t she also created a dream version of her mother. Perhaps it was because her mother died minutes after she was born, so she’d never gotten to know her. And though her father, and Josie to a lesser extent, tried to paint a picture of what her mom had been like, the image they painted was still a stranger to her.
    While hundreds of different people populated her dreams, there were only two regularly featured: her father and her boyfriend, Dante.
    Dante had been in her dreams for as long as she could remember.
    He was 19 or 20, she guessed, with olive skin, perfectly sculpted muscles, and long dark hair hanging over piercing gray eyes. He was gorgeous. Her subconscious had a pretty good bead on the kinds of guys she was attracted to. He also had the most beautiful, kindest smile this side of Sam’s. And though she didn’t know much about him, she felt a connection with him, a love for him, that made sense in the weird dream logic that ruled her sleeping world. They shared a long history of memories, laughs, and tender conversations, even if none of them actually happened in the waking world.
    In some ways, Dante was like Sam. They’d been close, and though she loved him, and she thought he loved her, they’d never kissed or been romantic in any way. Again, weird dream logic that made sense when she closed her eyes, but fell apart in the reason and ration of daylight.
    Dante first appeared in her dreams when she turned eight, about six months after her father showed up. Maybe that was why they’d never been romantic. Maybe he still thought of her like a little girl. Despite having never touched or kissed him, or even having seen him in more than a year, she felt closer to him than any other man she’d ever known, real or imagined. So calling him her boyfriend, even if only in the context of the dreams, made sense. And made her feel a little bit less alone.
    She hadn’t told Dr. Foster about Dante. She wasn’t sure why, if she were embarrassed, or if she felt she should keep him secret for another reason. She suspected a bit of both.
    Unfortunately, the pills that made her nightmares, hallucinations, and voices go away, also made Dante vanish around the same time.
    It was a small price to pay, but had been worth it. Besides, seeing him all the time had made her sad, just as waking up without her father had. After long nights with Dante, she woke time and time again to the reality that she had no real love. And sometimes that hurt as much as not having a father.
    But now, following the past two weeks of nightmares and hallucinations, she began to wonder if perhaps Dante would also return. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted him to, because in recent months she’d grown more attached to Sam, so seeing Dante would only confuse things. While the logical part of her brain easily separated reality from dream, her emotional side couldn’t. As crazy as it seemed, she felt a commitment to Dante.
    As she waded further into her dream world, and one landscape gave way to another, she found herself in front of her old house, the one by the sea, where she usually met her father. Anniversaries were always the toughest when it came to seeing him, and even tougher to wake up from.
    The sun kissed her skin as she approached the house and stepped inside. The house had no furniture. It never did. The glass doors in the rear were open, and she saw him standing on the balcony