He came to with a feeling of nausea and disorientation. The room was dark and small, and everything about it sent shivers of déjà vu through him. He couldn’t remember how he got there. When he tried to remember, a sharp headache struck him, so intense that he nearly fainted. He made to stand up, and found to his surprise he was already standing. That was decidedly weird.
The only light in the room spilled in through a window right by a bedside, dimly illuminating the figure of the girl asleep on the bed. The light was from a streetlamp somewhere in the night without, and though it was wan, it was just enough to make out the girl’s features. He felt a thrill as he looked on her face: she was the most beautiful girl imaginable. Her hair gathered like a halo around her head on her pillow, framing her heart-shaped face in blonde locks. Her breath escaped her plump lips in slow, relaxed rhythm.
“Alice,” he cooed softly, drawing nearer to her. A smile split his face. It was Alice. How did he know her? The headache intensified. He hissed in pain, and sat on the bed, massaging his temples. Nothing was as it should be. He was not supposed to be where he was, and he couldn’t remember how he had come to be there. He knew this girl, and very well, but he couldn’t recall how. Something was very wrong.
Perhaps if he could recall where he had been before showing up here?
More pain. Much more pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed all the harder.
Nothing to jog his memory. The closest thing to a memory that he could conjure up was a blank, white void. The harder he tried to remember, the worse the headache became. With a sigh, he gave up and let himself relax.
“Alice,” he said again, and she stirred. Inside of him, something bubbled and fluttered. He turned to look at her again. A sweet warmth spread from just beneath his sternum, and engulfed him. She shivered a little bit. It was a little bit chilly in the room, and her blanket had bunched around her legs. He moved to draw it over her body.
“Don’t touch her.” A voice came from behind him.
His heart nearly exploded. He spun around and saw with terror who had spoken. Her voice was distinctly female, which was the only way he knew that she was a she: her face was shrouded by a black veil over a white mask with painted lips and black eye-holes. Apart from the odd head-wear, she wore a thick, chequered covering which was fastened shut by a row of double-breasted buttons, from her collar down to the floor. A shiver crept up through him, and he recoiled at the sight of her.
“Who are you?” he said, trying to sound as calm as he could. “What are you doing here?”
“I should ask the same of you,” she returned. “I imagine you would not be able to answer.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” he confessed, “Or who I am, exactly. But who are you?”
“You’re wholly unqualified to question my identity until you have one yourself. Let me help you in that regard.”She walked around the bed and reached toward Alice. He tried to leap to his feet — he had to protect her, and he didn’t like this newcomer one bit — but he couldn’t budge. His muscles didn’t respond. He struggled fruitlessly, but the woman-person was already away from the bed, now with a piece of paper held in one gloved hand, which protruded from a slit in her covering. She offered it to him. He made to receive it, and this time his body allowed him.
“Read this,” she said, handing to to him.
Though the room was dark, letters were visible on the paper, as if they were made of tendrils of ember.
It was a love poem. He admitted internally that it wasn’t a very good poem, but it was sweet and heartfelt. It was addressed to My Dear Drake, someone who was, to judge from the poem, the most incredible person to have been born on this Earth, free of fault and owning every virtue. What did this have to do with him?
“That is you.” said the woman-person.
“This?” he laughed. “This is a piece of paper.”
It was like a slap to the face, only pleasant. It was now so clear, he felt stupid for having not made the connection before.
“She wrote this poem about me!” He said excitedly. He was stupid to have not realized that earlier. “That means she loves me back, then, doesn’t it?”
“After a fashion,” said the woman-person, “She loves a boy named Drake. She wrote a poem about him. Around the time she finished writing is when you came into existence. You are her poem.”
There was a very awkward pause.
“I am her poem,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
In his vague understanding of everything, he didn’t really think too much of poems as living, breathing things like himself. He held up the paper.
“Isn’t this her poem?” he asked.
“No,” said the woman/person, “That is a piece of paper with ink sloppily arranged on it. You are what that piece of paper represents.”
“I don’t quite follow,”
“I don’t expect you to. Alice described you as smart, not a metaphysicist.”
“So, if I’m her poem, then who are you? How do you know so much about it?”
“Knowledge is power,” she said, “and the tome that represents me is hidden away somewhere safe. No one person should have that much power.”
“You’re that powerful?” he asked out of curiosity rather than cheekiness, though her mask regarded him coolly at this. Something flickered in the darkness behind the eye-holes, and then it was gone.
“I am in charge of this world,” she said. “There are many like you, Drake. I am chief among them. There is one thing you must never do, and you nearly did it: you must never, under any circumstances, touch her, or speak to her, or make contact in any way with the human world. Your life is a blessing and a curse: she created you, and now you are here.” She sighed. “Some poems are better left unwritten.”
“I can’t touch Alice? Or talk to her?” he asked.
“No.”
“But I love her! What kind of rule is that? What’s the point of her creating me if I serve no purpose?”
“What, indeed,” she answered dispassionately.
“And what if I decide not to obey your rule?”
She reached across the room.
Her arms were far too long.
One stretched from where she stood over to the window, which shattered at her touch. The other stretched toward the door of the room, which her gloved hand opened, and continued stretching beyond it. She grew terribly tall as well, her masked head looming over him, until it reached the ceiling. Her back curled at the ceiling as continued she stretching, her head now bowed and leering ever nearer to Drake’s face. Her mask was an inch from his face, and her veil touched his face.
“I’m very fond of you, Drake,” she said, “But don’t test my limits. I have few.”
Her mask retracted away, and she shrank down to her previous height. Her arms retracted to back within her covering, and the shattered window reassembled itself. There was nowhere to hide, no place to run, no way to escape her. So he sat staring, dumbfounded.
“Humility aside, however,” she said in a lighter tone, “you are the newest addition to my realm. I just thought I’d welcome you personally before I left you to your own devices.”
“Very much obliged,” he forced the words out of his quivering mouth.
“Yes,” she agreed, “you are. Remember: you can go anywhere and do anything so long as it does not involve the humans.”
Her head tilted like a curious dog cocking his head.
“You look exhausted. Coming into existence is difficult work. Sleep now, and tomorrow your life can begin in earnest.” Involuntarily, he relaxed, and found himself overwhelmed with sleepiness. Waves of exhaustion lapped at his eyelids and the base of his neck, and he descended into such a blissful feeling of rest that he toppled gently to the floor. The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was the fuzzy image of Alice’s empty room.
The light was intense. Drake’s eyes opened to the blinding world of daylight, probably. It was brilliant! The room was artfully painted in electric blue and black; she had probably painted it herself. A really quite large chest of drawers lay opposite the four-poster bed upon which Alice had been sleeping, and it was open, clothes spilling out of it. Across the room was a massive mirror, in front of which was than Alice. She turned around, and began to leave the room, taking no notice of Drake.
She was even more beautiful awake. Her hair now fell in shimmering locks about her shoulders, and her smoky green eyes shone with a sparkle that sent a thrill down Drake’s spine; even her hideous nose-ring could be forgotten in the ensemble. Her rosy perfume filled his nostrils as she disappeared out the door.
Out the door.
Away from him.
He leapt to his feet and ran after her. She must be protected. And so it was he found his way to her high school.
The place was altogether dodgy. It was dirty, the cement ground cracked and covered in old gum. The buildings were concrete and cinder-block structures, bleak and cold. The lockers were scratched and dented, some apparently relics of a more ancient time. It was hardly a place where someone like Alice could fit in. The sea of people closed in all around, but Alice wove through the crowds with no trouble. No one could see Drake, but Alice didn’t seem to escape anyone’s notice. Everywhere she went, a pack of girls called out to her (in their ear-piercing shrill tones), or a boy with a look of ill-intention (to say nothing of clothing style) would greet her. To all she would smile with bared teeth and wave her slender hand, her nails painted red. Every wave was like a slap to Drake’s face.
This was so unfair. She had written her poem about him, not these people! Especially not the one with the stupid hair! Not like he could really pass judgement — he had quickly discovered that he couldn’t see himself in mirrors; he could look much worse than they, and in any event, he didn’t exist yesterday, so what did his opinion really count? — but if Alice’s poem were any indication of the sort of men she liked, what was she doing with these idiots?
“Can’t you see that these guys are all horrible?” he yelled at her. To his surprise, she frowned and inclined her head in his direction. Could she hear him?
“Alice!” He cried, “Alice, it’s me, Drake!”
She looked straight through him, her face vacant.
“What’s up, Alice?” one of the losers asked her. “You okay?” Drake couldn’t stand the sight of him. He wore a tiny little beard just under his lower lip, and his short, spiky hair was a shade of orange that seemed incredibly unnatural even to someone whose reckoning of the world dated less than twenty-four hours back. His white shirt looked very comfortable and clean, and his jeans were tight around his skinny legs. He gave off a sickly sweet, musty smell.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said in her glimmering voice, “I just thought someone was calling my name.”
“I am calling you!” Drake shouted as loud as he could. At this point, he wasn’t worked up about her not noticing him; he was very worked up about the possibility that she might be able to. She shook her head and turned back to her friends.
“I could have sworn someone yelled my name.”
“You’re just paranoid,” said the boy.
“You’re just a jerk,” she said with a grin and made to punch him playfully.
He grabbed her arm.
Drake’s breath caught in his throat.
The boy pulled her in closer to him. She kissed him.
No. Why would she kiss him? Drake’s heart was trying to wrestle its way out of his chest.
The boy kissed her back.
Drake raised one shaking fist, and let it fly.
The boy reeled from the blow and let out a yelp. So Drake could interfere with the world after all! He was trembling all over, but now it was from excitement. The boy’s spectacularly white shirt now shone red from his bleeding nose.
“Drake, what happened?” shrieked Alice. Drake?
Was this Drake? This couldn’t be Drake.
“Drake, what happened?” came a voice over his shoulder. He spun around to see the masked woman-person directly behind him, towering over him. “Did you just harm a human being?”
“But he —”
“We do not interfere with the human world.”
“Why not? I just found out we can.”
She was twenty feet tall. Her hands stretched down and grabbed him, drawing him up to her eye level. The empty eye-holes regarded him coolly while the voice that addressed him was anything but cool.
“At what cost, Drake? Did it feel good, dipping your finger into the fabric of reality?” The voice howled like a thousand winds through a small crack. “You take a deadly risk by disobeying me. My rule does not exist for my sake, but for yours! Did that occur to you? Look at your hand, and see what I mean.”
A third hand emerged from her covering and, and it brought his right arm before his face. He had no right hand.
“You can’t survive in the real world, Drake.” Her voice was softer. “Your existence is locked up in this girl’s mind.”
“So if I ever touch or talk to her, I disappear?” he spat. “Just like that?”
“I barely saved you from much worse,” she said. She set him down. She was his height. “Even if I had been by your side the whole time you hit him, I couldn’t have protected you for very long in the human world. Do not attempt to interfere again.”
Alice escorted Real Drake to a place that smelled oddly clean, for a school like this one, with pale-green tiles and newer-looking paint. Drake watched as a woman in white took Real Drake away into another room behind the desk. Alice took a seat in one of the many chairs that lined the walls, and plugged buds into her ears, while she tinkered with what he knew, somewhere inside of himself, to be a phone. Drake sat down next to her and watched her intently. He was calmer now, but he couldn’t rid himself of the sense of betrayal. But really, he reasoned, whom had she betrayed? Not him, certainly. It was only because of Real Drake he even existed. Still, he wanted to be the one to protect her, to care for her. He reached a hand out toward her, and it was all he could do not to let it rest on her free hand.
Of course she didn’t notice him sitting there.
He pulled from his pocket (he realized now he was wearing the same tight jeans as Real Drake) the original Poem.
Strong, it said. Caring. Kind. Chivalrous, respectful, and loving. That was what Real Drake was to Alice. And what was he, Drake the Perhaps Not So Real? The longing he felt was pretty real to him. Still, Alice had written her poem about the Real Drake. He alone could make her feel so safe and loved. He, Drake the Perhaps Not So Real, could not. Even after all that thinking (he was quite good at thinking by now; there was little else he could really do), he still felt betrayed. She didn’t even know he was there, and still he felt like she had tossed him aside. But then of course he would feel that way. The Poem said he was faithful and protective (and maybe a little bit jealous). Just like Real Drake, about whom it had been written. Perhaps he had misjudged Real Drake.
Real Drake emerged from the door behind the desk, a bandage on his nose and cotton balls in his nostrils. His expression was cold. Alice popped the buds out of her ears, her beautiful smile in place.
“How is it?” asked Alice.
“It sucks,” Real Drake glowered. “Nose is broke.”
“Broken,” Drake instinctively corrected. He frowned; surely Real Drake would know the difference between a preterite verb conjugation and an adjective. Neither of them seemed to have heard him.
“I’m so sorry!” said Alice.
“Wasn’t your fault.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah. I’m going home, actually. Going to take it easy.”
“Okay,” Alice said, though she looked dismayed. “I’ll miss you in class.”
“Sorry,” Real Drake replied in a flat voice. He headed for the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow!” she said. He paused and regarded her, and walked over to her. He kissed her again. Drake clenched his fist, but kept himself under control. Well, he tried, anyway. Something about Real Drake really did bother him, the more he watched him.
Alice kissed him back. And Real Drake was out the door. Alice sat back down, and replaced the buds in her ears. Back to the phone.
“Are you feeling unwell?” asked the lady in white from behind the desk in a loud, pointed tone.
“You have no idea,” muttered Drake.
“I’m really tired,” said Alice, not looking up from her phone. “I need to rest a bit.” The woman sighed, and sat down, busying herself with whatever it is women in white are always busy with at desks.
Drake considered what to do next. It was very likely Alice was going to be true to her word, and stay here for a while. He still wanted to protect her, in the absence of Real Drake, but it was just that: something about Real Drake was not as it should be. He stood up and peered out the door and down the hallway. Real Drake was still visible at the end of the corridor. He looked back at Alice, and then began to follow Real Drake. Perhaps the best way to protect Alice would be to find out more about Real Drake.
“Hey, Drake!” came a girl’s voice from the other side of the road. Real Drake stopped where he was, and smiled broadly at the girl. She was pretty (Drake supposed), but she could not compare with Alice.
“What’s up, Amanda?” Real Drake said. Amanda crossed the street and gave Real Drake a hug. They clung together for a moment too long.
“I’m just headed to school,” Amanda said. “I overslept way too much, but I have a Spanish test fourth period. Can’t miss it.”
“Hey, come by my place after school,” Real Drake said, “We need to hang out again.”
“Isn’t Alice going to be there?”
“Nah. I’ll tell her I’m sick.”
“Okay, then! I’ll bring the Coke I owe you.”
“You better.”
Their heads came together, and their lips met. Drake stood dumbfounded. This was not him.
“Bye, Drake!”
“See you later, Amanda,” Real Drake said, resuming his slouching gait home.
No. This could not be Real Drake.
There came a buzzing from Real Drake’s pocket. He pulled out his phone, looked at the message it had received, and stuffed it back into his pocket with a huff.
“Yeah, miss you, too.” His tone was not dripping with sincerity.
Drake felt like he might throw up, if he had ever eaten anything before. Alice had been wrong about him. Disgusted, Drake left Real Drake to mosey on home on his own. He’d seen enough.
He found Alice in her room, laying on her bed. She was writing something in a notebook, earbuds firmly in place. A buzz from her phone gave her a start. She pulled it out, and smiled.
“Time to pull the cookies out the oven,” she said to herself, and hopped out of bed, taking her notebook with her. Her walk was half-dance, gliding on the balls of her feet toward the kitchen, making hardly a sound with each footfall. Her rosy scent hovered in the air behind her, and Drake let out a sigh. He followed her and watched as she removed a tray of chocolate chip cookies from the oven, placing them gently on the counter to cool. As they did, she finished what she had been writing, and pulled it from the notebook, leaving it on the table as she placed the cookies on a plate. Drake stepped in to investigate.
On the paper was written the Poem, with “Get Well!” written at the bottom.
“Drake,” came the voice he now recognized as the woman-person’s.
He turned, and there she was. She did not stretch to the ceiling and her arms lay hidden beneath her covering.
“What am I?” he asked her.
“You really have lost your spark.”
“Well, can you really blame me?”
“I really can’t,” she said.
Alice was wrapping the cookies in plastic wrap.
“Who am I?” asked Drake.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because the person the Poem was written about is so different from me. I’m not him. Who am I, then?”
“But you are him,” the woman-person said. “To Alice, he is everything you are.”
“He’s nothing like me!” he yelled. Alice looked up, a bit startled. She had just taped the “Get Well!” note to the wrapping over the cookies. “He’s treacherous, cold, unloving ...”
“Yes, he is.”
“How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you watch everything around you burn to ashes , and do nothing to stop it?”
“I can hardly bear it.” Her voice was choked. He stared in surprise; he had never heard her become emotional like this before. He wondered what her own demons were. “But without me, what would become of people like you? Where would you be without me? You’d have disappeared into the void from whence you came, never even knowing your name. That which makes me be gives me power and wisdom; without me, our kind wouldn’t last long at all. We’d flare up and then extinguish, like sparks on a cold night. I can’t shake this world by the shoulders, but I can give our kind a chance to live for longer than a few seconds.”
He stared at Alice as she looked for her shoes.
“You said you couldn’t protect me for long in the human world,” he said.
“Not for very long at all, no.”
“How long is that?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes.”
She had her shoes on, and was donning her jacket.
“I need to tell her who the real Drake is.”
“Are you aware of what will happen if you do?”
“I’ll cease to exist?”
“Sort of.”
It was strangest thing to imagine not existing. What is it like to not think, touch, know, see, or want anything?
“Will I ever see her again?”
“I’m a collection of all the wisdom and knowledge in the human world,” she said, “But nowhere in my pages is there proof of any of it. I have a hundred different answers to that, but I couldn’t tell you which is correct.”
He didn’t try to fully understand what she said. Alice tested one of the spare cookies.
“Will it hurt?”
“I can only promise you that she will be hurt by what you have to say.”
This would be the only time he would ever spend with her, he realized. And he would spend it telling her that her boyfriend was nothing she believed he was. He would spend that time breaking her heart, and the last thing he would see before fading into oblivion would be her tear-streaked face.
Or he could live forever knowing he could have saved her from a worse fate.
He took a deep breath, trying to shove away the headaches that were already coming back. He hid his hand-less arm behind his back.
“Let her see me.”
“Drake!” Alice squeaked. “How did you get in here? I didn’t even hear you come in!”
Drake didn’t answer her. He only drew her into the first and last embrace he would ever feel, and held her. She was soft and delicate to his feel, and he held her as if she were made of glass. She was taken aback, and didn’t seem to know how to react. She held him back, awkwardly, like she was very unused to this sort of thing. She probably was.
He began to feel very weak, and his head began to swim. He hadn’t much time. He drew back and looked Alice in the face. Her liquid green eyes stared into his, her eyebrows arched inquisitively; a smile graced her lips.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Alice,” he said, a smile curving his lips. She was listening to him. He wished he had something pleasant to tell her. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“What?” she frowned. He pulled the poem from his pocket and showed it to her. She blushed.
“Yeah,” she ventured nervously, “I wrote that for you.”
“I know.”
“Kind of dumb, huh?”
“Alice, this is not Drake.” He pointed to the words on the page. Loving. Strong. In short, perfect. “This isn’t anyone you’ve met.”
“Drake, you’re amazing!” she cried. “I’ve never had a boyfriend like you before. Heck,” she laughed, “I’ve never had a boyfriend before!”
“Drake is anything but amazing.”
“Why are you talking about yourself like that?”
“Alice, do you love me?”
She withdrew a little bit.
“Drake, you’re scaring me.” This was getting to be too much. His knees were getting shaky, and his vision was blurring around the edges.
“If you love me, let me see your phone.” She did as she was asked, handing him her bright red cell phone. He took it with his good hand and looked through the contacts until he found Drake.
“Is this my number?” he asked her. She nodded. He called it and put it on speaker phone. After a few rings, he heard his own voice answer flatly,
“Hey, girl, what’s up?” Alice shrieked and jumped away from him. She stared at him with huge, frightened eyes.
“Hey Drake, this is Drake,” he said, his voice already angry. “How’s it going with Amanda over there?”
“Who the freak are you?” Real Drake yelled.
“I told you, I’m Drake.”
“I don’t know anyone called Drake.”
“Wish I didn’t either. So, I’ve got your girlfriend on the line. One of them, anyway.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Real Drake said.
“Alice saw you with Amanda after you went home,” Drake lied. “So maybe you’d like to explain to her what that’s all about.”
For ten seconds, no one said anything. Finally, Real Drake piped up,
“Well, she should really mind her own business. What are you, her new boyfriend?”
“Wish I were.” he barely managed to speak; his voice was now growing as weak as his body.
“You know what? Fine. I’ll just keep Amanda, then. Tell Alice to—”
Drake hung up. Alice was hiding her face in her hands, sitting at the table. Drake sat down beside her — he could barely stand now, as it was. He couldn’t see the woman-person now, but he knew she must be reaching the end of her abilities. He hadn’t the strength to speak, and so he rested his stump of an arm on Alice’s back, until the lights around him began to flicker, and one by one, they each winked out.
