Free Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

only written that one sentence, and looked at the blank lines ahead of me.
    I wrote as if Cass would someday read it, telling her everything that had happened, from start to finish. Her name, my fall, Rogerson, the full moon, and what I’d done. When I was finished, I’d filled up four pages, my hand cramping as I shut the book and slid it back under my mattress, holding all my secrets in.
    I turned out my light and just lay there, seeing Rogerson’s glittering green eyes in my head. For once, I didn’t think about dreamland and finding Cass there. And as I drifted off, I heard Stewart’s bike brakes squealing as they came closer, and knew without looking that he was drifting down the slope of the yard, faster and faster, before ducking the clothesline one more time to ease into home, safe.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Rogerson didn’t get in touch with me the next day, or the day after, or even the day after that. The first two days I sulked, eating multiple Clark bars and lying on my bed studying the ceiling. I’d felt so different in just the short time I’d spent with him, like I’d finally stepped out of not only Cass’s shadow but my own as well. It was a letdown to just be the old me again.
    By day three, however, something else happened to make me forget about him, at least temporarily.
    It was after school, one day when I didn’t have practice, and I was sitting in the living room with the TV on, half watching it while half reading the two chapters I’d been assigned for Social Studies. I was flipping between a movie, an after-school special about the perils of steroid use, and MTV, when I somehow landed on the Lamont Whipper Show. The topic was “You’re Too Fat to Be All That!” and at some point one woman began yelling, every other word bleeped out but just barely. I looked up at the noise, ready to change back to the steroid show, and saw my sister.
    She was standing off to the side, by the edge of the audience, holding a clipboard up against her chest, a pen tucked behind her ear. The Lamont Whipper Show was famously low-budget, and you often could see different staff members standing around, watching and conferring—it added to the real TV, no-holds-barred image. Now the woman onstage, who was short and redheaded, was jabbing a finger in her sister’s face, telling her off, and in the background Cass was watching intently, reaching back at one point to brush her hair away from her face.
    I jumped out of my chair, sending my book flying, and leaned in closer to the TV, just so I could see her. She looked the same, although her hair might have been shorter. Her nails were painted and she was wearing a black turtleneck she’d borrowed from my closet and never returned. It was funny how I’d forgotten about that, until now.
    â€œCaitlin?” I heard my mother from behind me: She was coming up the hallway. “Can you turn that down, please? All that yelling—”
    And then she just stopped, in mid-sentence, and as I turned around I saw her hand fly to her mouth, her face shocked.
    â€œOh, my God,” she said in a low voice, coming closer and leaning into the TV, where we could still see Cass standing there, now jotting something on her clipboard and nodding as a big guy in headphones said something in her ear.
    On-screen, the woman’s sister was yelling, “If you’d treated him better he wouldn’t have come looking for anything from me!” This was rebutted by a long series of beeps, punctuated only by the audience making oooohhhhh noises.
    â€œIt’s her,” my mother said, and on-screen my sister smiled, laughing at something the guy next to her said, and hugged the clipboard back up to her chest. “Look at her. It’s Cassandra.”
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œLook at that,” she said softly, kneeling down in front of the TV, her face just inches from it. Cass brushed her hair out of her