What If It's True?

We weren't all that close. I mean, we were brothers, and we hung out together and stuff, and we got along okay. I guess we loved each other, though that's not a word teenage guys use with each other, even brothers. But we'd have all the usual fights, and bug the hell out of each other on long car trips. Stuff like that. We weren't all that close.

But sometimes, late at night, usually when one of us had had a bad day, he would tell stories. They were fantasy stories, swords and horses and magic, but he told them like simple recollections. As if they were things we had actually done, the two of us, somewhere far away and long ago. We were brothers in the story, too. I was a knight, and he was a wizard. He would lie on his back above me, facing the ceiling and talking, and I would lie on the bottom bunk and listen to the stories, until we fell asleep.

They gave me wonderful dreams.

I would wake the next morning confused, thinking I remembered the events of last night's story. It was just dreams, of course, made more realistic by Roger's rich description and matter-of-fact way of speaking. But I actually had to figure out which of my memories had actually happened and which were just fantasy. Mom would laugh and make lame jokes about how I must not be a morning person. Roger just smiled.

Then Roger started having more bad days than good. His grades were dropping, he quit the play he was in, he barely talked. I didn't know what was wrong, he wouldn't tell me. Mom and Dad didn't know, either. They thought it was drugs. They could have been right, I almost thought they were right, except that at the end of every bad day was a story, calm and coherent and creative, same as ever. We know what it was now; it wasn't drugs.

That was about when Roger started telling me, or remembering to me, about what he called his "great quest." Our alter-egos traveled all over, wore themselves out searching, seeking, hoping. We were looking for a spell for wizard-Roger, the spell to let him fly. We went from ancient libraries to wizards' towers to sages' laboratories, hunting for hints and fragments. Often we'd fail. The wizard would be dead before we arrived, or the library sacked. The search took months of storytelling in the real world, and several years in the world of the dream.

Finally, one night, one day, we succeeded. We had the spell. Wizard-Roger stood on a hill in the spring morning, and jumped off the peak, and did not fall. Knight-me mounted his horse and followed along underneath him as he flew. We went like that for hours, and our story selves, hardened old veterans, were laughing. I was a fourteen-year-old boy, not at all hardened, and I had tears in my eyes that I would not admit for years afterward. That night I dreamed of March wind in my face, and my brother above me, laughing, soaring on wings of light and air.

After that, Roger seemed to do better. His grades picked back up, he started talking and getting involved in things again. It wasn't exactly like it had been. He'd laugh sometimes, or occasionally cry, and didn't seem to know the reason for either. But he was better. Like before, our parents didn't know what caused the change, and he didn't discuss it with me. But sometimes he'd look at me, and smile strangely, and his eyes would be old, old.

That summer we went camping in the mountains. Roger and I bugged the hell out of each other on the way, and then we joked together setting up the tents. We were a happy family again, normal, no matter how Roger's eyes looked. There was a story that night, and dreams afterward, and I woke up smiling and confused.

We went on a hike, just the two of us. At the end, we stood on a summit, a steep cliff falling off in front of us. The view was incredible. We'd brought a lunch to eat here, but we just stood there, looking. Then I saw Roger crouching, about to jump.

I tackled him, dragged him away from the edge. "What are you doing?" I yelled.

He looked at me, confused. "What? I wouldn't have fallen. I can fly, don't you remember? It's been a long time, but I can still do it. You do remember, right?"

I stared at him, stunned, my mouth hanging open. "No!" I managed.

"Don't you?"

"I. . . well, yes, but that was just a dream! It's not real, it's just a dream, and a story. It's not real."

"It. . . it's not? But, I remember. . . you remember, you said so."

"Rog, it's not real. You don't have wings." Had the wings been in the story, or just the dream? "It's just a story."

"I know, but. . . I remember, and you remember. What if it's true?" I looked into his eyes. They didn't change; they were confused and hurt. It wasn't a joke, I realized, he really believed what he was saying. He really didn't understand why I wouldn't let him jump.

"Come on, Rog. Let's go talk to Mom and Dad, okay?"

He didn't say anything else, he just looked at me with those old-looking eyes, and I wanted to cry. But he came back to camp, and I talked to Mom and Dad, and we packed up and went home. Roger and I didn't talk on the car trip back. I don't think either of us was mad, we just didn't know what to say.

Roger had long talks with our parents, and then long talks with doctors. I don't know how much he told them, he'd seldom answered questions before, but eventually they decided he was delusional. They sent him away to a special school. Mom and Dad visit him sometimes, but he refuses to see me. I don't know whether he thinks I betrayed him, or if he doesn't want to be reminded of the stories.

I don't have dreams I remember anymore. But sometimes. . . I'm not crazy, really I'm not. But sometimes, late at night, I lie awake and remember. I remember that day of victory, that gallop into the fresh spring wind, my brother riding above me on air and light. It never happened, but I remember.

I know it was just a story. I know my memories are memories of dreams. I know none of it's real. But I keep remembering what he said to me. Over and over, late into the night, I ask myself, "What if it's true?"