Catcher In The Rye Short Stories

The nightmares ¬had started when Brandon was 12. He would wake up in the middle of the night, running, always running, from something that wasn’t there. He would get up, breathing heavily, and consider going to his parents. But they had only just stopped fighting a few hours ago, and he knew that if he woke them up, it would start all over again.

He tried going to bed at a later time, thinking that if he was in a deep enough sleep, he wouldn’t have the dreams, but it was to no avail. He tried dream catchers and reading until he fell asleep and rearranging his furniture in hopes of creating better feng shui and anything else that his Google searches brought up.

But they came; the dreams always came, and they were always the same. Running for

his life from an unseen creature that was closing in on him.
Brandon would be awoken around 3 AM every night and stand at his window, searching the sky for stars but finding only airplanes. It seemed like the whole city was fast asleep, except for him.
And one other person, he realized as time went on. He had just been about to go back to bed when he saw her. She was climbing up the rickety fire escape of the abandoned building adjacent to his. She never looked back, just kept going until she reached the roof, seeming to purposely make the ladder swing as much as possible.
When she got to the roof she sat on the edge, her legs dangling above the city, and leaned forward. Brandon held his breath, hoping she wouldn’t let herself fall down to the unforgiving ground below. It felt like ages until she swung her legs back up and just laid there, flat on her back. Brandon waited longer still until she had climbed back down to safety, and then went back to bed.
This happened every single night from then on, rain or shine. Finally, after seeing her do this each night for nearly 6 months, he put on his shoes and coat and snuck out of the apartment.
He caught up with her just as she was starting up the fire escape.
“Hey,” he said.
Her head whipped around and he felt badly for startling her. Gathering her composure, she nodded once and started up, stopping and looking down when she had reached the halfway point. “Well? Are you coming or not?” Her voice was carried down by the wind, and seemed to whisper in his ear, shy and sweet.
“Oh!

Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.” Brandon hoisted himself up and watched her climb, cat-like. He felt clumsy in comparison, and noticed her swinging the ladder around with what seemed like more vigor than usual, or maybe that was just because he was experiencing it first-hand. He clung to the sides and took each step slowly, wondering what he had gotten himself into.

By the time he had made it to the top, the girl had been waiting for almost 10 minutes.

“You’re gonna have to work on that,” she told him.

He got a close look at her for the first time. Her dark hair was cut close to her head and her eyes looked nearly black, but in the dim lighting her pale skin gave her a ghostly aura. She didn’t appear to be bothered by the cool fall wind, even though she was wearing only jeans and a t-shirt.

“It didn’t help that you were shaking the ladder around,” Brandon said indignantly. He didn’t interact much with girls, and this wasn’t going too well so far. “…I’m Brandon.”

“Felicity. How come you watch me every night?”

Brandon considered climbing right back down at that very moment but swallowed his pride and retorted, “Why do you come up here every

night?”
“Can’t sleep.” She walked towards the railing-less edge and sat down, legs dangling.
Brandon hesitantly followed her and sat down Indian-style a few inches back.
“So do you watch all the girls that climb buildings in the middle of the night or am I special?”
Brandon managed a smile.

“I’d say you’re pretty special. I’ve just been curious as to why you’re awake at the same time as me every night.”

“You can’t sleep either?”

“Nightmares.”

“I can’t sleep over the sound of my own brain. I have to clear my mind somehow. Used to do it on the roof of my own building until they started locking the door.”

Silence ensued until Felicity broke it by saying, “Sit with your legs hanging over the side.”

“I’m quite alright, thanks.”

“No, seriously, it’s exhilarating. It’s like your worries are literally dropping onto the sidewalk below.”

“But I don’t want it to be me literally dropping onto the sidewalk below.”

“Trust me.”

Sighing, he uncrossed his legs and slid forward, feeling the immense weight of them dangling there. It made him feel vulnerable, like it would be so easy for the monster from his dreams to appear suddenly and push him off. At the same time, however, it felt satisfying to be one of two people in the city crazy enough to be doing it.

And she was right- When perched upon the rooftop of an abandoned building, you don’t really thing about the unpleasant things in everyday life. He could concentrate only on the wind rushing past his ears and the girl sitting beside him.

“Swing your legs back and forth,” Felicity commanded

him.
He nervously did so and almost laughed out loud as he felt his stomach jump. Never having been afraid of heights, he looked down, now making his stomach twist into knots. He must have been 20 stories up.
“Wow,” he breathed.
Felicity looked over at him. “It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it really is.”
“No sane person would do this. We’re one of a kind.”
“What happens if we fall?”
She looked to him, a smile on her face. “We die.”