Heart pounding, chest constricted and airways obstructed. I slowly bring my right hand to my chest, feeling my ever incresing heart rate. Sweats begins to drip down my forehead and I quickly realise that I'm in a poodle of sweat. It's very dark still. I can hardly even see my hand off my nose except for the feeble light of my alarm. It reads 01.13 am. I'm not the type of person to wake up startled by a nightmare, but I guess there's a first for everything. My head aches in a escrucuating pain. I could guarantee that someone was screaming my name before I opened my eyes. A blurred memory of the dream follows as a start to shift into alertness. Pushing off my bedsheets, I grudgingly walk down the stairs to grab a cup of water. I'm not sure of how I will be able to go back to sleep, I'm more so scared for the little boy in my dream. What is he going to do without his mother?
At this point my brain connects the dots. The little boy was my brother and the mother screaming in tears of agony was my mother. We were getting separated. I can only remember the bit where my brother held me tight in a hug as though he knew I wouldn't have seen him for a time. My mum... Our mum was physically upset at my biological's father desicion to leave as it would have meant that she had little chance to see her son. It's all a blur mostly, yet my body is still recovering from the shock of the dream.
'It's just a dream' I try to reassure myself whilst still sipping on the cold tap water, 'nothing but a dream'.
Once I get back upstarts I'm surprised to see that little under an hour has passed since I have last looked at it. Then why is my chest still aching so much like someone just ripped my heart out and shattered it in a million fragments before my eyes? Why are my hands shaking so much from that nightmare of events that were possibly only a product if my concious?
I try to force myself to sleep, keeping my body as still as possible because I know that tossing and turing will only cause me to wake up more. The morning thereof, I am welcomed by the sunlight that enters my room, peeking through the blinds and resting on my eyes. After some debating in my head, I find the strength to leave my bed and get ready for school, although I'm temped to just have a lay in.
"Hey Joy" greets Josh with a soft smile on his face as I sit on the table next to his in Biology.
I shake my head in response and he quickly notices something is up.
"Are we going to talk about it?"
I drop my head slightly and try to make sense of my thoughts. "You would find it silly. I just had a nightmare."
"Nightmares are scary, I would never underestimate their lasting effect. Somethings tells me that your father or brother was in it, am I right?", his tone drops a little as he asks the question and slowly looks up at me.
"Well almost, I didn't exactly see my father, just my mother and my brother." I say nodding slowly. I'm scared of what this might mean. Dreams do have meaning at times and I wonder if this isn't but a lost memory coming to the surface. I wonder if I started something I can't quite finish until I get to the whole truth, not just mere fragments dotted around.
"To aid your memory recalling techniques I will be providing to with the opportunity to parter up with a student on the year above. You will be presenting information on a slide and working in groups of four: two from this class and two from the other."
The teacher announcement takes me by surprise and I'm already panicking about who is going to be in my group. Then as though Josh read my thought, he raises his right hand signaling an high five and says:"Partners?"
I nod with a smile and high five him back.
°°°
It's lunchtime and once again Alis isn't herself. I don't want to tell her about the dream because I can tell that there's a lot on her mind. I do bring up the biology task to her, to which she responds "Kyle Morris is on the year above" teasingly. Her tone, however, seems to indicate that she isn't actually listening to what I'm saying to her.
"He is. So we know who we are definitely avoiding from the other class" Then I suddenly realise that Josh is here too. He's been with us since after winter break and I do wonder what happened to his friends - assuming he had other friends.
"That's cool with me. It probably wouldn't even be an option because he's in the school basketball team and I'm sure most girls in our class would want him on the team... Wait, why the statement..." I feel the air thickening but calm down when I realise that Josh isn't asking in an accusatory tone. In fact he's just eating his food like nothing happened.
" W-well... He... I don't know he has a familiar aura I feel like, which stood out to me rightaway and I'm not saying I like him, but he caught my attention. I rarely look at people and feel like they would be trustworthy so it was an odd occasion for me... I'm awkward though... Very much so and don't want to look like a fool, you know..."
"I mean yeah, what gave you the impression?"
"I do advanced social studies and he kinda presented me to the class when I joined it. He told me to sit next to him and I just trusted him. He really just felt familiar and... I don't know..." I heave a heavy sigh. I haven't thought about this since it happened. Something about his mannerism simply screamed honesty to me and I felt quite at ease talking to him, like I had already known him. But I haven't spoken to him since then and the fear of messing up that memory has refrained me from ever speaking to him again. Josh nods in understanding and I look over to Alis.
"Sorry Joy, I didn't mean to seem distant... It's just-" Alis looks up at me but her words get stuck in her throat, "Nothing, sorry but I need to help out at home tonight so I'm not going to be able to come over to your house." She shakes her head from side to side agitating her hards to seem more genuine as she puts in a smile that fails to reach her eyes.
"It's okay, I get it" I smile softly and think about how I'm going to have the rest of the afternoon to dissect the dream, because I know that nothing will distract me from this today.