I wake from a bad dream. Taking in my surroundings, I relax knowing that I'm only in bed. My clothes are damp from night sweats.
I check my closet for something dry. My head pounds from my alarming pulse.
After so many years of having the same dream, my body reacts as if it's the first time. I swish down some painkillers and check the time.
4:25.
I pull the covers over my head. My breathing becomes rhythmic, and my plush pillows are putting me under until I hear a groan. I listen intently for the noise to return, but after a few minutes of silence I doze off once again. And then it comes back.
I leave my warm carpeted room and enter the cold wooden hallway. My hands feel up the dark hall until I find where the sound's coming from. It leads me to Angie's room. I make sure that my grandmother's room light is off before I crack open the door.
I close it quietly and the mumbling becomes clearer. My eyes focus in the dark. Angie thrashes her head around on the bed.
I thought she was staying at a friend's house. She's been gone a lot this past week. I've had to lie about feeling sick to convince my grandma to let me stay home. We haven't talked since that night at the beach. Whenever she tried to, I made it clear that I wasn't interested.
I shake her shoulders and her eyes fling open. She pushes my chest hard, sending me on my back.
"Get off of me!" she yells.
Rug burns form on my palms. She sits up, breathing sharply for air.
Ang has bad dreams more often than I do, but we never talk about them. Not since we were little girls, anyway. I haven't had one in months, and as far as I know she hasn't had hers in a while either. But here we are, both unable to sleep. Unable to outrun our nightmares.
I don't always find her like this. Maybe five times total. First time she's ever pushed me though.
"Rose?" She lingers on me for a moment. Soon, tears splatter the blanket in heavy taps, like rain against a window.
I'm stunned when her face crumbles. I haven't seen her cry this hard since the funeral.
Our mothers passed away in a car wreck when I was five and she was six. We've been living with our grandma since. Their caskets still haunt me, but Ang was in the car the day it happened. You can't unsee that, even with years of therapy. The anniversary of their death is coming up, and it must be getting to her. When we were younger, she felt sad about her mom never seeing her milestones. Though the same is true for me, it doesn't get to me as much as it does her.
Feelings aside, she needs me right now. I get up and climb in beside her. She's wailing into her hands, sitting crisscross. I wrap my arms around her tightly. She leans into my lap slowly, and then punches the bed. It startles me, but I stay calm and let her have her outburst. I hum to nothing in particular and play in her hair, twisting a long curl around my fingers. Her shoulders rise and fall with every quick breath.
"She won't ever..." She doesn't finish it.
"I'm sorry. I miss them too, but we still have each other and grandma."
When her cries persist I hush her, afraid she'll wake our grandmother. This seems to go on for twenty minutes, maybe. It's a cycle. She calms down, and then suddenly throws a pillow or punches the bed like before.
Just when I think it's going to last all night, she snores. I lift her head from my lap and replace my presence with a pillow. The bed squeaks when I move, but her snoring only continues. I return to the comfort of my own room as quietly as possible. In my bathroom I wash away tears.
My eyes are bloodshot from crying and exhaustion. I rub my cheeks mindlessly. A few months ago, I broke out and for some odd reason my acne has to be symmetrical. My confidence was low until my face cleared up and the scars faded to the point of everyone just assuming them to be freckles. Now, I receive compliments for them. Even Angie calls them freckles, but I know that she actually thinks that they've always been there.
I laugh so hard the small gap between my two front teeth show.
I'm comforting her, being her shoulder to cry on, and yet she pays so little attention to me that she actually thinks I have freckles! I run my fingers over them once more.
Am I pathetic? Why do I care so much? Yes, we were close before, but that was then and this is now. We aren't little girls anymore. No more pigging out over pizza and sharing each other's secrets. Now we skip most dinners together, and the only secrets I ever hear are rumors about her around school. But I can't help but see the path she's heading down, and feel obligated to pull her from the edge.
Would she do it for you?
I don't know.
Then don't do it for her.
If only it were that simple.
I flick off the light, and get into bed. I think about skipping the dramatics like Ben said, and it makes me feel weightless. Free, even. Like the clouds. I hold onto it until the morning. That's when all of my dreams end.