Chapter 7

Chapter 7- Nightmare I was running, but I wasn't moving. I was screaming, but I could not get a sound out of my mouth. I was running from a dark figure. He was holding a knife in one hand, And a gun in the other. I could feel my heartbeat pounding throughout my body. He caught up to me. I looked into my brother's eyes and all I saw was hatred. He whispered in my ear, "It's all your fault." I cried, screaming for help. I still could not make a sound.. He held me by my hair and spun me around to see my father, strapped to a chair with his mouth tied shut. He looked at me with pleading eyes, but I still could not move. My brother lifted up his gun and shot my father in the head.  I watched as he bled out. I screamed, but I still couldn't scream. I cried, but I couldn't formulate tears. I could only watch. He spun me around again, to see my mother strapped to a hospital bed, surrounded by black void. He crept over to her and stabbed her repeatedly. Then he turned to look at me. "This is all your fault," his words echoed through the void. My screams started to ring through my head as I finally heard them. My screams became so loud that I closed my eyes and slowly began to feel somebody shaking me. My eyes flashed open and I stopped my blood-curling screams. I felt the sweat and tears soaking my clothes as I saw my mother, she was crying as well. She stopped shaking me and embraced me in a hug. I hugged her back and cried even harder. I hadn't had nightmares that bad in months. "Shhh. It's okay. I got you baby, I got you," She whispered in my ear, which calmed me down a little bit. After a coupled minutes of that, my alarm clock went off for school. My mother looked at me tenderly. "Do you want to skip today?" She asked me. "No. I'm fine," I said and attempted to wipe off my tears with my sweaty hands. She helped me up out of my bed and looked at me a little more serious. "Honey I'm sorry to say this but," she paused. "If the nightmares start back up again I'm going to have to schedule some therapy appointments. I don't want to have to but I just want the bes-" "Mom, I know. But I'm fine. She said that I would have nightmares once in a while." I said and started to walk to my bathroom. She gave me a sympathetic look and walked away. She could be an amazing mother when she wasn't drunk.. I started up the shower and stepped in. The cold water hit my back and I cringed at the ice cold liquid that now covered my body. I quickly turned the lever warmer. I let the water pour down my body and felt the rejuvenating sensation of the water pouring down my face. I slowly sunk to the floor of my shower and buried my face in my knees. I cried. A lot. I closed my eyes and rested my face on my knees until the darkness gave me anxiety. I looked back up and was blinded by the sudden light. I continued to cry until my mother finally knocked on the door. "Sweetie, you're going to be late for school." She said and after a couple more minutes. I got up and shut of the water. The isolation and safeness of the shower faded away and I dried myself off. I made my way to my dresser, and threw on my comfiest under garments. I put on black leggings and a random red sweatshirt that I found in my closet. Sulking into the bathroom, I braided my hair and threw on some mascara. I lazily grabbed my phone off of my nightstand and walked downstairs into the kitchen. My mother had already gotten my froot loops in a bowl and had the milk next to it. After I ate about two bites of cereal, I lost my appetite. I yelled goodbye to my mother and walked out the front door, the fresh morning air working as a remedy to my bloodshot, probably puffy eyes. The car ride there seemed very quick, because I wanted to be in my car as long as possible. I made it through the first half of the day, earning worried looks and comments from Scarlett and Savanah. By the time lunch came around, they were super suspicious. "Okay, Crystal. What the hell is wrong with you today? You didn't even make a snarky remark when I just insulted your taste in fashion." Scarlett looked at me worriedly. "Just, stuff. My, um, cat died." I lied and mentally cringed at my lame attempt at lying. They still bought it anyway. "Oh my God I'm sorry! I shouldn't have asked you about it all day," Scarlett said and Savanah nodded her head in agreement. I tried to smile as real as I could. "It's fine." On my way to biology, I felt my anxiety start to creep back up in my chest. I was making too much of a deal over a freaking dream. I was being such a crybaby. I needed to toughen up and stop being a little bitch. All of the thoughts swirling in my head just made everything worse, and I found myself in the empty bathroom gasping for air as I stared in the mirror and criticized how much of a drama queen I was being. About 10 minutes later, I finally managed to push my minor anxiety attack away, down to the depths of my heart where it would continue to lurk around my soul. I was extremely late to biology. When I walked in, everybody stared up at me. "Miss Summers," Mr. Gletzo said. I hurried to my seat in the back of the room. When I sat down, I accidently glanced up at Ashton. He had a confused, worried look in his dusk blue eyes and for some reason they seemed to calm me down. Ashton had been such a jerk and an asshole to me before, but right then, at that very second, he felt like the only safe thing around me. He must have noticed this change in emotion in me, because his eyes turned cold and hard again, pushing me out of whatever weird trance I was in. He looked away and my heart sunk the tiniest bit. I peeked over at his eyes a couple more times that class, which were always glued to the teacher. The only thing that they showed was some stone cold emotion, and something told me that I would never see Ashton's safe, sympathetic eyes again. When the bell rang, Ashton disappeared into the hall without the slightest glance. I inhaled and exhaled deeply as I gathered my stuff and started to make my way to my car. When I got inside my car, I felt the sudden rush of safeness rush through me. This feeling soon disappeared however when I began to hold back my tears. I couldn't take living in a constant state of fear and anxiety. That was why I moved. I leaned my face in my hands and cried into them, trying to get it all out before I started to drive... I didn't want my tears to blur my vision of the road. About a half an hour later, I finally started to drive back to my house. On the way back, I made sure to take my time. For some reason, my car felt like the safest place I could be. That night I fell asleep listening to music, trying to avoid thinking. As I had hoped, that night was filled with no nightmares. It was only filled with a painfully empty void, the blackness inking my heart even though it was in my subconscious. I woke up many times throughout the night, but thankfully, none of those times was I screaming in my mother's arms.