Blank Stars

chapter 12

I saw an image of my dad float past me, he was talking to me but I couldn’t hear anything he had to say. The image faded away and I found myself in a large room, I looked around and saw my dad talking to a young girl. It took me a while to realise that it was me, when I was around five or six. I tried to figure out what they were saying but whenever I listened all I heard was static so I eventually stopped. I looked around and noticed that there were still photos of mum around the house.

I struck me then as I saw the crying girl, too distraught to notice her dad’s bloodshot, sleepless eyes. This was when my mum had died. I felt my throat become sticky with emotion as I remembered all the heartache I had went through when I first lost her. I had taken her for granted and I felt like I had replaced her with Sophia. I wanted to go and comfort the little girl but I knew that this was only a dream, nothing would come of it so I stayed where I was.

I paused as I noticed my dad looking at me, not at me at something behind me. His eyes flicked to me and they widened in fear, he shouted something at me and young me spun around. All I heard was static and I turned around fear taking control of my muscles, forcing my movements. I looked into the cold eyes of the man who I’ve had had hallucinations of. I was ready to scream when I woke up abruptly, Alec was shaking me to wake me up and I sucked in a blast of cold air.

Alec looked at me, he seemed a little worried and I couldn’t blame him. I waved him off as I pushed myself up off of the bed, I looked up and stretched out my arms. I couldn’t have been asleep for very long because as far as I could tell Sophia wasn’t here yet.

“Is Sophia coming?”

I stood up stretching out my spine and listened to it crack, Alec stood up behind me.

“Yeah, she should be here soon. You ok?”

I sighed and walked over to him.

“Yeah, just a weird dream.”

He didn’t look very convinced but he nodded and didn’t ask any questions. 

“You want to sit downstairs while we wait on Sophia?”

I nodded and he walked out of the room, I followed suit and we sat down on his sofa in the living room. He flicked on the TV and some news report came on the screen. They babbled about something and Alec and I listened absentmindedly. I jumped when the peaceful silence was interrupted by a knock at the door. Alec looked to me and went to get up but I hopped off of the couch and indicated for him to sit back down. I opened the door and Sophia stood with her hands on her hips, surveying me. She raised an eyebrow at me, eyeing up Alec’s that I was wearing. I shook my head at her and gave her a look as to say, ‘be quiet’ she nodded her head and raised her hands to defend herself. She walked through the door and looked over to Alec then began walking backwards towards him, so that she could keep making faces at me; we wouldn’t want to deny her that luxury. I glared at her and she laughed, the first noise she actually made since she got here.

“Hey Alec, so who wants to fill me in on what’s been happening here.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at me before turning back to Alec, who was oblivious to everything that had been going on.

“Kayla was assaulted by a crazy fat lady.”

He said it so bluntly that Sophia had to do a double take to make sure she heard it right.

“What?!”

She rushed over to me.

“Are you ok? What happened? This isn’t what I thought had happened.”