sparks

30 - London

- parental abuse

Dream

I'm trying to distract my mind from the fact that I'm about to experience one of the second funerals of my life. I don't like funerals. They make me very uneasy.

As much as I'd like to say that it's started out as a very quiet morning, I can't. It would be a lie. The house is already filling with people, and the people are loud.

It's so loud it's woke George too, whose head is thrown over my arm, his calf tangled around one of my ankles.

The light in the room is still a pale grey, so I know its still early. I try to move one of my arms around the side of George and doze back off to sleep, but I have no such luck.

"Make them stop" George whines, throwing his head back violently in exasperation.

Once he moves I can turn back on my side, closing my eyes as I get comfy. "Go back to sleep" I mumble, opening an arm out.

My extended arm soon curls back in, this time around George as he gets comfy against me. I move one of my hands up to his ears, covering them lightly to hopefully block out some of the boosting noise from downstairs.

Sometime between then and the moment there comes a rap on the bedroom door, I fall back asleep.

When my eyes open to the knocking at the door, its lighter, the room now a pastel yellow which takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to properly.

George seems to already be more awake then I, so he sits up out of bed and swings the door open just as another knock comes.

It isn't his dad, its a different man I haven't seen before, holding two boxes in one hand and dangling two, long white bags over his arm.

I yawn, sitting up and patting down my hair as the man lays the bags at the end of the bed, leaving the shoes by the door. I miss most of the conversation between him and George.

"Clothes" George nods at the bags, shuffling back over into bed, dragging the covers back up over himself. 

I know if I don't get up now then theres no chance that I'll get up at all. So, reluctantly, I stand from bed and yawn again, moving to Georges en suite.

"Can I shower with these towels?" I call, opening the small bathroom window to the light air of the morning.

I get no response. My head peeks around the bathroom door, to find George once again asleep in the haze of crisp white duvets and too big pillows.

***

I'm startled to find that there are actually people downstairs. Lots of people, the house is filled with them.

George is still upstairs in his room showering when I slide downstairs, trying my best to go unnoticed by anybody.

Halfway down the stairs, my eyes gloss the small crowds gathered in the hallways, and a certain flash of bright red hair makes my eyes flick back for a second glimpse.

I stare for a moment too long, when she turns around and it takes a second, but her eyes find mine. Quinn. A wide smile finds my face.

She shovels her way politely through the people, climbing the stairs to where I'm waiting for her. I'm not a hugger, I never have been, but she finds a way between my arms.

I hear her laugh, her arms settling around my torso. "How are you?" she asks, her voice light and sweet.

"I'm alright" I answer her, "just worried about George. How are you?"