Dreams or Reality

Chapter 1

A voice. It always starts out with a voice. His voice. A dark deep almost rich chocolate like tone. You know the one; where it sends shivers down your spine, rattles the very being of your soul, makes you want to melt inside.

“Harper.”

His voice is the one I hear. The one I constantly hear. I never seem to hear him in my dreams or lack of. People can remember their dreams to a point right, a fleeting thought that leads them to the moment of Deja Vu. I don’t have that.

“Harper.”

I can’t remember anything like that my whole life, since I don’t dream. Before you start going on a tangent about not eating healthy or getting enough sleep or being too stressed. I am perfectly healthy and getting enough sleep. Though being stressed I can’t really do much about it since I’m a senior at the Sentential High School here in a rural town of Kojote, Montana; home of the Swift Coyotes. Anyway, my parents have taken me to many doctors, all saying the same thing, “She’s just depressed or has anxiety. Give her these pills, or therapy. She’ll be just fine.”

Fat chance of that working. Let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with me. I tried all that stuff, guess what. It didn’t work. You think I want to tell my parents about me hearing his voice in my head too. They would lock me up in the loony bin before I could even say Graduation. The only ones who I have ever told about my “condition”, as any adult would put it, are my best friends. 

They understand me. They know me on a level that even I can't understand. They—

“Miss Beckett!”

My heart jumps into my throat as a great bellow erupts from behind me. My wide hazel eyes lock to dark brown almost black of those of my teachers’ through our reflection off the classroom window. 

Mr. Rotter, or as several of the students call him “The Hulk” or ''The Crusher,” is the Freshman to Senior Math teacher. He’s about 6’1” or so, almost a bulldog physique and his expression is one for the records; he is intimidating. He is the wrestling coach, football coach, assistant basketball coach and driver’s ed teacher. His constant scowl makes students afraid to ask him questions about homework or anything in general, unless you were a boy or his own kids. 

Once when I was a Freshman, I was on my way to the bathroom during homeroom, a senior girl by the name of Melanie Malloy; she was very pretty with her aquamarine eyes and blonde hair, her figure wasn’t bad either. She had Mr. Rotter for homeroom. I didn’t envy her at all, though I feel bad for still thinking about it to this day. I was almost to the bathroom door when she came running down the hall, tears streaming down her face, makeup ruined, echoes of Mr. Rotter's yells echoing down the hall, too garbled to understand. I followed after her; she was a mess. I asked her what had happened and she couldn’t tell me through her sobs and tears. Eventually one of her classmates showed up and took over for me. I wished her luck as I headed back to my homeroom, forgetting why I even went in there to begin with til a little while later. 

When I had Mr. Rotter for any of my classes through high school, I felt as if he was targeting me personally sometimes. Especially during math and Driver’s Ed. Math doesn’t seem to click in my head as some of the other subjects I had, such as English or my Creative Writing class or Drama. 

Mr. Rotter expected so much from his students, especially if you were a female. The boys it seemed like if you were on a team that he coached, you were spot on to get an A in his class. For those of us who weren’t in a sport or a girl, we had to struggle to keep up. In-between learning equations and the circumference of a trapezoid, plus Driver’s Ed every morning and evening, it seemed like I was being torn in two by his criticisms of my effort I was putting in.