Waiting outside the lines

Chapter 13

My dream is good at first. I'm sitting with Wayne in a beautiful area I've never been to before. It was full of nature, along a nice blue river. So many flowers and plants surrounded us while we sat and talked. It was so perfect.
Then I looked away for a second and when I look back, Wayne is gone. I look around but don't see him. I get up and look around some more. Then I see Jake. My hands start shaking and I start moving backwards but then fall over a large root that is sticking out of the ground. I try to get up but my foot gets stuck in the root and I can't move without it hurting.
But it was physically hurting, even though it was a dream.
Jake starts walking towards me and I try to scream for help but can't. He gets closer and closer and when he's right in front of me, he puts his hand up like he's about to hit me. I close my eyes and put my arm in front of my face.
But nothing happens.
I open my eyes and Jake wasn't there anymore. I try to free my ankle again but no such luck. It still hurts when I try. I look for something to cut the root with but don't find anything. Then I hear someone say something.
"We'll be back in a week." I turn around and see my parents talking to eleven year old me with the three year old version of my little brother behind me.
I remember this day perfectly.
Then my parents walk away, without saying bye, and just disappear. I can tell eleven year old me is holding back tears. Three year old little brother tugs on her shirt and she swallows hard and looks down at him and tries to smile. "Let's go." I remember knowing that they weren't going to come back in a week.
They disappear and I sit there, still stuck, trying to hold back tears of that horrible memory. But that's not even the worst part.
I hear someone talking and turn around. I see my twelve year old self at my house, talking to someone on the phone, my four year old brother on the floor, playing with a toy I just got him. It was his birthday. I heard myself say,"Then what are we supposed to do?"
I remember that day too.
I remember hearing my mother saying,"Go talk to your uncle. We weren't able to come back in a week like we said before."
Then I yell,"NO SH.." You can probably guess what I said. And then I slammed the phone and hung up on her. Younger me turns around, and sees four year old little brother staring at her, looking scared. Younger me walks up to him and hugs him tight,"It's ok little bro. We'll be fine." Then that sight disappears. The next thing I see is twelve year old me calling my uncle and telling him what happened. I was crying. He was trying to comfort me but the real me can't hear what he's saying. I just see and hear myself crying on the phone.
That image disappears. Then I see thirteen year old me and five year old little brother being taken away by the police. My brothers screaming for me, because they were taking us in separate cars. Hearing his scream gave me chills.
By now, the real me is crying. I remember that day and I remember trying to hold my tears back until my little brother couldn't see me anymore. When I got into the car, I broke and started bawling my eyes out. I see in my memory and also remember, the driver was really nice. He said,"Don't worry you'll be okay." And he asked me what my name was and how old I was and he asked about my little brother too. He made me feel a little better. "You know I have children. One's.." Before he could finish his cell phone rings. "Sorry, one second." He picks it up and says his name. "Yea this is Jeremy Jay.. Ok.. Yea he'll have to come down.. Well I can just take them.. Ok. Ok yea. K bye." He looks back at me through the front mirror and smiles. "I guess you're going home."
"What?" I ask confused.
"I guess.. You're uncle is it?" I nod with a smile on my face.
"Well I guess he's gonna come and get you. I would take you home myself but he has to come down and prove he's your uncle and so we can make sure it's okay that he goes with you. Just standard stuff." I nod at him and say,"You don't have to check him. He's great! He really is my uncle. I promise. Can you just take me home?" He smiles and hesitates. "Uuuum.. Ok ok I'll take you. But I still want to talk to him." I get really excited and he pulls out his phone again and calls some person and tells them to meet him somewhere to get my little brother."
The image disappears and I think about what happened after that. Jeremy took us to my uncles house and they talked for quite a while.
My brother and I lived with my uncle and his girlfriend for a long time until..
Then I hear some rustling in the bushes. I turn to where I thought the sound was coming from and my eyes widen at what I see.
I see my uncle standing there. Looking at me. At least I think he is until I say his name and he doesn't respond. He walks towards me but then goes right past me. I say his name louder but he doesn't respond. Then all of a sudden there's a bridge right in front of me. My uncle walks on the bridge and I keep screaming his name. I try to get free but I can't. My ankle is still stuck and hurts when I try to move. I scream his name again. "NO STOP! PLEASE! I LOVE YOU! PLEASE!!" But no matter how loud I scream or what I say, he doesn't hear me. He looks down at what's under the bridge and how high it is and I see a tear roll down his cheek. "Stop. Please." I say. He still doesn't hear. He goes on the edge of the bridge.. And jumps. "NOO!" I scream. I can hear his screaming as he falls. I scream and cry at the same time. The drop is so high it takes a few seconds until I hear he hit the bottom. I knew he couldn't have survived. I scream and wake up with Wayne right next to me.
"Janet! Janet wake up!" Wayne was yelling at me. I get up and look at the clock. It's five in the morning. I look at Wayne with wide eyes, the image of my uncle still in my head. I feel tears coming but hold them back.
"Um wha-what are you doing up so early." I try to say calmly, but don't do such a great job.
"You're screaming woke me up. Are you okay?" My mind instantly goes to my brother. This isn't the first time I've screamed in my sleep. It's really rare but I remember the last time I did it woke my brother up and really scared him. I look at Wayne and practically yell,"Is my brother ok?"
"Is that what you dreamt about?"
"Is he okay?!" I say louder.
"I don't know. He's.."
"Well go check!" I scream and some tears roll down my cheek. He puts his hand on my arm and says,"Ok ok I'm gonna go check on him ok? I'll be right back." He strokes the side of my face and looks at me with sympathetic eyes. Then goes out of the room. More tears roll down my face as I realize that I just screamed at Wayne when he was trying to help me. I jump off my bed and run into the bathroom and lock the door. I take off my shirt and check my cuts and arms. My arms were redder than ever. I think Wayne was grabbing them when he tried to wake me up because they were stinging like crazy. I don't know what to do so I just put some lotion on them but it doesn't really help. I look at the cut on my neck and see its fine but totally visible. I don't want Wayne to see it so I try to think of a way to hide it. I look around for something to use and see a bag of makeup. I've never used makeup before. My uncle's girlfriend gave it to me a long time ago so it's color is different from my skin. I put it on anyway and see its really obvious so I put it all over my neck. It's still noticeable but it's the best I could do so I just leave it like that.
Then I look at the cut on my stomach. The cloth I wrapped around it was really bloody but I think it helped stop the bleeding. I take of the dirty cloth and wrap a new one around myself just in case it starts bleeding again. I calm down and stop crying then wash my face. "Janet?" Wayne knocks on the door. I put my clothes back on and fix my hair a little. Realizing it looks pretty bad I just put it up then open the door. "Yea?"
"Your brothers fine. He's still sleeping." I nod and sit on my bed. Wayne sits on the chair and we sit there silently. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I didn't mean to." I say not looking at him.
"Don't worry about it. What happened anyway?" I got tense and my hands started shaking and I started breathing hard. I guess he notices because he says,"I'm sorry. You don't have to say anything."
"I'm sorry it's just.." I don't know what to say. It's just that I had a dream of some of the horrible moments of my life. Oh yea and I was screaming because I saw my uncle commit suicide in my dream. You know just regular nightmare stuff.
"Don't worry about it. You don't have to explain yourself."
I nod and say thanks. "I really am sorry I yelled at you though."
"I know." He smiles at me and I smile back. Then he looks at my shirt and finally realizes what I was hoping he wouldn't realize. "Did you change in the middle of the night?"
Dang it! I try acting dumb, look down at my shirt, and say,"Huh? Oh yea I must of. I get really cold at night sometimes. I was so tired I don't even remember." I laugh awkwardly and he looks at me weird. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yea I'm totally fine." I try to change the subject and say,"So how's your side and everything?"
I notice him staring at my neck with a confused look on his face,"It's fine. What's on your neck?"
Great! I should have kept my hair down. I try to act dumb again and say,"What's on my neck? I don't think there's anything. I think we should be more worried about if you're okay."
"You are a horrible liar." He says as he gets up and walks towards me trying to look at my neck. I try to scoot back on my bed so he can't reach me,"It's seriously probably nothing." But he keeps insisting and goes on the bed no matter how far I scoot back. I panic and think of what to do. I can't push him off the bed. I'm not strong enough to do that and my arms still hurt. Plus he'd probably just get up and keep bothering me about it. So I do the next thing I can think of. I kiss him on the lips. He seems surprised at first but then starts kissing me back. We sit on the bed and kiss for a minute or so before Wayne stops and says,"Wait, you're just trying to distract me. It's not gonna work. You're not going make me forget about your neck." The way he said it sounded like he was trying to convince himself instead of me. "Are you sure about that?" I say and put my hand on his leg and the other on his neck with my thumb in front of his ear. "I-I'm positive." He tries to move my hand from his leg but I don't budge. Instead I grab his hand and start playing with his fingers.
"St-stop. What happened to your neck?"
"Why don't you find out?" Then I kiss him again and he kisses me back. He puts his hands on my waist and I leave my hand on his neck and put the other on his shoulder. I stroke his face with my thumb as we kiss and he strokes my arm.
I guess I kinda am just trying to distract him. I don't even know if I'm doing this because I like him or because I don't want him to ask about my neck. I know I'm gonna have to deal with that part later but right now seems so right. So maybe I do like him? I don't know.
We keep kissing and I run my hand through his hair on the back of his head and put my other hand on his chest. Then he puts one of his hands on my leg and I get a little jittery. I don't really like it when people touch my leg. I guess Wayne notices because he pulls back and asks if I'm okay. "Um yea I'm fine." I say grabbing the hand he had on my leg and play with his fingers again. He looks at me as if he was trying to read my mind. "You sure you're okay?"
"Seriously, I'm fine." I kiss him again and he touches my neck where the cut is and pushes a little hard. I pull back,"Ow!" I move his hand and rub my neck. "I knew there was something there! Is this makeup?" He says rubbing his fingers together. I guess he got some on his hand. "What no? It's nothing."
"I already told you you're a horrible liar. What is going o..." Before he can finish that sentence, I hear a knock at my door. "Big sissy? Are you there?" Wayne and I look at each other. I whisper to him to go behind the door. He does and I open the door for my little brother. "Hey little bro. What are you doing up so early?"
"I heard you talking to someone. Are you okay?" I smile at him and say,"Yea I'm fine. I was just on the phone. I'm sorry I woke you."
"It's okay. I need help on some homework. Can you help me?"
I look at Wayne behind the door. He looks at me with eyes that say,'We're not done with this. We're going to talk about this later'
"Um yea of course. I'll be in your room in a second."
"Ok." He says as he walks away. I close the door and whisper to Wayne,"Are you gonna be good in here?"
"Yea I'll be fine."
"Okay just don't be a creap and look through my stuff or anything."
"Ok ok fine." He says jokingly. "Wait you have something in your hair."
"Oh where?" I ask. He tries to get a closer look and then instead kisses my cheek instead. I laugh and say,"You did it wrong." He looks at me confused and I kiss his cheek then a little closer to his lips and then partly kiss his lips but not all the way. He gets ready for me to kiss his lips but I don't and start leaving the room. I turn around and innocently smile at him then walk out.