Two Weeks and Two Days

Insolent.

​🇦​​🇱​​🇦​​🇳​​🇦​.

Feeling the warmth of the early summer sun through my bedroom window, a weirdly comforting sensation came over my exhausted body. Last night had been such a blur, so my memory was a little fuzzy, which had been happening a lot lately. With everything going on, days seemed to meld into each other and the lines between what I was dreaming about and reality became harder and harder to distinguish, shown clearly by the dream I had last night about Lucy...

As I slowly came to my senses, I recalled the scarily vivid dream from the previous night. Lucy, in my room, in a weird ghostly form? Maybe I was beginning to go insane from grief, but the whole thing felt so incredibly real – from the moment I first saw her to the moment Pudge reacted to her touch. My head was pounding and the last thing I remember was my vision going blurry and everything hurting, it felt so real at the time that the pain seemed to linger in my head, even now.

I didn't know what to think of it. Parts of me relished seeing her face again, even if it wasn't real. The feelings of comfort and nostalgia flooded back to me; the memories brought a sense of warmth that reminded me they would always be there to calm me, even if there was no physical reminder. Yet, the larger part of my mind ached with misery. She was gone and I couldn't stop it, no matter how hard I wished I had. No matter how many times I replay that night repeatedly in my head. No matter how many times I see her as a ghost, or alive, in my dreams, she is gone. I had to try and move on, for my sanity.

"...You awake?"

I froze up in bed. The voice was discernible. Distinct. The exact voice I had heard in my dream prior; there was no mistaking it. I was sure I was awake this time because the heat from the sun outside beamed harshly down on me, Fudge's soft snoring right beside my head as he snuggled beside me and the faint smell of bacon and eggs making its way up from downstairs.

Slowly, I allowed my eyes to open and I saw her, sitting on the windowsill, as she always used to do. My eyes stayed glued to hers, catching her gaze, as she gave me a sympathetic look. I could sense my heart racing in my chest, faster and faster and my chest rising as I tried to convince myself I was still dreaming. This cannot be real.

"Alana... you okay? You look like you're gonna pass out... again-"

Making both me – and creepily her as well – jump, my phone alarm began to ring out. I felt my inside churn at the idea of having to go to college while I was having such a lucid and awful vision... hallucination? Whatever she was, it was starting to make me feel like I was losing myself and I had to try and escape it fast. Whenever I was struggling mentally in the past, the first thing I would do (well, aside from contacting Lucy as that was impossible) was try to get fresh air and distract myself.

With a bit of courage, I managed to break our eye contact and sat on the edge of the bed. Now, I just had to start working up some bravery to begin getting dressed despite being watched, which felt like a large breach of privacy, even if she was not real. It was simple; I just had to get into my normal outfit, which used to be much more well-thought-out and put-together, but I have since given up on holding positive fashionable appearances. There were some light brown sweatpants and a sage green jumper laid out on the floor, so I decided to quickly scoop them up and make my way to the bathroom.

She called after me but I couldn't look back; I needed to wash my face and try to pull myself together. If this was a few weeks ago, I might've been able to tell Axel or Felix, but the thought of them looking at me like I was crazy made me more upset than I dared to imagine.

Shutting the door to the bathroom, I hastily got into my clothes and fixed up my hair, trying to rid the tiredness that was evident on my face to look presentable. My parents had been bothering me about that a lot recently, so I hoped they would suspect nothing if I went past with nothing they could complain about. I just needed my phone, and my bag and I would be ready to go; it would be extremely early compared to usual, but the exceptional circumstance meant I was prepared to face the outside world as quickly as possible. Sometimes some sun could do wonders.