When Lies Become Reality (On Hold)

Chapter 3

Great not this again! I thought the nightmares stopped weeks ago!

I went into Nick's room and climbed into the bed next to him. I gently cradled him in my arms until he stopped sobbing and slept again, and even after, like our mother use to do when we had nightmares as children. But, only these weren't pretend these were memories and our mother wasn’t there to comfort us and never would be.

The next morning when Nick woke up and found me cradling him in my arms and my pyjama tee drenched in his tears he sighed loudly and yelled “DAMMIT!!! I thought I finally had these nightmares under control!”

“It's o-” I start to say but I'm cut off.

“'OKAY'?” Nick asks furiously “'OKAY'!! DAMMIT STEPH IM NEARLY FOURTEEN AND I WAKE UP MOST MORNINGS SLEEPING WITH MY SISTER 'CAUSE I HAD A NIGHTMARE!! THAT'S REALLY NOT 'OKAY'!! THERE'S NOTHING 'OKAY ABOUT THAT'”

I cut him off because knowing Nick he would have kept going.

“Anyone who went through what you did can wake up with night mares like this! It's normal! For Christ sakes Nick! You watched our mother get KILLED by our father!! Our own father!! Then you saw him point a gun at me! And instead of letting me die like I honestly thought you would you jumped on him and tried to take the gun nearly getting yourself KILLED in the process! All in what, 10 minutes of what seemed to be a perfectly normal day! You get to have nightmares!! You’re lucky you’re alive!” I was furious that he thought it was childish to be scared.

Jen came in the room after hearing all the yelling and asked what was going on. Both of us were sitting in Nick's room with tear streaked faces.

“It's nothing.” I say getting off of Nick's bed and going to get ready for school.

“Maybe, you should both stay home today.” I hear Jen suggest as I walked to my room.

“I'm fine.” I lie. “I wanna go to school.”

I leave without eating and I couldn’t wait for science to start. My face was still tear streaked but I didn’t care.

When we got in class I took a piece of paper and ripped it in two. Remember when you said if I needed to talk you would be there? Well I need to talk. I wrote passing one to Josh and one to Amanda.

Amanda and Josh both look at me then at each other and nod. At lunch Amanda, Jess, Josh and I all leave school and I tell them everything from my father being a drunk and blaming me for being a troubled child – which I never understood – right down to the conversation I had with Nick about his nightmares and it felt good to just get that all off my chest.

After we talk I sit there crying like an idiot, so Josh took me home, and skipped the rest of the school day to watch movies with me.

Josh started taking Nick out to play sports and stuff to get his mind off things. He even taught him how to box. And as much as I hate to say it my scrawny baby brother wasn’t a scrawny baby anymore. He was getting buff! Or as buff as a fourteen year old can be. He turned fourteen two weeks before I turned sixteen. He didn’t do anything but watch sports or play them like every other night. The nightmares didn’t happen as often only once or twice a month. And when they did happen he didn’t wake up screaming he just got up and came to sleep in my bed.

For my sixteenth birthday party it was just the five of us we went to a movie and we ate out. They sang happy birthday to me at the restaurant and it was so embarrassing. Things started getting better for me too I could go sometimes an hour maybe two without thinking about my parents and I didn’t cry to think about them now.

Jen and John have gotten more used to us being here... we smile more now than ever. I cry myself to sleep silently now and Jen and John don't think I'm suicidal anymore... than again I never was they were just nervous. For everything good that had been happening I had my best friends to thank.