Broken Wings

Chocolate Pancakes-Chapter 2

The scream fleew through the house, shattering through a dream I would never remember and drilling into my head. In a second, I was bolting out of my bed and down the hall to my brother's room. I pressed my ear to the door before slipping in, a lingering habit. Of course Mom wasn't in there. She slept too deeply now. It had been years since she last woke up to David's cries. I was just holding on to a foolish hope now.

"Shhh. It's okay, it's okay." I lifted David out of his bed and cradled him in my arms. "Shh. Shh. Come on honey. Wake up." Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. I watched him open his eyes. They were glassy and crusty. He was barely awake. "It's okay Davie. I'm here. It's okay. Nothing's going to hurt you."  I grabbed his hand and squeezed until all the fear was gone from his eyes. His small lips opened in a yawn and I smiled. "Okay buddy. You've had a long day. You should go back to sleep." Kissing his head, I tucked him back into the bed. I thought he was asleep but he cried out the second I tried to leave.

"Don't leave me Casey! There are monsters in the closet!" He started to cry again. I couldn't have left even if I wanted to.

"Shh. Shh Davie. You'll wake Mommy." Not likely, but he didn't need to know that. "I'll stay here until you fall asleep. Don't worry. I'll keep all the monsters away." He stared at me for a minute, deciding if he trusted me and then pulled his hand out from under the covers and grabbed mine. Apparently deciding that was enough, he rolled over and went to sleep, still holding my hand. I smiled down at his sleeping form.

I had been so scared when the nightmares had started. Mom and I had both been going out of our minds. Every night, consistently, he had screamed his head off, yelling at invisible ghosts. We had tried everything we could think of. For a while, he had slept in my room and then with Mom. We had read him stories before he went to sleep, played music while he was sleeping, left the lights on, anything we could think of. After Mom got her second job, she came home every night exhausted and slept through the screams. She thought it had stopped, and I didn't want to pop that little bubble for her.

So it was only me. Still, I tried everything. TV on while he slept. Different pillow. By the end I was just getting desperate. Finally, I went online and started to do research on what could cause nightmares. It had taken a while for me to notice the common thread. No one really came out and said it, but comments were almost always from worried single moms. I made the connection myself, and made my own website to broadcast my findings. It was simple. A dad's job is to look after the family. It's the dad that provides the sense of security. So maybe, kids without dads had more nightmares.

It was the only explanation I could think of.

XxXxX

I think it was the pure discomfort that woke me up. There really was no other explanation. My face was pressed against David's bed-frame, the wood corner sent lances of dull pain shooting through my cheek. There was drool in my hair and a crick in my neck. I had fallen asleep after checking on David.

I glanced at the clock and groaned. 3:56. I had never possessed the skill of falling back to sleep past midnight. Sighing, I stood up and walked to the bathroom. If I had to be up this early, I was going to so something with my time.

I took a quick shower. Didn't want to rack up the water bill any more than it already was. I almost fell asleep at one point, but by the time I was out and dried off, that possibility was long gone. My hairwas experimenting with the laws of gravity and trying to prove that it was, in fact, possible to float above my head in one huge rat's nest. At least all the spit was gone. My neck still ached, and there was a bright red mark across my cheek that I knew wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon.