Take Me Away | ✔️

8. WORST

THE MORNING I WOKE UP, I was tangled up in Alex's arms—one arm around my waist and the other around my shoulders. My back was hurting form the fetal position I was put in while Alex laid down on his back comfortably with my head resting on his chest as we slept.

As I was rubbing my eyes, Alex inhaled sharply, an indication that he was waking up. When I looked up, I watched his eyes open slowly, those amber colored eyes glinting as we stared at each other.

"What time is it?" He asked, his voice low and deep from being still half-asleep.

Pulling out my phone from my back pocket, which I forgot to place on the table, I switched it on, seeing the time. "Ten-thirty in the morning."

His brows knitted together. "Do you want me to drive you to school?"

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed, a text from an unknown number.

You know that I don't like you sleeping over with a boy, Amelia.

This was seriously getting out of hand and there couldn't be any reason for me to be afraid because... this is a prank. It would be impossible for the dead to rise back into life.

"What?" Alex's brows creased. "What is it?"

Shaking my head, I deleted the message and placed the phone back in my pocket. "Nothing. Someone's obviously pranking me; probably at school who thinks I get scared easily." Before he could ask what the text said, I sat up and faced him, "Did I wake you up in the middle of the night?"

For everyone, their dreams are either good or bad; but, for me, I always get nightmares—picturing everything the shitty things that has happened and the things that I never want to happen. Sometimes they repeat with the same outcomes, sometimes it gets worse.

There had been times that I either wake up from screaming, crying, or being woken up but there are times wherein I don't remember being woken up. That's why I'd rather not sleep knowing that I'll just be haunted by nightmares and I'll end up worrying mom and Sean about what I'm dreaming about.

Nodding, he pulled himself up and grabbed my arm, pulling me to his chest. "I tried to get you to move to the bed and you kept yelling not to be touched so I just stayed here with you. I was going to try it again when you weren't having the bad dream anymore but I fell asleep."

I was dreaming about my father.

It was when I was seven years old. He had told me to get him a beer and I obliged, successfully not tripping on the way to him until I did when I was giving it to him and the contents spilled onto his clothes. Needless to say, he got angry and pulled me up to the stairs with his hand on my hair. I remember feeling the burns that I got from the cement and the carpet, and then, being thrown back to the door of my room, my head hitting first.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital with nurses telling me to be careful next time when running around the house.

"Sorry about that," I whispered to his chest, but it only came out muffled.

I felt his lips on top of my head. "It's alright. You know that I'm always going to be here for you even if you don't want me to."

We stayed like that for a while. I listened to him breathe, heard his heartbeat going fast, and felt his fingers running through my hair. Something inside me felt that this was wrong and yet, I couldn't move. I had missed this—being in his arms and feeling like we were own in our bubble.