Crippled Hearts (on hold)

Chapter 1: Nightmares

Startled, I jumped up from my bed, sweat dripping down my forehead and the nape of my neck. My heart beating so fast I doubted it to be healthy. I couldn't breath properly, I was having a panic attack. Again.

I tried to think of what my therapist told me to do in times like these.

I couldn't think now too. My breaths were getting more ragged as fragments of the previous nightmare flashed into my mind. Always the same nightmare. I had it almost 3 or 4 times a week yet the level of intensity of it differed. Tonight it was one of the worse ones.

I knew I had to breath deeply and slowly in and out. I tried my best for fear of waking up my parents in the room down the hall. They had so much to deal with and they often operated on little sleep as I would sometimes wake up screaming like a bloody banshee. More guilt coursed through me at the thought of how much trouble I have put my parents through the last few months.

After quite some time, my breaths returned to normal.

I pulled my phone closer to me by the charger cable and lent over the edge of my bed to grab it off the fluffy carpet that lined my bedroom floors.

Checking the time, I noticed it was 3am and knowing that I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep with the images of the nightmare still flashing every so often in my head, I decided to take a shower.

After I was changed into a pair of comfy grey sweat pants and a hoodie, I sat on the windowsill opposite my bed observing the stars and trying to find constellations to distract me and make one go faster.

I always loved astronomy that I often thought of pursuing it as a hobby. But this was something that he and I always used to do. It was our thing.

Whenever I looked at the stars, I would remember the good moments with him before everything went down the drain. I missed him so much and it had only been just short of 3 months. I didn't know how I would cope if I never got the chance to speak to him again or make jokes about our cranky Spanish teacher with him or cook chocolate chip pancakes every Saturday morning with him or watch reruns of Two and a Half Men with him. There were so many things that we used to do together. Many people joked about how we should've been dating since we got on so well and spent almost every minute of everyday together. We were like two peas in a pod, inseparable but totally different. He was my rock, the brother that I always wanted and my best friend. I had other girl friends but I was never that close with them. Only one girl was the exception as we hung out a lot and she was on the same school track team as me. Yet he had other friends from his football team but he still always made time for me.

I couldn't stop thinking about him. I didn't even realize that tears were streaming down my cheeks, staining them and making my eyes go blood red.

The name was tattooed into my head, figuratively of course.

Dylan Matthews
__________________________

After a few hours passed of me day dreaming, I checked to see it was 7am.

It seemed like a somewhat acceptable time for a teenager to get up on a holiday morning. Not. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep at all and my parents were waking up soon and they would start worrying if they saw me staring diligently out the window at a now starless sky.

The light was shining through the open curtains, showing me that it was going to be a hot summers day as there were no clouds in the sky and the heat was already starting to warm the window pane.

I changed into a pair of black frayed denim shorts with a baggy grey t-shirt that I tucked into the shorts and a pair of fluffy socks knowing that I would most likely not leave the house today.