Stay With Me ✔

10.

I still get nightmares. 

I can still hear the sound of the two cars colliding, I can still hear my own screams as the car I was in flipped down the side of the hill, and I can still see my dad lying lifelessly over the center console with blood gushing from his head. 

Sometimes, when I'm not fully awake after the nightmare I can still smell gas and can still feel the burns from the seat belt on my skin. That's when I panic, when I can't breathe and when my chest constricts. Those are the nights that I wake up screaming, covered in sweat and fighting to remember how to breathe. 

Nights like tonight, when I'm sitting up in my bed, clutching my chest as my heart races and I fight to make my lungs work. My t shirt is drenched in sweat and I peel it from my body as I remember the exercises my mom taught me for situations like this. 

List five things I can see: my blanket, the window, my shirt, the dresser, and my lamp. 

List four things I can feel: the blanket, my pillow, my headboard, and the book on my nightstand. 

List three things I can hear: my fan, a car driving by outside, and the beep of the smoke detector in the hallway that needs its batteries changed.

By the time I get to the next step, my breathing has returned to normal and my chest is no longer being crushed by a heavy weight. I lay back and immediately sit back up when I realize how sweat soaked my sheets are. 

I look at the time and sigh when I see that my clock reads 2:30 a.m. There's no way I'm going to be able to go back to sleep, so I get up and strip all the sheets off my bed and take them downstairs, throwing them in a hamper and grabbing another set from the linen closet. 

Nights like these, when I have a nightmare and panic attack, leaving me unable to go back to sleep - that's when I wish my mom was around more or I had a sibling to confide in. 

I put the new sheets on my bed and pick up the discarded shirt, throwing it in my hamper as I make my way to my bathroom and take a shower. I stood under the water for so long that it started to run cold, forcing me to get out of the shower and towel off. 

I knew that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep no matter how hard I tried, so I put on some clean clothes and turned on my television. My eyes were on the reality show playing in front of me, but my mind was somewhere else. 

It's been two years since the accident that took my dad from me, two incredibly long years. I miss him and I know that my mom does too, but we don't really talk about him or what happened. My mom was on call the night we were both brought into the Emergency Room, at first she had no idea it was us, but as soon as she saw us on the gurneys she lost it. 

She wanted to help, she wanted to be in the operating room with my dad but they wouldn't let her. He didn't make it through surgery, and she never got to say goodbye - he was just gone. While my dad was in surgery, my mom stayed with me while they ran tests and pumped me full of pain meds and other liquids I didn't know the name of. 

I was in shock, unable to talk or process what was happening for hours while they poked me with needles and flashed lights in my eyes, asking me to follow their fingers. I had come around by the time they lost my dad though, and I was fully aware of the fact that I would never see his smile or hear his laugh again. I would never hear him sing along to the radio or give me a history lesson on some old rock band he loved. I'd never see my parents tease each other and kiss before parting ways in the mornings, I'd never hear him tell us he loves us - we'd never be a family again. 

After the funeral and the days that followed when our family members had gone back to their own homes, my mom and I spent one day curled up in my bed watching movies and mourning together. One day, and then we went back to our lives like nothing had happened, like there wasn't a huge hole in our hearts and our home. We threw ourselves into other things as a way to distract ourselves from our grief, and it seemed to work - it has been working.

It works until I'm asleep and have no control over my subconscious and the memories it drags to surface while I'm deep in sleep. The nightmares didn't start happening until last year and I don't know why they happen now and not two years ago when everything had happened - it's like I'm not meant to forget, like the memory is supposed to always be there in the front of my mind, every detail fresh and as graphic as the day it happened.

I reach for my phone and start scrolling through my social media, my heart leaping a little bit when I see that Rave was active just ten minutes ago. I think back to earlier tonight when he had kissed my cheek. He'd only ever done that a few times before, and it always seemed like a friendly gesture. Tonight though, it seemed more intimate and I blush again thinking of the feel of his lips on my skin. 

"I'll always be team Kylie."  What did he mean by that? 

I open up my text messages and tap on Rave's name. My fingers hover above the keyboard for a moment as I talk myself into sending him a message. 

Are you awake?

I stare at the screen and smile when I see the three little dots dance across the screen almost immediately. 

Rave: Trouble sleeping? 

You could say that. What about you?

Rave: I guess you could say the same for me.

Want to talk about it?

Rave: Do you?

Part of me wants to say yes and spill my guts to him, but then there's another part of me that doesn't want to relive the memory for a second time tonight. It's not a conversation to have over text anyway. 

Not really.

Rave: You're still going to Tate's party tomorrow night, right?

Thankful for the change in subject, I smile at my phone. Falling back into this rhythm with Rave is so easy. We used to stay up all night texting all the time and it feels so much like old time right now, that I can't help but give in to it and forget all my fears of him playing me again. 

Planning on it. Why?

Rave: I know we're going as a group or whatever, but would you want to go with me?

Rave: Like, be there together. 

Rave: You get what I'm saying, right?

We agreed to be friends, Rave. Remember?

I watch as the word Read pops up under the message and I wait for those dancing dots, but they don't appear. I watch the screen a little longer but Rave doesn't type anything. I move my eyes back to the television, and just as some drunk girl is about to start a fight with another drunk girl, my phone pings with a new text. 

I unlock the phone and read Rave's reply.

Rave: I've been your friend before, Ky and I messed it up. I know that I hurt you and I'll spend forever apologizing for that, but I don't want to be your friend. I want more and I'm not going to pretend that I don't. 

I don't know how many times I read the message, it had to have been at least fifty times. It was long enough for Rave to send another text while waiting for my reply. 

Rave: Sorry if that was to forward, but I need you to know I'm serious about this. About you. 

I think back to his apology in the park, when he said he should have chosen me instead of Lexy. He seemed so sincere that night, like he really did regret ending our friendship and the way he treated me.

"So I went back to what I know and I tried to force it, but it wasn't the same, it wasn't you." His words come to my mind and so does the look in his mesmerizing green eyes when he said them. 

Maybe it's because I'm exhausted and not thinking logically at the moment, or maybe it's because I'm sick of pretending that I'm not dying to be with him. I spent months not talking to him, not seeing him, and missing him. I spent so much time wondering what would have happened if we had kissed that night or if he had picked me. Why make that last any longer than it needs to? Why not give this one more chance, put my heart on the line one more time? 

Rave has already proved to me that he's changed in some ways, why not believe the wild haired boy? 

I want to be more too.