SCARRED

Chapter 13

          MONDAY - MENDING

She snapped her eyelids open with a gasp, her eyes scanning her room as if for any form of danger but there was none. She shut her eyes again as she evened her breathing not paying any attention whatsoever to the alarm ringing in the very quiet room. Her shaky hands went to her chest to even the wild beating of her heart but nothing was working. She suddenly felt like she was suffocating so she stumbled out of her bed and toward the tiny window in her room in desperation to get a little bit of fresh air.

She hated the horrible nightmares, it was the first time in a few days that she had had them, it was probably the reason that it was so grim. She sat on the floor, back against the wall as she felt her breath begin to even and her heart beat slowed down. She pushed the tears away not wanting to start another fit that morning

The knock on the door had her snapping her eyes forward, and cowering away.
"Anna!!" She heard her sister's voice call out to her and she visibly relaxed.
"Anna!!" Kemi called again. "Switch off your alarm." She ordered and Anna only realised that her alarm sound was still cutting through the eerie silence. The sound it made began to irk and irritate her, so she hurriedly crawled towards it, fumbled with it a little before switching it off. She turned to the door as if waiting for an appearance by her sister but there was nothing except from two taps on her door - her sister acknowledged what she did. She let out a breath as she basked in the peace and quiet. As if it only occurred to her that she had school, she sprang up to her feet, went to the chair where she kept her towel and grabbed it from there before dashing out of her room and towards the bathroom. She was about to turn on the cold water when she remembered that she was this close to getting a cold instead she stepped out from under the shower and turned on the warm water, waiting for it to get to a good enough temperature before going back under it. As she let the water run down her scalp to her body and as she scrubbed her hair, she knew very well that she had to at a point meet her mum to braid her hair for her. She didn't like sitting down for hours waiting for someone to plait her hair but she also didn't like dragging a comb through her thick and hard hair everyday. She washed her body with the orange scenting soap, stood under the shower for a few more minutes to rinse off the soap, before she switched it off and walked out from under the shower head. She grabbed her towel, wound it around herself and hurried to her room. She quickly dressed up in her uniform before she went to her still open window and looked out of it not really focusing on the view, just tied to her thoughts. The nightmare she had really scared her, they always did. She hated them, she hated waking up startled and covered in cold sweat but she didn't know how to make it stop. She slept with her sister, slept with the lights on, slept with the music playing even slept with a teddy bear yet everything was futile. She thought that maybe the lesson had somehow solved the problem she had been facing for so long but it seemed it hadn't. She couldn't tell her parents because she knew that even when they would be worried, they would have only one solution; praying to God. Not only would they persuade her to pray to God, telling her that he was the only one that could help her, they'd also make her pray with them in the living room for hours which always made her uncomfortable and at the end, nothing changed everything still remained the same.

"Anna! What are you doing? You'd be late for school." Kemi barged into her room startling her. She looked at her sister, only to see a frown cover her face.
"Are you crying?" Kemi asked bringing the tears on Anna's cheek to her knowledge. Anna touched her face to see her cheeks wet. She looked at her wet fingers in surprised before looking back at her sister. She didn't even know when she had started crying and she also didn't like that her sister had caught her with teary eyes and wet cheeks so as she shook her head from side to side, she also began to think of the excuse she would give her sister. She couldn't say it was the wind because it wasn't at all windy. She couldn't say it was a balm because the air was rid of every balm smell so she just used the only excuse that seemed reasonable. She lifted her fingers and motioned them to her eyes, only stopping halfway.
"Your fingers got into your eyes?" Kemi questioned skeptically and she eagerly nodded her head trying to avoid any question. Kemi seemed to buy it because she let out a sigh before turning around. "Just be quick." She proclaimed "or you'd be late. Don't forget to tell Ma and daddy goodbye they would leave before you get back." Anna too let out her sigh. She didn't think that it would be that easy to convince her very inquisitive sister. She picked up her tie, before walking out of her room towards her parents' room on her way there, she grabbed her school bag from the table.