Still Here

I'll sleep when im Dead.

After Derek left , I continued to stay on the porch. Pepper had made her way to me and layed beside and slowly inched herself so she could lay her big head on my lap.

"You like our new home babygirl"
I say aloud ,as I scratch under her collar.

She looks up at me and then closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep.

About thirty minutes later it begins raining again. Pepper and I make our way back into the house.

Locking the door behind me, I make my way to the back door to make sure it's locked.

Turning around after double checking  if the locks are indeed locked, I see Pepper is in the hall looking my way with her eyes super focused on the door . Her head is lowered and the hair on her back is standing straight up.

I glance back to the door ,then back to her. A chill runs down my spine.
I graze my hand on the wall guiding my hand to flip the lights on.

A whisper reaches my ear, "DONT".

I scream and run behind a now snarling pepper.

Shes growling and barking viciously at the spot I was just standing.
The rooms temperature drops dramatically in just a few seconds.

I noticed I grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter, I look at my shitty weapon and hold it up anyway.

"Dad!!!!"I scream out

I hear my dad upstairs, his stomps are loud and coming fast.

"What, what is it? What's wrong with pepper?" Dad asks as he comes up behind me and pulls me behind him.

When he does this , the shelve we have on the wall ,in the spot  we're all looking at ,crashes to the floor.

I let out a yelp and jerk back. Dad looks behind and all around , clearly not understanding what the hell is going on.

BU-BOOM CRACK.

The sound of lightning striking somewhere close vibrates the house.

All three of us jerk back in surprise. The lights begin to flicker, the sound of electricity buzzing.

I grab my dads arm and hold on tight.

The lights flick on and off ,one more time before thankfully staying on.

"What the hell is going on?" Dad says as he runs his fingers through his hair.

He continues on,
"I thought Texas had storms, never have i been in one that shakes the house so hard ,shelves crash to the floor."

"Dad are you sure it was only the storm?" I ask

"Of course hun, what else would it be?" He looks at me cautiously

Sympathy takes hold of his expression as he senses what i ment.

He grabs my shoulders and gives them a comforting squeeze.
"Neenee, don't let these superstitious idiots mess with your head baby. You have worked hard in the past to get to the point where you're not having panic attacks several times a day. Don't let them add something thats not even real ,to a plate of worry that was something very real from the past."
He pauses for a moment  then continues his pep talk.

"You're safe, you're strong! You are an amazing young woman!" He chants to me.

I know ,no matter what I say ,dad won't understand.He always takes it back to the event from my past. I know he means well but it just makes me feel like a crazy person.

"Ok dad" I give him the best smile I could muster with fear from what just happened coursing through my body.

I herd pepper upstairs , with me being on edge I know she will end up sleeping with me anyways.

I walk by sebs room and peak in on him, he's already fallen asleep on his bed with his TV on.

I walk in and click his TV off and cover him with his comforter.

He mumbles "Thanx Neenee".

I smile " of course big head". I whisper.

He scoffs and turns over snuggling with his comforter.

I walk to my room and plop on my bed grabbing my phone to catch up on some reading.

After a while I turned my TV on and put friends on so its playing in the background.

I have to have some kind of noise to keep me from hearing whatever it was I heard earlier.

-Ping

My text notification went off, I put my hair brush down and picked up my cell.

Derek-Hey i can see your window is lit up all the way from my house lol. Does me looking make me a creeper?

I roll my eyes at his goofiness.

Me- nah, if you watched me dancing in just my undies then, thats a different story lol.

Derek- well then, just ignore my binoculars I have by my window, if you ever come over. There sitting there for a completely different reason. You see im like a total nerd for bird watching. Lmao.

Me- hahaha right!!! So , what time you gonna be here tomorrow? I can make pan cakes for all of us.

Derek- see you can't wait to get some more of my time huh?
But thats cool, the twins would love that. We should be there around 8am.
Well goodnight NEENEE!

Me- night night pretty boy.

I connect my  my phone to the charger and place it on my  night stand.

I still can't bring my self to sleep so I decide to paint my toe nails.
Then I do some light yoga, I go through my pictures and reminisce of old times. I grab all the photos of my old friends and shove them in a shoe box and place it under my bed.

If they can't bother to send me a little text just to see if I'm ,I dont know, alive. Maybe they weren't really my friend's at all.

Its now around 3:30 am. I still can't sleep, I think I'm afraid what might happen.

I decide to go to the bathroom and unpack the last bit of items. Afterwards I take a long shower.

Now at 5am im starting to feel the pull of exhaustion.

Patting Peppers head I walk from the bathroom to my room trying to tip toe to lessen the creaking noise the wooden  floors make in the hallway.

Closing the door behind me.

I walk up to my bed and crawl in. Moving over for Pepper to lay beside me.

Closing my eyes and rubbing the soft fur of peppers back I try to fall asleep.

As I'm just about to fall deeper, I hear a creak from outside my door.

My eyes fly open. I feel peppers head peak up as she heard the noise also.
I look at the door from my laying position.

I see a shadow going back and forth across the low light from the hall nightlight thats shining  underneath my door.

Holding my breath and gripping the sheets I cant take my eyes off the moving shadow.

The door knob begins to jiggle, and the door creaks open very slowly.

Pepper jumps off of the bed and begins to bark at the door.

It stops.

..........................
To be continued.

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