Truth of Falling

03 | Bad Dream

My head hurts so bad, I look over in the driver seat and see a shadow figure who is driving super fast.

"Slow down!"

                                    *  *  *

I wake up in a panic with my heart racing as fast as it can. Not this again. I thought the nightmares stopped. I take a deep breath trying to control myself. I roll over onto my side of my bed to check the time on my clock that's on my side table.

It's currently nine O six. Good thing it's the weekend or else I would've been late for school. I rub the side of my head feeling the major headache coming my way. I sigh in defeat that I have to get out of my comfy bed to get ibuprofen. I remove my blankets from on top of me and begin to stand up, accidentally bumping my big toe into the corner of my side table.

Damn it.

I grab ahold of my toe, biting my lip in pain. Good going Millie. I grunt in pain.

I take a second to regain myself from the pain and pressure coming from my toe and start wobbling my way out of my room to make my way downstairs to get a glass of water along with ibuprofen.

As I exit my bedroom, Limping down the hall to the stairs I realize all the other bedroom doors are shut, meaning everyone is still fast asleep, leaving the hallway dark, causing me to use the walls to guide me to the stairs. I continue to walk quietly down the hallway making myself tiptoe down the stairs as they make tiny creaking noises that startle me into jumping off the last step and approach the living room carpet. As I step into the living room, I notice the kitchen lights are on. I take a few more steps to see why the lights are on and I see my mom is awake in her pajamas and is going through the fridge.

I don't want to draw attention so I walk quietly away from the kitchen and back towards the end of the stairs to grab a water bottle. As I reach to grab a bottled of water without her noticing me, I hear her rummaging through the fridge and then suddenly she speaks up.

"Hey, Millie! You're up early!" She says very happy as she turns around. How does she do that? How does she just know it's me?

I turn around at a slow pace away from the stairs with a fake smile on my face, trying to focus my attention on what my mother is currently holding in her hands and by the looks of what I see, she grabbed ingredients such as eggs and butter out of the fridge. She must be cooking some kind of breakfast, hopefully pancakes. I could use my mom's homemade pancakes to start my morning.

I grip the water bottle in my hand making my way back into the kitchen.

"Hey, mom, can you hand me some ibuprofen?" I walk over to the kitchen taking a seat in the dining room chair. Mom turns back around to close the fridge and sets the ingredients on the kitchen counter.

I watch her maneuver over to the cabinet next to the stove to reach for the ibuprofen and walks over to me handing me the bottle, while doing so she gives me a puzzled look but hands me it anyways.

"Millie are you alright? You're not having those dreams again, are you? You were doing so well." I was really hoping she wouldn't ask.

I don't want to make eye contact so I look out the window that's in the dining room while I open the bottle and take out two ibuprofen pills and open my water bottle, swallowing them with my water.

"No mom, I'm just really exhausted and I have a migraine, nothing major." I put the lid back into the bottle of ibuprofen and I hand it back to her while standing up on my feet "I'm just going to go back upstairs and do some schoolwork" By the look she is giving me I'm pretty sure she can tell I'm lying but I just don't want her to worry about me again.