The Story Of Daniel

/s e v e n t e e n/

Chapter 17

Seven Years Before

"You know, sometimes I wish that I was a story," Amelia said. They were still lying on the roof, looking at the stars. It had been quiet for a while.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked. He propped himself up on his elbow so that he could look at her.

"All of the people in these myths were heroes. They saved lives, and they'll never be forgotten. They'll always be in the stars, in our minds," she explained, looking at the stars as if she wished she was part of them.

"Yeah, but they all died in the end," Daniel replied.

"But that's okay," Amelia said. "We're all going to die one day. If I got to choose how I died, I'd want to be saving someone's life, making a difference in the world."

"I guess that makes sense," Daniel said, settling back down. "But we don't live in a myth, we live in reality. There are no monsters or mythical creatures. Not many people die at the hand of a sword nowadays."

Amelia was quiet for a minute before answering, "But if you think about it. The two worlds of myth and reality aren't that different. We may not have mythical monsters, but we have our own monsters in our own different ways. We may not die at the hand of a sword, but we can still die in battle while fighting our monsters."

"I feel like this is just one big metaphor."

"It is. And sometimes I'd rather be fighting a gorgon with a sword than fighting my metaphorical monsters with my mind."

And just like that, they were quiet. Daniel didn't reply because he didn't know how. They just lie there in silence. Not the kind of silence that made things awkward or ruined a maudlin moment. It was the kind of silence that felt comfortable, where you feel assured that everything is going to be okay, even if it's not.

Now

Daniel woke up from his fourth nightmare to find that it was morning. He had made it through the night. He had confronted the same dream over and over through the night; the one where Amelia fell off the cloud that was hovering above Grey Pond. The one where Daniel broke his promise.

Daniel groaned. He had only really gotten a few hours of sleep that night. Every time he had woken from one of the nightmares, Daniel had read one of his favorite childhood books, AWrinkle in Time. Daniel read about Meg's and Charles Wallace's adventures as he tried to stay awake, afraid that he would have to relive the nightmare. But in the end, sleepiness overtook him and Daniel was forced to go through it again. And again. And again.

Daniel had dark, navy blue shades on his window in an attempt to block out the sun in the morning. But a few rays still managed to find their way through. He glanced at his clock, it was almost ten o'clock. His parents had let him sleep in. They were probably still worried from the night before.

Daniel got dressed and made his descent down the stairs to the kitchen. As he placed his foot on step after step, Daniel gripped at the railing tightly. Daniel counted the steps as he went down, but he already knew the exact number.

When Daniel was little, he had counted the stairs so that he would know when someone who was going would arrive at the top. There were fourteen steps. When he had gotten in trouble at school, Daniel had counted until he heard the sound of his dad's shoes hit the stairs fourteen times. When Daniel's aunt had died, he had listened to his mom's steps seven times before she stopped in the middle of the steps to cry. Then he listened to his dad's footsteps go up the seven steps to comfort her.