Chapter 29: Living in a Nightmare

 

    A nasty screeching sound found its way from the pits of hell. The heavy breathing and the constant pleading of my mother was unbearable.  Her vocal chords sounded like the strings on a violin, with a violinist playing too close to the bridge of the violin. The heat was insufferable, and it felt like we were truly in hell.
Tears slid across my mother's cheeks, her chest rising and descending wildly as she declared her plea, nearly breathless: "No! You can't take my daughter away from me!" My mother wailed out to some guy who was being overly professional.
     "Ma'am I work for CPS and you've been reported-" The man held out some white and black documents in front of her, it looked so official and frightening. I condensed myself into the corner, watching everything flicker before my eyes.
      "Reported by who?!? I put clothes on my daughter's back and I put food in her mouth. Who the hell thinks they have the right to report me to CPS?!" Her voice rang in the air like some distant church bell, a very distant and faint church bell.
      "Me." I looked over at the man standing behind my mother, it was my dad and he looked like he was in his late 20's. Even my mom looked much younger.
    My mother turned around, snapping her finger in my father's face. " Is this a joke?!?You're barely there for our daughter! You run around with that whore and come back and lay in the bed with me. I've put up with your shit for 3 years now, you're the incompetent parent. You can't just leave and take custody of OUR daughter." She, looked at me with so much passion, a vermilion flame was rising through her eyes. She slowly turned her head back around and faced the CPS officer. "You aren't taking her, you're gonna have to fight me first."

     The CPS officer approached my mother, and tried to calm her down by rubbing her back. "Ma'am, I know this is upsetting but I really need you to cooperate with me right now. If you cooperate this will all be over and done with and you can go to court."
     Something set that spark, something lit that fire, something exploded. Like the wind, my mother ran up the stairs, her feet pounding against every step. Thump thump thump. My dad turned towards the CPS officer and rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry you can just excuse her, she needs help desperately." He stopped talking once he spotted me balled up in the corner. "Oh gosh, I'm such an asshole." He muttered under his breath. He knelt down towards me and sighed deeply. "Look Mel your mom is pretty messed up alright, but don't worry daddy's gonna take care of you and take you to a much better place."
    I glared at him, something didn't feel right. "What about Jess?!" I asked, with my face beat red and my eyes watering at the brim.
      "Jess died Mel, you don't remember that?!" He asked, frowning at me. He rubbed my leg, shaking his head back and forth. "You poor little thing. Look, I need you to go outside and get in the car, an-"

     "You wanna take my kid away, go ahead and do it! I'm not gonna stand around and take this! I'd rather die than see my only daughter get taken away!"
     My mother was facing death right in the face, literally. She held a gun straight to her head, breathing heavily. "You can't take my kid, you can't take my kid, you can't take my kid. You can't , you can't , you can't!" She pleaded as snot ran from her nostrils.
    "YOUR ONLY DAUGHTER?!" My father bellowed, as he tried grabbing her by the arms. "You're delusional and you need help, you killed Jessica and you don't even remember it... Now you're trying to kill yourself?!?" He shook her back and forth, nearly spitting in her face as he said his last words. "Go ahead and kill yourself, I really don't care anymore, I'm so tired of your delusional ass."
     I pushed my self even further into the corner, covering my eyes with my shaking hands. My heart beat pulsed through my palms and my cheeks made me feel even hotter.  This was it, my mother was going to pull the trigger. My mother was going to commit suicide right in front of me, I couldn't dare to look, I just couldn't let that be my last image of her.

    "Hey!" A guy whispered out to me but I kept my head down, too afraid to look up. "Its okay, I won't hurt you, I promise." I still didn't look up at him. All of a sudden I felt him place his hand on my shoulder, "You can't stay here, its my job to rescue you. Please trust me." He pleaded again, as he huffed and puffed as if he had just been sprinting for his life.
      Finally, I glanced up quickly, looking left to right. I couldn't see my mother or my father, I wasn't even in my house anymore, I was just swallowed up by inexorable and unabridged darkness. "Who are you?! Where did everyone go?!" I kept looking all around but there was nothing but plummeting darkness all around us, I didn't even understand how we weren't falling through the sky, there was no ground , no nothing , just darkness.
      "My name's David. That doesn't matter right now... Just take my hand" he held his hand out to me and I didn't know whether or not I should trust him. His light blue eyes looked pure but evil surrounded us, I hesitated. There really was no where else to go and I didn't want him to leave me here, it seemed so eerie and depressing. My hand slowly made it's way into the palm of his hand, and I was caught off guard by his response.

      He clasped his hand around mine and yanked me into his chest, not letting me escape his embrace. "What are you doing?" I mumbled, feeling my own warm breath against my lips because he had me pulled in so deeply to his chest. I couldn't even lift my head up to see anything.
      "Shh!" He hissed, pushing my head down even further. "I'm only protecting you, keep your head down."
     "Why?" I asked.
    Boom! The sound of a distant gunshot tolled through the air. I kicked my legs around and shook myself back and forth, violently trying to lift my head up and get out of his arms but he wouldn't let me. "Let me go ! Let me see! I want to see." I pleaded, so much to the point I was nearly crying. My face was hot and I could barely breathe even though I gasped like a wild dog being chased in the woods. I was only exhausting myself from all my sporadic movements, so I stopped and then he finally reciprocated.
    "No! I can't let you, I'm so sorry but I just can't let you...Come on we have to get out of here." He was talking all low and hushed, yet we were just in some black empty space. I felt him rise up and start walking somewhere, I lifted my head up but I couldn't see anything.
    "NO!NO! I don't want to go with you! Let me go! Stop! NO! NO!" I pleaded, as my breath hitched wildly.

  It was like I was fighting against something or someone. I felt like I was rising up out of something so deep and dark, like the bottom of the ocean.
    "No! No! Don't take me with you- Please don't take me with you! Stop!" I pleaded with desperation seeping through all the cracks in my voice. My whole body jerked forward and my eyes shot wide open, I had overcome whatever had taken over me. I looked around panting, as I held my hand over my chest. Ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom my heart was bolting through my rib cage, and it felt disgusting.
     "Please, please stop" I mumbled, my voice nearly out of breath before I realized I was in my bed, and it was all just a dream. A twisted, delirious, horrible dream.

      I felt sick or something, my stomach was churning and I felt a warmth inside of me, a nasty one.
      Suddenly, I had a flash back of my 8th birthday. My mom had went out and gotten me a burger. A big, fat, cheese-dripping burger that glistened in the light like freshly polished wood. We all had been in the living room ; me, Jess, my mom, and my dad. I groaned just looking at the so-called 'food' but, Jess tugged on my hair. "Eat you meat freak!" She taunted me because she knew I had an issue with eating meat. Like an idiot, I took a bite out of the burger and went from the living room, straight to where I was right now, the bathroom.
     "Why can't she just be normal and eat meat like everyone else?" I knew the mirror was so clear and precise but the tears in my eyes made it look all distorted and blurry. "Our daughter doesn't have to be like everyone else, you should be happy that she wants to be different." Everything just felt so bad, everything hurt. My chest was tight, and it felt like I was running short on air. It was so hot, too hot- on the inside and the outside.

    Standing there, hearing those voices play around in my head was making me sick. Standing there, thinking about vomiting was making me sick too. I needed fresh air, most importantly I needed a good view, I needed to smell the grass.
    The cold wooden steps felt inviting to my simmering skin as I sat down on them outside. I loved the winter time, and I always wished for snow every year but it never happened. There was a slight frost in the air and the trees swayed back and forth, looking like brown needles in the sky. A family of crickets was chirping in a steady rhythm but I couldn't see them. Those lucky little crickets, living in harmony with each other. All they had to do was chirp and enjoy life. Why couldn't my own life be like that?
     I pulled my knees in closer to my chest, my tears felt like ice as they rolled down my shuddering thighs. All of that disgusting heat left my body, and I was just sitting there sniffling and shaking, not even caring that I could possibly catch pneumonia from how cold the world was and how cold my own life was.
Creak! The warmth from the inside of the house felt good as it reached my back but I still didn't twitch. I wanted to be alone and flood this horrible feeling out of my system with my tears. I wasn't sure who was standing in back of me but I knew it wasn't Adrian. Adrian probably would've yelled at me for not being in the house, despite how crappy I looked right now.

"Can I join you?" It was Croy, I knew his voice so well, even when he was restless. What did he expect me to say? No?
"Sure." I groaned, squishing my bottom lip between my frozen teeth.
He sat down, hugging me as he kept me enfolded in his snugly arms. "What's wrong?" He rubbed my back, rocking me back and forth like a new born baby.
"I had a bad dream." I instantly regretted telling him that because I already knew what he was going to ask after that.
"What was it about?!" He asked, before I felt his body grow tense. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me."
"Oh no it's fine." I couldn't look at him. "I just had a dream where I got ran over by a truck." I sighed. "It backed up and rolled over my body again, and then it accelerated, crushing me yet again." I sniffled, "It just felt so real, ya' know?"
"Ahhh Mel!" He sounded so wise, and full of hope. "Dreams are nothing more than a battle between your subconscious and your conscious mind, just leave it all behind and you'll be fine." He squeezed me tighter, kissing my forehead. "You know you're going to be fine right?" He asked again.
"I don't know! I don't know what's wrong with me! I don't know why I'm sad, I just am! I just don't know anymore!" I wheezed between my chest spasms.

"I know it's hard Mel- most people hate change." He sighed, and I could tell he was struggling with his words. "I was 20 when your grandfather left my mother, it hurt like hell even though I was 'old.'"
"She deserved it." I quickly whispered, between a contraction that squeezed it's way through my throat.
"Mel-" He sounded all stern and parent-like, he pulled me away from him and tried to remove my hands from my face so he could look at me. "That's not a nice thing to say."
"I don't give a fuck. She's a fucking bitch, and mom is too! How could you feel bad for them? Look at the way they treat you?! This family is fucked up and I hate it!" Harsh wasn't even a good way to describe how I sounded, my words were way more than harsh and I didn't care, I was so tired of caring about this shit every God damn day.

"You're crossing the line now stop it!" He exclaimed, as he grabbed onto my shoulder . I ripped his hand away from me and got up, towering over him like an ugly green mutilated giant.
"No! I hate this family! You know what mom did to me during the wedding?! Do you want to know why she fucking left so early?!" I got in his face, not even noticing the misty wet look of hurt that was gleaming from his eyes.
Why was he so forgiving towards them? Couldn't he see how much they hated me AND him too? "That alcoholic, low life skank pushed me to the ground and stormed off! And guess what my grandmother did?! NOTHING! Not a God damn thing! That rotten old bitch left me there to drink away my pain!"
He got up from the porch step and faced me, his face looking red and filled with rage. "You lied to me!"
"Of course I lied!" I retorted. He shook his head at me, when he really should've been shaking his head at himself. "You were too busy with your little queen bitch of a wife to even realize that something was wrong with me that night!"

That was when he snapped, he lost it and grabbed my arm. "Let go of me!" I hollered.
"You're out of control! It's midnight and you're causing a commotion outside for the neighbors to hear!" He gritted his teeth, if he was a cartoon character he would have fumes coming out of the sides of his ears right now.
"You're worried about the neighbors hearing?! Let them hear it all! Let them know that my mom is a selfish bitch and she never cared about me! Let them know how fucked up our family is!" I screamed to the top of my lungs. "I'm only 15! I shouldn't have to deal with this shit! I shouldn't have to worry about whether or not my parent's will be around for my birthday or at least come and visit me for Christmas!"
I felt something I had never felt before, and that was pain. I was doing so good and not letting any of my family issues get to me. Why was it hurting me now? Everyday I felt like I was dying or something, and no one knew it except for me. I was tired of hurting. "I shouldn't have to worry about my dad running off and fucking some little girl that's practically my own age! It's not fair! I hate everything!"He wasn't hearing any of my shit anymore, I was pretty sure I lost him right after I had made my little comment about Adrianne, but it was the truth.
"Go inside!" He hustled me forward, blocking the porch steps with his body. I tried to stand tall up against him and put up a fight but he didn't budge either. "Melody, get inside the God damn house!" He shouted, pointing towards the door.
"Fuck you!" I screeched, running inside as I slammed the door behind me.