The dark gripped me, refusing to let me go. I struggled and struggled,
but it still refused. I tried pushing it away, but it was heavier that
a beached whale. I couldn’t escape, until. . . .
I woke up screaming my lungs out for the second time this week. Mom
came rushing in, closely followed by Dad. She asked in a worried
voice, “Sweetie, did you have another nightmare?”
I nodded weakly. “Can I have some tea? Chamomile, if you can manage
it.”
“Of course I can, dear. Anything you need. I’ll be right back,” she
said as she turned to leave for the kitchen.
Dad sat down on the edge of my bed and asked, “The darkness again?” I
nodded, and he kissed my forehead. “It’ll get better, don’t you worry
about a thing.”
I just smiled, as always, never agreeing. How could he know?
Mom came back in then, handing me a steaming cup. I gladly took it and
started to sip slowly as they reassured me everything would be alright,
that it was fine for a sixteen-year-old girl to have nightmares. That
me, Sarah Andrews, was completely and utterly normal. I didn’t pay any
attention to them what-so-ever.
I could hear my little brother Dylan get up to annoy me. I glared at
the door, waiting for the moment. Sure enough, the door banged open
and he demanded, “Why can’t a guy get any sleep around here anymore? I
mean, really.”
“Dylan, please go back to bead,” Mom said, sounding anything but
polite, a voice that, in my opinion, she used way too much.
Ignoring her, Dylan continued, “I hope you aren’t telling her that
she’s a normal teenage girl, ’cause we all know that she isn’t anywhere
near normal.”
“Yeah, like it’s normal for a thirteen-year-old boy to still be in the
third grade,” I shot back. He stuck his tongue out at me, and I said,
“See? Totally immature. Grow up, Dylan.”
“You grow up!”
“Real mature.”
“More mature than you.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Stop it you two. Dylan, go back to bed. Sarah, finish your tea and
get some sleep,” Dad said. We both nodded. It was easy to ignore Mom.
Dad, not so much.
I sat back on my pillows and sipped the tea sedately while Dylan
stomped off to his own room, muttering a string of curses that he
shouldn’t know the entire way.
When I finished my tea I set it down on the table and smiled up at my
parents, reassuring them that I would be okay for the rest of the night
as long as I didn’t have another nightmare.
They left, and when I closed my eyes I returned to a haunted sleep. . .
.
The bell rang and I woke up, startled. Had I really slept through
Science, my favorite class? And why hadn’t Mr. Jackson, the strict
lab-loving teacher, woken me up?
I looked up and saw why. Good old Mrs. Nelson, a kind hearted veteran
substitute teacher since the nineteen sixties, had been filling for Mr.
Jackson when he took the day off to go fishing up state in northern
California. She was walking towards me with the homework that I missed
getting. I thanked her kindly before I left for my second favorite
class, Math.
“Sarah! There you are. Where in the world have you been? I’ve been
trying to call you all week,” called Anna, my most bubbly best friend
in the entire world.
“I’ve been busy. Mom and Dad have been having me drive Dylan all over
the place,” I lied smoothly. There are some things that you can’t tell
a bubbly best friend, especially one who blabs everything you say to
the entire tennis team, who in turn blabs it to everyone else.
“That brat? He’ll be seventy before he graduates,” she said, and I
laughed at that. I spent the rest of the time going to third hour
listening to her nonstop babbling.
I fell asleep again that hour, but this time the teacher woke me up. I
looked up to see my ex-pro-wrestling fifty-seven-year-old teacher
towering over me.
“Miss Andrews, why don’t you go and see the counselor and sleep there.
You’ve already finished the homework for my class.” The students
laughed inanely and he shot them down with a glare that could have
killed a mountain lion. I sighed and gather my things, then moodily
left the classroom.
I hate counselors with a deep and powerful passion. They always
pretend to care about your problems, and they always pretend to take
notes. They’re probably doodling pictures of unicorns with nose hairs
on that stupid clipboard of theirs.
When I walked into the room I was shocked by the smell of incense and
organic herbal candles. A deep and melodic female voice called, “Come
in, and sit down, please.”
I wondered what had happened to the small balding man with large
classes that had twitched when exposed to bright lights and had a
clipboard that was his most prized possession.
In the corner of the room in a large fluffy armchair reading a very
large book was sitting a woman in her thirties with long sleek black
hair and tanned skin, making her look like she was from the Middle
East.
I set my books down on the ornately carved side table and sat across
from her cross-legged on the couch. She continued reading for only a
minute longer before setting her book down and asking, “Would you like
some tea? I made the recipe myself.”
“Yes please,” I replied politely, wondering what kind of woman made tea
recipes. She poured it for me from an old style tea kettle and passed
it over. I sipped it. It was absolutely delicious; honey and . . .
was that rose petals?
She smiled. “It took me ages to come up with the right ingredients
with the right properties. Do you like it?
“Yes, it’s very good,” I said slowly. Properties? What was up with
this woman?
“Let me tell you a couple things before we begin. I am Ms. Elgabri,
and I am replacing Mr. Nelson as the counselor from now on. He had to
go to May Clinic to get . . . special treatment,” Ms. Elgabri
explained.
I nodded. “Special treatment” probably meant mental treatment. She
continued and said, “Tell me a bit about yourself. What’s your family
like?”
“My mom is Susan, and my Dad is John. I have a little brother Dylan as
well. I only have one aunt, Patricia, who is single and obsessed with
exercise.” I didn’t had that her obsession was why she was single. “I
don’t have an other family that I know of,” I added.
“What do they do? Your parents I mean.”
“My dad is an accountant, and my mom is a receptionist at a hospital,”
I said.
“What’s your brother’s hobbies?”
I snorted. “Besides being annoying? Staring at the ceiling.”
Ms. Elgabri laughed at that. “Really now?
I nodded and continued to sip my tea. We continued with talking about
my brother for some time, and then after that we talked about my
hobbies, my hopes, my dreams, my accomplishments. However, it only
took ten minutes.
“Now let’s get serious here. Why were you sent here?” she asked as she
refilled my tea. Again.
I sighed and explained the situation about me not getting enough sleep
at night because of my damn nightmares, and then falling asleep in
class from being so dead tired that I can’t even lift my hand.
When I was done, Ms. Elgabri set her tea cup down and said, “I would
like to try having you drink a very large cup of honey milk every
night, and then in the morning take a caffeine pill and also every day
after you get home from school. They are very effective. I have a
bottle in my cabinet.”
She got up and opened a small wooden medicine box next to her desk.
There was a plant in a clay pot blocking my view, so I couldn’t see
what was inside, but I heard pills jingling. Wow. That’s a new step
for counselors. What’s next, illegal drugs?
When she returned to the armchair she was holding a small white jar,
the kind that Zyrtec used to come in when it was still a prescription
medicine. She handed it to my and I found there there was no label on
it to say what it was.
“You can take one now, if you wish,” she said, seeing my hesitation.
Were they really caffeine pills? Were they really not cocaine or
something like that? I thought of drugs a lot while I was with her. I
finally figured, why not? If something bad happened, I would throw
them out. If not, I would continue taking them. I took my water
bottle out of my bag and swallowed one, gagging. I had never been one
for pills, not even vitamins.
“You look tired, and the pill shouldn’t start working for another half
an hour. Would you like to stay with me the lunch hour?” she asked
kindly, sounding like the older sister I never had.
I glanced at the mirror. It was true, I looked like a wreck. My
medium length straight blonde hair was a mess, there were dark circles
under my grey eyes, and there were sits all over my tanned face. If I
wasn’t so tired I would have been beautiful. The stereotype California
girl, which I was. Born, raised, and still living in Los Angeles.
“No,” I replied, coming out of my reverie. “My friends are expecting
me. I don’t want them to worry about me.”
“You think very much or your friends. That is good in one so young. I
would like you to come after school in three days time, if you will.
Just to see if you need anything else,” she said, sounding like she was
from the 1800’s.
I nodded and wrote it down in my planner, my ultimate safe keep. I’d
forget before the beginning of next hour if I didn’t have it with me.
I looked at the clock. Lunch had started five minutes ago. I gathered
my things and ran to the cafeteria, almost sad to leave the herbs of
the new councilor's office. I had noticed one fantastic thing about
her. No clipboard.
“Sarah! Where in the world were you?” Anna called. I quickly went
over to where she was sitting. She said, “You missed the best ever in
Math today! Okay, so Tyler was all like ‘What’s up with Sarah? She
isn’t like herself at all.’ So I was like ‘I don’t know. I think it
has something to do with her special help little brother.’ He laughed
so hard! Oh, did you see the sale on shoes at DSW? I love those
designs!” She continued squealing about shoes the rest of the lunch
hour, completely forgetting to ask me about how the councilor was.
At the end of the day I went home and took the caffeine pill. I
finished my homework in just a few minutes and then set off on reading.
That was my main hobby. I read science logs mostly, but I also loved
romances. Great contrast, right?
“Sarah, can you help me with my homework?” Dylan asked. I rolled my
eyes and sighed. Whenever he wanted something he became the sweetest
little thing in the world. I don’t know which disgusted me more: that
side of him, or the side that annoyed the hell out of me.
“Coming! Just let me finish this chapter! It’s where Edward asks
Bella to marry him, and at first she says no but then-”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
I smiled and speed read through the rest of the chapter. When I
snapped the book shut Dylan whined, “Sarah! What’s taking so long?”
“But Edward said-”
“I don’t care what Edward said! I need help with dividing two digit
numbers!” he interrupted. I sighed and set my book down, then went
over to his room, something that no one else should ever have to do.
It was messier than my hair had been.
“Before I sit down, what is that on the floor?” I asked, pointing at
the brown goop that was blocking my path to the squishy beanbag chair.
He glanced at it, momentarily setting his pencil down. “I could have
sworn that used to be vanilla.”
I blanched. “Ew! Dylan, clean up this place sometime, will you?”
“Just help me with my homework,” he snapped.
I scowled. “If you keep that up you’ll fail your Math class. Again.”
He squinted his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”
“Oh yes I would and you know it.”
He sighed. “Okay. What does this mean?”
I started explaining things to him, making absolutely no progress
what-so-ever. Aggravated, I stomped out of the room.
At around eight o’clock, after I had made dinner (one of my many
chores) and my parents came home, Anna called my cell phone with
fantastic news. More fantastic to her than to me.
“Sarah, it is so amazing. The most amazing thing in the entire world,”
she said, sounding like a prep. Well, not like a prep, because she was
a prep.
“What is it?”
“You will not believe it.”
“Just tell me!” I groaned. I hated it when she did that.
She giggled inanely. “James asked me out!”
I gaped at the phone. “James? The James? The one in Drama Club, the
total hottie?”
“Yes! I tried out for the play, wanting to see if Angie would trash me
or not if I got a bad part or didn’t get in at all, and after the try
outs he walked up to me and said that I had acted wonderfully! He said
that he wanted to go out for coffee next Saturday to talk about plays.
So you have to tell me. What is an awesome play?” she gushed.
“Anything by Shakespeare, and you should be good for now. But you
know, he might find out that you don’t really like acting that much if
you don’t read a whole bunch,” I warned her.
“I don’t care what he thinks. He’s cute, and that’s all that matters,”
she said. Her voice was kind of slurred and stuffed.
“Are you eating again?” I asked.
“Pizza,” she replied guiltily.
I sighed heavily. “Anna! No wonder you won’t make the cheer squad, at
the rate you keep gaining weight. You have an eating problem.”
“Why does it matter? I don’t need the cheer squad anymore. I have
Drama Club.”
“So what? They won’t like you gaining weight either. No club will
like you gaining weight. Someone will say something eventually, and
that someone won’t be me,” I pointed out.
She sighed angrily and hung up on me. I sedately set the phone down
and turned on a very loud Linkin Park song on my iPod Touch. It helped
me drown out all of my problems, and eventually fall asleep.
I couldn’t escape until a streak of lightning hit me hard, bringing on
physical pain and a type of pain that I couldn’t identify, a pain that
main me feel as light as air, like I had two doses of morphine in me.
I bit my lip to keep from crying out. It hurt so much, almost
impossible to stand. . . .
I woke up again, though I didn’t scream. I had been able to control my
voice as long as the nightmare wasn’t all that bad. Turning the iPod
Nano off, I turned the light on and looked at my image in the mirror.
I looked very different than I had two months ago, before the
nightmares started. What was really upsetting me was that the first
nightmare was on my sixteenth birthday.
I walked to the bathroom and splashed water on my face, and then
started reading my science logs again. They were my crutch, my way of
letting go of the world and just forgetting everything. Why else do
you think Science was my favorite class?
My cell phone rang. I looked at the number suspiciously. Who would
know when I was away at night after a nightmare? I answered it and
said uneasily, “Hello? Who is this?”
“It doesn’t matter who this is. How are you doing?” asked an
attractive man’s voice.
I gulped. “I’m fine. How did you know that I was awake?”
“I know things,” he replied quickly. “And I also know that you aren’t
fine. How are you really?”
“Not fine then. Are you a stalker?”
“Of course not. Why would I be a stalker? There’s nothing interesting
in your life. The real question should be do I have any solution to
your problems? Yes I do. Tomorrow, in your locker, will be a ring
with a blue stone on it. Wear that ring at all times, and the
nightmares will go away,” he said simply.
“How are you going to get into my locker? It has a combination lock.”
“I have my ways,” he replied before he hung up.
I sighed and snapped it closed. Then I got up from the kitchen table
and took a cold shower, not caring if it woke my parents up or not. I
was thinking about the phone call the entire time. Who was that man,
and how did he know so much about me? I had a feeling that I would not
know the answer for a very, very long time.
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