Mistake

Dream

{A/N

This is the last sad chapter, I swear. It's pretty sad, but just know it gets better realllly soon ;)}

His fingertips trailed across the fading and chipped wallpaper as he slowly stepped down the hall, foot after foot in a slow pattern as he stared at each passing picture frame tacked to the wall. They were all memories and little looks into his past, some good, some not as much, but memories non the less. They took him back to different places in time, in only a matter of seconds, and he felt like his whole life was flashing behind his eyes.

The hallway was dark, cold seeping in from the floor to the soles of his feet and all the way to his fingertips. The scars painted on the bottoms of his feet felt like ice against the bare hardwood, stinging and burning in the coldest way but he never flinched. He could feel everything and yet nothing at all, and it was something he was happy to float in as long as he could.

But soon the hallway ended, flowing into the living area. It was so empty, so abandoned. It felt like something was missing, and it was. The room wasn't echoing with Momma's sobs, the fresh smell of newly opened alcohol wasn't hanging in the air. It wasn't the home he remembered it to be.

It was eery and quiet, the moonlight filtering in from the blinds casting shadows over the furniture so obscenely that the picture looked like it could belong in a horror film.

"Muffin?"

That voice was so painfully familiar, the tone, the richness, the feeling of home. And the nickname, one he hadn't heard since he was very little, sent delicate shivers over his body. He turned to the direction of where the voice had spoken, almost sounding like a distant echo in the empty home but, no. There she was, standing at the doorway.

Her face was painted with a warm smile, her wrinkly cheeks scrunched in delight. Her eyes were twinkling just like he remembered them to. Her arms were open wide and she was just waiting for him to jump into them, to go home to her after all those years.

"Grammie!"

He felt like he was running to her in slow motion, like his limbs were weighed down, that maybe he was under water. Every step he fought resistance like he was in shallow waters, but then he was there, in front of her again. He threw himself into her arms, the fit something he wasn't used to.

The last time he'd hugged her he was tiny, only a small kid. But now, nearly twenty years later, he towered over her. But that didn't stop him. Nothing could stop him. He had her back after years and years of pitiful despair, hoping and praying for her back, and she was finally there.

Her arms were warm, just like he remembered. They felt like home, like he finally had something back again. But when he opened his mouth to speak, to make up for lost time, to apologize for never getting to say his last goodbye, she was gone.

Mitch shot up, chest heaving and cold sweat lining his brow. He felt so constricted under the sheet, locking him in like handcuffs and he needed to get out. He squirmed and wiggled and struggled, but then he was out of them, able to take fuller breaths again.

His heart was pounding in his chest and his mind was running so fast he didn't know if he'd ever catch up to it again. His stomach was twisted in knots so tight it felt like he'd eaten a dozen stones, and he felt so exhausted but so high strung he didn't know whether to jump out of bed completely and run a few miles or lay back and try to let sleep take him again, but after that dream he knew he couldn't.