The Dreams

Chapter Sixteen

"I already told him he could come over today, Mother!" Rina shouted after her mother as she stormed out of the room.

"You aren't well enough to be entertaining visitors," her mother shot back.

"He just wants to see me and talk to me. I can talk just fine. He's not going to expect me to be running laps around the block or anything. He knows I've been sick, after all."

"I still don't like it."

"Are you actually worried about me still being too sick to have him come by and chat or are you more worried about the fact that you can't be home when he's supposed to stop by? Never mind. It doesn't matter because you have nothing to worry about either way."

"I just better not come home and find you exhausted and starting to relapse tonight."

"What do you even think we're going to be doing? I'm not going to relapse from talking. If that was the case it would've happened already. Besides, the doctors don't even know if a relapse is possible."

"Exactly. I don't like the idea of you acting like you can do whatever you want when we still don't even know what caused this in the first place."

"Well, we know it wasn't from talking to boys so I think I'll be fine with Hibiki today. Just relax."

"Just don't be afraid to ask him to leave if you start to feel tired. You're not well. It isn't rude to ask someone to leave suddenly when they know you aren't feeling well."

"I got it, Mother. I'm not afraid of being rude. I'm afraid of getting a headache from this conversation. Just go to work already."

"Try to take a nap this morning so you're more refreshed for you guest," her mother shouted as she headed out the door.

Rina rolled her eyes. She felt fine now. She felt better than she had in weeks and her mother still treated her like an invalid. Somehow her mother's perception of her had been obscured so she was incapable of actually taking note of any of her recovery. She did not even equate her daughter's increased snappishness with her to be an indication of any sort of improvement in her spirits and general energy.

Fortunately, her mother had gone back to work after the first week so for about nine and a half hours each day she had the run of the place. She could watch movies, go online, read books, and sometimes she even went out to the backyard. Even though she flouted her mother's restrictions she did not quite dare defy them in front of the whole neighborhood at this point. She thought someone might tattle on her, and there was no telling who it might be around here. At least with the backyard she was only running the risk of one of the next door neighbors being home for some reason in the middle of the day, which was not likely as they both worked day jobs. No. She knew it was the retired neighbors with all the time in the world to watch over the neighborhood she had to watch out for, but they could not see her in the backyard.

She plopped herself on the couch and turned on the television. There was nothing on yet besides the awful morning talk shows, but she felt a bit desperate at this point to hear normal human conversations. She spoke to her mother every day, but more often than not they argued or she shouted, at least, because her mother refused to listen to what she had to say. At least the morning talk shows had the benefit of giving her some back and forth dialog to engage her brain even just a little bit.

She wished she found more chances to call Hibiki, but his classes were peppered throughout the day, and evenings and weekends she was still stuck under her mother's overzealous supervision so she hardly saw an opportunity to call him.Only through amazing good luck had they managed to arrange for him to come by today without too many problems arising.