Not My Prince Charming

Of Answered Questions and Mended Friendships

I woke up with a jolt as I felt myself hit something hard. I groaned and rubbed my head, which had hit the corner of the desk by Matty's bed. I could hear his labored breathing and the sheets moved around the bed frantically.

He was having another nightmare.

"Matty!" I hissed, shaking him slightly. He murmured something unintelligible as he continued to thrash around.

"Matty! Matty!" I said, my voice increasing as panic started to set in. I shook him harder, and this seemed to do the trick. He shot up into a sitting position with lightning speed, smacking our foreheads together.

"Ow! Damn it Matty!" I hissed, clutching my forehead as my eyes watered with pain.

That hurt!

"Shoot, sorry Lor! Oh gosh, shoot, I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay," I sighed, wiping my eyes. I finally looked at Matty and his face was covered in a light sheen of sweat. His shirt and hair were damp also and I used my thumb to brush some hair off his forehead.

"I didn't ask last time but... Matty, what happened? I talked to your mom last time and she didn't tell me what this was all about but... I want to know. If I know I can help you," I said softly, grabbing Matty's hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. He sucked in a deep breath.

"It's not a huge deal, it's something that happened a long time ago. Just nightmares."

"Matty," I said seriously. "Those aren't nightmares. Those are night terrors. This is seriously affecting your sleep and health- you need to talk to me about it Matty. Please, open up to me."

Matty looked like he was having an internal debate. I remained silent, chewing on the side of my cheek as I waited for him.

"Lor, do you remember why I moved here?"

"Your dad found a job here freshman year, right?"

"Well, yes. That's what we told everyone. He didn't find a job here, he actually had to call in a lot of favors to get stationed on the base here."

"Why did he go through that much trouble to get here?" I asked, puzzled.

"I used to go to a school called Lakeside. I had this best friend, Thomas, who I did everything with. He was my next-door-neighbor from the ages of three to thirteen. We were the kids in class that were always pulling pranks and being silly, yet our teachers still loved us. Everything was so uncomplicated and just awesome.

I was always a little jealous of him though. His mom and stepdad were always buying him this cool stuff- the newest x-box, play station, you name it. He got private coaching lessons for football and his parents let him do awesome things like MMA fighting. He'd come to school with all those bruises and wild tales of how he fought guys five times his size and won.

It turns out, those bruises weren't from MMA. I should have realized this earlier, sometimes when he would talk about the fights he would change details in every story, but my young self thought he was just exaggerating stuff to look cool. But nope, it turned out that his stepdad was beating him."

I sucked in a breath. "Matty, I'm sorry-"

"No Lor," Matty interrupted, "I need to get this out. I haven't told anyone this besides my parents and I need to let it out."

I nodded in response so he could continue.

"I went to his house one day after school. He hadn't shown up, I thought he had tricked his parents into staying home or maybe he had been sick. He hadn't been himself lately. Anyways, I kind of walked in the house, his mom and stepdad weren't home and we never knocked anyways. I called to him and he didn't answer. When I got to his room, he was just laying in the bed. I thought he was faking me out by pretending to be asleep, but he didn't move when I shook him. I started to panic and looked around the room. A pill bottle was next to him, something his mom took to sleep at night. It was a new bottle, the silver plastic covering the bottle had been ripped off. The bottle was half empty. I got my cell phone, called 9-1-1, and waited for the ambulance to get there. They got there, said he still had a heartbeat, and they took him to the hospital to get his stomach pumped.