Finding Finley ✔

5

"See about what? Are you going to force feelings and a relationship on us?" I'm joking, but I also feel as if I just gave her an idea. I grab her bags from where they're sitting on the floor next to Kit and the three of us walk towards the exit, Ellie seeming to be lost in thought - which kind of has me worried.

At dinner, Kit and Ellie tell us all about their week in Hawaii and show us the hundreds of pictures they took while there. Ellie doesn't ask anymore about Darby, but I know she thinks that I'm hiding something from her and that Darby and I are more than running partners. In fact, when I told her for the second time on the ride to dinner that Darby and I are just running partners she simply replied with, "Kit and I were once just math partners."

She had me there, although I don't think that Kit and her were ever just anything.

-----------------------

It's been three weeks since I had spent the night at Kit and Ellie's and had the nightmare that caused a panic attack. It's almost been four weeks, but my brain just wasn't going to let me go that long.

I wake up and look around the room, trying to rid my mind of the horrible scenes that had just played out in my mind. Parker is asleep in his bed across the room and the TV is still on from earlier. I reach for the remote and turn it off before getting out of bed and grabbing a bottle of water from the mini fridge.

Sometimes I don't remember my nightmares but some nights, like tonight, I remember them all too well. I grab a hoodie out of my closet and pull it over my head before putting on my shoes and heading outside with my phone in hand.

Once I'm outside I take a deep breath, breathing in the fresh air as I walk over to a bench just outside the dorm building. I take a seat and dial Ellie's number. It's three thirty in the morning, but I know she'll answer.

"Hey, hold on a sec." She says after a few rings. I know that she's slipping out of her bed and to another room where Kit won't hear and wake up. He doesn't know that I have nightmares, and even though Ellie wants to tell him, she promises to keep my secret as long as I call her whenever I have one.

After a minute I hear her close a door and I know that it's safe to talk, "Okay, what's up?"

"You died." My voice is low, barely above a whisper. I feel drained and I can't really breathe right. Everything feels heavy, even holding the phone to my ear seems to take too much energy. I clear my throat, but it only makes the faint burning in my lungs stronger.

"Finn, I'm fine."

"I know." And I do know. I know that every time I have one of these dreams, it's just a dream and that none of it really happened, but my body doesn't seem to understand that. No matter how many times I tell myself that Ellie is fine, she's alive and talking to me right now, I still feel like it really happened. Like she's gone and I'll never see her again, or hear her laugh, or have her steal my food.

I don't tell Ellie that sometimes the dreams aren't about someone dying, that sometimes they're about people just leaving me with no explanation or goodbye. I don't know why I don't tell her, I guess it just seems like a silly thing to get so worked up about.

This call goes the same as always. I tell El what the dream was about and then we sit in silence for a few minutes or hours, however long it takes until I say "I'm okay."

Tonight it only took fifteen minutes. "I love you Finn. I' m sorry that you have to go through this."

"I love you too. Thanks, El."

"It's what I'm for, buddy."

After a few more minutes I hang up and walk back up to my room. No matter how hard I try, i can't fall back to sleep, so I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling and trying to keep my mind blank.