The First Life

The First Life: Chapter Two

TWO:

 I woke up when I hit my bed room floor. I had definitely hit the ground hard though the distance from the bed wasn’t too far.

It was the same dream every night for the past month. Every night it would go a little further and tonight that poor girl died. I must have a pretty morbid imagination to have dreamt up “black magic” slaying a bunch of people and killing off two teenagers who were madly in love.

I sighed, slowly pushing myself off the floor. I sat down at the side of my bed and rubbed my arm where I could still feel the throbbing from the fall. I hoped it wouldn’t leave a bruise. I hit a button on my phone that had been sitting on my night stand charging. The bright white light lit up my room and blinded me momentarily. I blinked a few times and looked at the screen. 5:46. Fourteen minutes until I needed to start getting ready for school. I wished I could just lie back down and sleep for a few more minutes but I knew that wouldn’t be any good.

I walked into my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror brushing my bangs away from my face to expose my tired eyes and dark circles. The girl that stared back at me looked tired, I hardly recognized myself. I’ve been losing so much sleep recently, and school had just been getting more stressful. I was a senior now, and I only had half a year left. I had thought recently about the rest of my life, more like worried a lot about how I would turn out. I worried if I would meet the expectations of everyone, myself included. My parents were always loving and supportive, but I’ve always felt like there was somewhat of a silent standard that I had to live up to. So I made sure I did well academically. I involved myself in different clubs and even though I wasn’t the most athletic, I tried. I tried to be sociable too, I wasn’t popular but I wasn’t invisible and I liked it that way. But recently I felt like everyone has been watching me closely and I was just waiting for myself to fail. It also may have been quite possible that I was having a nervous breakdown causing these nightmares.

I got in the shower desperate for an escape. I let the warm water embrace me and for a second I imagined that the water could magically wash away my worries. If only…I sighed deeply. After nearly 20 minutes I got out and began getting ready for another day.

When I got down stairs I found everything exactly how it was every morning. My dad was at the table drink his coffee, engrossed in the morning paper. My mother was buttering a fresh slice of toast, and Jake my younger brother was shoveling spoons full of Frosted Flakes into his mouth. I sat down next to him trying to avoid the splashes of milk.

“’morning kiddo.” My dad greeted me.

“’morning.” I said with little enthusiasm for the day a head.

“There was a loud thump from your room early this morning. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just fell out of bed this morning. Literally.”

My mom laughed. “That excited to get back to school after spring break huh?...Tom would you like some toast?” my mom asked my dad.

“No thanks hun. I need to get going to the office before I’m late.” He stood up and strode over to my mother and kissed her. Then over to Jake and ruffled his hair playfully and finally over to me kissing the top of my head.

“Here you go sweet heart.” My mom laid a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast in front of me.

“I’m actually not that hungry mom.” I pushed the plate away. It smelt delicious but I was feeling a little sick.

“Well…ok.” She said debating whether or not to argue.

I stood up. “I’m off to another exciting day at school.”