Fractured from the Fall

A Nightmarish Reality

Lily jolted upright in bed. She was dripping in sweat and breathing heavily. The nightmares had been occurring every night. It started with Ford yelling at her. He was angry and unhappy and whatever it was that was upsetting him; it was all Lily's fault. Then she couldn't get the baby to stop crying. It hated her. She couldn't figure out how to comfort it. It didn't want her and neither did Ford. He was exhausted and tired of working around the clock to support their family. He was cheating on her. She was all alone with the baby, and it just kept crying and crying and crying. She couldn't make it stop. Then suddenly it was quiet, except for the sound of waves crashing on the shore. She looked down at her toes expecting them to be in the warm sand, but they weren't. Instead, she was standing at the edge of a cliff and then she was falling falling falling until she would smack the bed with her hands and jolt upright.

Lily's breathing was shallow and fast as she came to, realizing that it was, once again, just a horrible nightmare. She looked over at Violet, still sound asleep, hugging her old tattered teddy bear, the one their mother had given her. She wiped the sweat off her brow and laid on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She knew it was useless to try and go back to sleep. It had been the same thing every night for the past week: the same dream. She always awoke in a sweat at the exact same moment in her nightmare: right before she was about to smack the ground. It wasn't the first time her mother's death had haunted her dreams, but it was the first time she'd been standing in her mother's shoes.

The alarm went off, signaling the start of another school day. Violet practically popped out of bed while Lily shuffled to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She had huge dark circles under her eyes (so much for that pregnancy glow) and despite the fact that she should have been putting on weight, she looked like she was wasting away. She could barely keep food down which meant she didn't eat much at breakfast or dinner when people were watching. Lily often snuck away to the bathroom during class so she could eat in private where she was close to a toilet just in case the food decided to make a reappearance.

Ford tried to comfort Lily by telling her that she'd start feeling better after her first trimester. She couldn't believe how much he knew about pregnancy. He'd clearly paid closer attention than she had in health class: a glaring fact that she realized, given the predicament she was currently in. Ford wanted to spend time with Lily and to help in whatever way he could, but there wasn't much he could do, and the most helpful thing was for him to stay away. His attentiveness only drew more attention to what was going on with her, which she didn't need right now. More than anything, she just wanted to go unnoticed and disappear into the background. Plus, when Lily wasn't at school, all she wanted to do was lie in bed and sleep, so there was really no reason for him to come around the house much.

The days passed by slowing, reluctantly dragging Lily along with them. The world kept turning, until one day, very early in the morning, everything stopped.

Lily jolted upright. Another nightmare, but this time something was different. She felt wet, more than usual, but when she touched her chest to see if it was soaked with sweat, she realized it was dry. Then as she slowly came out of her groggy, half-asleep state, she realized that she hadn't woken up because of the nightmare, but because she was in pain. She clenched her stomach and lifted up the covers. In the blackness of the room she could make out a large dark stain on the sheet. That's when she realized that she wasn't sitting in a pool of sweat; it was blood.

Lily looked over at Violet who was sound asleep. It was dark outside. Morning was still a ways off. She snuck out of bed and quietly crept to the bathroom. Halfway down the hall, she doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach. She stumbled to the toilet, blood dripped into the bowl. A stabbing pain radiated from her abdomen. She clutched her stomach again and tried not to make too much noise. When she first awoke, she was so confused that she didn't know what was happening, but it was clear now; she was losing the baby.