We're going to need more than five minutes

Why are you being so rude to me?

When she opened her eyes the next morning, the very first thing she saw was red. Blinking, her pupils slowly adjusted to the light and she could properly focus on what was right in front of her, and it was then that she noticed that the color red belonged to a fluffy little heart spelling out the words ‚I love you' in golden stitching, held up by the equally fluffy paws of a small stuffed teddy bear that was sitting on the floor next to her air mattress right in front of her face and looking at her with the most loyal, loving beady eyes. She knew for a fact that that bear hadn't been there the night before, so someone must have put it there while she had been asleep. Well... someone. She turned around to look up to his bed, but it was empty. He was already up.

„You're just the sweetest idiot, aren't you?", she whispered to herself, sat up straight and picked up the bear to look at it. How the hell was she supposed to be mad at him when he was constantly doing cute little things like this? But then again... why would she even want to be mad at him? At the end of the day, what had he done wrong? Maybe, it had been her all along who was unreasonable and overreacting. He had just wanted to comfort her, and she had pushed him away.

She pressed the teddy bear to her heart as she started to feel tears burning in her eyes.

„I'm sorry, baby..."

By now, she felt terrible about the fight they had had last night, and something else left her slightly nauseous too: a dream, or... rather the most dreadful nightmare.

Ultimately she got up, headed towards the bathroom and allowed herself a long hot and cold shower to wash away the last remaining memories of her visions from last night. She had actually been pregnant, somehow, but not with a baby, or maybe it used to be a baby at some point, but when she ultimately gave birth to it, it was dry and black and moldy, like withered fruit, and most certainly dead. And Jordane, and all his family had been standing around her, she could still see their faces looming over her and hear their voices screaming that it was all her fault. Only Jordane himself didn't scream. He was completely silent, but she still remembered the look in his eyes, full of pain, despair and accusation. Without saying a word, he was asking her why she was doing this to him, what he had ever done to her to make her want to make him suffer like this...

With the water running over her face in the shower she barely noticed that she was crying, remembering it all. How come that the nice dreams would always disappear into thin air the second one would wake up and start remembering them, but this one seemed to have clawed itself into her bones and entered her bloodstream as if it never wanted to let go of her again?

Right now she felt more lonely and vulnerable than ever. She needed him so desperately, she needed to be close to him, feel his warm embrace and the comfort it never failed to give her.

As fast as she could, and still with wet hair and no make up on, she put on the light turquoise summer dress she had packed for today and went looking for Jordane. The house seemed completely quiet, so her next best guess was the backyard, and indeed, there he was playing with his two nephews, Donovan's sons, the older of which was three, the younger was one and a half and barely taller than the ball he was trying to kick, let alone did he have the stability on his tiny legs to be able to properly play with his brother and uncle, but that didn't stop him from trying and still enjoying himself!

Seeing her boyfriend laugh and play with the two boys made her instantly forget the terror she had had to endure inside her own head last night and she could only smile dreamily, watching the scene. She didn't want to interrupt their game, so she sat down on the steps of the patio in the shade. She barely noticed when Jordane's mother sat down next to her, until she spoke up.

„Good morning, Lana! How did you sleep?"

„Oh, good morning!", she smiled and lied „Very well, thank you!"