Chapter 2 – Mornings
I was woken by the birds lightly tweeting outside on the surrounding trees. A small spotlight of sun focused on my face, warming me, and relaxing my body. Lifting my head up, I felt a sharp pain digging in to the side of my neck. This was the third time this week that I had hurt my neck from sleeping awkward on my back. The main cause was the dreams that constantly haunted my night.
I clambered out of bed, reached out my hand, and felt it rub against my dressing gown. I pulled it over me, feeling the soft texture against my skin. I walked over to the door, opened it, and stepped out onto the landing. The room was still quite dark despite the time of day. The curtain stood covering the giant arched windows that covered the adjacent wall. A small split of the fabric allowed a small ray of light to pass through and it shone into the room, dancing off the painted hand rail of the banister, exposing little specs of dust.
Standing there I noticed the door to my parents’ bedroom was slightly ajar. Stepping over to it I heard voices coming from inside. Pressing my head close to the door, I listened to the conversation.
“He’s not normal Simon.” One voice spoke, the voice that I recognised as my mother's. I had always got on well with her even back when I was younger. I remembered being three and she walked me down the road, carefully grasping my tiny hand, my whole hand fitting in her palm. I remembered when I was younger, a mere toddler and my mother used to sing to me when I wouldn’t sleep in my cot. “We have to do something, this is the third of fourth time this month that he has had bad dream”
“We can’t just force it upon him. It would be un-cool!” Another voice spoke. I smirked at the use of what my parents thought as 'urban terms'. I just managed to stop myself from giggling after hearing this remark and recognised the voice as my step-father voice. I had known my step-father ever since I was born (my real father ran off when found out that my mother was pregnant with me). I never normally asked about my actual father and his name was normally on a verbal lockdown in the house. What I did know was vague and missed key details. I knew that he was tall with brown hair and brown eyes from old photographs that I had found up in our attic. I also knew that he had worked at some sort of bank, yet still had a good sense of humour (my mother once told me this when I was seven). Apart from this my father was a blank page in the story of my life.
My step-father however I had known most of my life therefore I knew almost everything about him. For example I know that his favourite band is The Beetles, he enjoys playing golf and, although if anyone asked him he would tell them otherwise, his favourite genre of film was romantic comedy. I also knew that he would do anything for anyone that needed his help and was always on my side even if I had done something wrong. “We need to let him know what we are doing otherwise he won’t trust us with anything again.”
“I know that but if we don’t do something then he’ll have to live like this and I really worry about what it is doing to his health.”
“You need to stop worrying and realise that he is fourteen years old and he knows what he is doing and that if he needs help, he knows where to get it.”
“Maybe your right but if he has anymore dreams then I’m going to call the doctor.”
“Okay as long as you let him know afterwards.”
I stepped back from the door and by doing so the door creaked loudly. I cursed under my breath and stood silent as still as I possibly could. After about twenty seconds, when I was sure that if they had heard me then they would have called me in, I stepped away from the door and I began to walk down the stairs.
The rest of the morning ran past in a blur as most school mornings did, each day smoothly blending into the next. My morning had become routine and I made sure that I followed it otherwise undoubtedly I would be late.
Slinging the bag over my shoulder I headed off to the bus stop, the cries of “have a good day” being cut of midway, by the closing of the door. I turned around and faced the cold winter breeze as it hit me. I sighed and breathed in slowly, allowing the cold air to fill my nostrils. Carefully pulling the collar of my blazer up high so it covered most of my neck, I began to walk into the cold air, hoping that my parents wouldn’t find out my secret…
