Cross

05 | A Very Bad Morning

"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help." - Bill Watterson        

               Chapter Five

I fell asleep. How? When? I didn't know, but somehow, after I had a mid-life crisis – at nineteen years old, no less – and evaluated all of my life choices, I blacked out. Perhaps exhaustion finally took over me and my body went into defensive mechanism mode, or, perhaps my brain could no longer handle any more curve-balls, but either way it happened. I lost consciousness and the next time I opened my eyes, it all felt like a very bad dream.

When I woke up there was no sign of the note or the envelope. It was just me and my twisted body clutching onto my blanket for dear life. Everything felt normal, seemed like usual. I could hear the television on, the weather forecast being told on mid to low volume, and I could definitely smell my father's cooking from my bed room. Then, why did I feel different?

I felt like I was on the world's worst roller coaster and I couldn't get off. There were just curves every two seconds, highs and lows, dips and twists, and I couldn't keep track of it all.

It's okay, Angie. It was just a bad dream.

Blaze is not going to return with some devious plan just for the hell of it – he wasn't that foolish.

My thoughts made logical sense, so why did my heart suddenly feel like a caged bird, ready to fly out of my chest? Why did I feel like I was suddenly in an awful horror movie and any minute now, my father would be lying on the floor dead and I would be next?

Calm down. Everything's fine. I breathed in and out – a breathing technique. One breath in, one breath out.

See? Nothing's wrong. It was all just a nightmare. You're going to get up and go outside, have some breakfast, and there will be no note from Blaze waiting for you.

It worked until it didn't. I wanted to believe everything was fine, but it seemed forced. Like I was in denial.

I sat up in my bed and allowed my blanket to roll off of me. Bad idea. Somehow, the small crack in the window, the barely visible space between the window and the ledge, had turned my room into Elsa's castle overnight. It was freezing and I couldn't just let it go.

I sighed, my longer-than-usual hair falling down in ragged pieces from the messy bun I had created before falling asleep. Every joint in my body ached as if I was an old lady suffering from arthritis. Placing my hand at the nape of my neck, I turned my neck to release some of the tension from my shoulders. It felt better for just two seconds.

As I turned my head towards my bedroom door, trying to crack my neck one more time out of masochistic pleasure, my eyes spontaneously fell upon the note from hell laying crumbled at the foot of my bed. Somehow, one way or another, it had fallen down while I slept and for some sadistic reason, did not show itself until I had all but convinced myself that it had been a bad dream – a product of stress and my overactive imagination.

No. As it turns out, the note was real – far too real – and I had to face reality.

I looked up at my ceiling in disbelief. This was not what I was hoping for. One would think that after a decade's worth of pain, I would be at least somewhat deserving of a few years of happiness. After all, even all of the civilizations in the past, such as the Roman Empire, had years of peace and prosperity before shit hit the fan. So why was my life suddenly taking a turn for the worse after only a few measly months of happiness?

Did God really despise my existence, or was Fate just sadistic?

"Angelina, sweetheart, breakfast is ready! Come quickly, or else it'll get cold," my father said from, presumably, the kitchen.