Lessons On Love

26: Falling Or Fallen

Chapter 26: Falling Or Fallen?

            I had a vague recollection of when my dad came home last night. It must have been late into the night or early morning because I was fast asleep before the sound of his heavy footsteps up the stairs and pass my door shook me semi awake. It only lasted a second. A quick “oh, dad must be home” before sleep engulfed me in a dream.

            I dreamt of Tyler.

            It’d been a long time since I last dreamt of him, and it would be fair to say I never dream of him anymore. Only in my nightmares does he appear so it was never a pleasant experience.

            It was the same as always. Blood. Lots of it. So much that the dirt on the ground became damp and stained a reddish purple. There was a hand and it struggled outward and reached for a blurry figure. The fingers were weak but determined and crawled on the ground, the nails digging into the dirt, moving like a spider with broken legs. My vision of it was always foggy. Was that hand mine? Was that figure standing there really Tyler? I wasn’t sure – my eyes could only make out an undistinguished blob – but my heart knew it was. It was undeniably Tyler.

            Sometimes I can’t be sure if it was only a dream or that it was just a faded memory of the past. I knew what happened. My dad told me what happened. Some of the nurses whispered what happened when they thought I was asleep. But what exactly happened at that moment, my dreams were as close as it got. 

            When I finished getting ready in the morning and came down to the kitchen, my dad was already having breakfast and reading through a book manuscript at the table. He looked up when I entered and after giving me a once over, frowned. “What happened? What’s wrong with your– ”

            I cut him off before he could finish asking the question. “I bumped into a guy in the hallway and he was carrying some kind of project – probably from the metal-shop class – anyways, it hit me right in the face and cut me.”

            My dad’s eyes narrowed, and for a second I thought he wasn’t going to buy my story before he started cursing the ‘boy that hit me’ for almost destroying his baby’s face. It was a fortunate thing that the bruises were all on my body, which I easily hid with jeans and a long sleeve shirt. There was a bump on the side of my head, but it wasn’t visible with my hair down, so the only distinguishable wound was the small cut on my cheek. I don’t think my dad would settle for an angry ramble at the dining table if he knew the truth and the last thing I wanted was for him to make a ruckus.

            “Speaking of which,” I said, sitting down with my usual box of mixed greens. “What happened to you yesterday? I thought you were staying there until the morning to grab the car?”

            “I was until I realized how much a night at a hotel there cost. Jeez Louise! Talk about highway robbery! Taking a cab back was cheaper so I did that instead.”

            “Dad…”

            “Yes baby girl?”

            “You do realize you have to pay for cab fare back since you can’t just abandon the car there. And even if the cab fare’s cheaper than the hotel, I doubt it’s that much cheaper, which means you spent a lot more money than you should have.”