Chasing Smoke

New Friends And Nightmares

Camila

Leo had invited us to go see a play in town and I was more than ready to finally get out of school for at least a few hours.

Saturday came pretty quick, fast enough to make me stressed the whole week and have Chase calm me over and over again, telling me that everything was going to be okay.

When I get stressed, or I'm sad or angry or have any kind of negative emotion inside of me I get nightmares. I wake up at night crying and sweating. I won't stop pacing the room until my legs give up and I either land on the floor or on my bed.

That week had been horrible. I knew senior year in normal schools wasn't easy, but what I didn't know was that senior year in Picasso High was just as hard.

On Friday I woke up in the middle of the night crying. I always had the same dream. It was always the day I saw a car run over my best friend.

The dream started normal, just like that day. It replayed everything I did that day from going to school to going with Emily, my best friend, to going to our favorite ice cream shop on the way home.

Then suddenly as we were crossing the street a car came out of nowhere. I ran, but Emily was paralyzed in fear. She stood there while I watched her.

I watched my best friend die.

And from that day on all I would see was her face in my dreams, whether it was a nightmare or not.

That week was no different, and every night I found myself texting Chase whether he was awake or not. Though, truly, he was always awake at those hours for reasons unknown to me. I didn't ask him either, we'd promised long ago that whenever I had my nightmares we wouldn't talk about them in the morning.

On Friday night I couldn't stop pacing and turning around the room. I had had so many nightmares that week I was afraid to go to bed. I was afraid of seeing her face. I was afraid of the part that came after the dream. Just as the dream, it was always the same.

After the car hit her and ran off everything started getting dark. I could hear someone crying and I would be surprised when I woke up that it was me. Then there was light again. We were in a grave yard, it was her funeral. Then suddenly Emily would rise from the coffin. Her face was the same way it had been when she died. She would look at me with an expressionless face and I could hear Emily's voice in my head saying, "This is your fault Camila. It's because of you that I'm dead!"

And she was right, it was because of me that she'd never go to college which was her biggest dream, it was my fault she didn't get to even start high school, it was because of me that her parents had lost their only child. I ruined the life of a perfect family and there was nothing I could do about it.

By one in the morning I couldn't take it anymore, the pain and guilt was too much and I didn't want to take my sleeping pills. I was always afraid I would become addicted.

I grabbed my phone and immediately looked for Chase in my contacts. I found him and texted him right away.

Me: Are you awake? Can't sleep.

I waited and waited. I was about to give up and face my nightmares when my phone lit up with a new text message.

Chase: I'm up. Do you want to talk about it or talk about something else?

Me: Something else.

Chase: Are you excited about tomorrow? We're going to hang out with your crush!

I was thankfull he wasn't there with me or else he would've never stopped laughing at me after I blushed so hard.

Camila: Very funny. But yeah, I'm excited. It's Romeo and Juliet by the way.