Straight Boys

Get Your Priorities Straight (4)

"Zachary."

I sighed. Not again.

"Zachary... Wake up... Wake up."

No. Please, not again.

"Wake up, Zachary... Wake. Up."

I can't.

"Wake up... Wake up."

The lilting voice in my head, with lips rose-petal-red and skin running-water smooth, spoke to me. She whispered, shakily, motherly, then progressed into a bestial banshee's bellow.

She was far away.

Then she was right in my ear.

"Wake up, Zach, wake up!"

Please stop haunting my dreams!

"Wake up!"

My eyes opened with a start and my lungs, in a fight or flight instinct, inhaled as much air as they could hold, but immediately released it. My vision was blurry, blanketed with the image of my mother's features. The sound of her voice increased my heart beat, and it was making me feel helpless; even though it was only a dream. It was all a dream, and I knew that, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

I only ever get this dream when I know, deep down, I haven't done something right, like my mother, from beyond the grave, was chastising me for my behavior.

A guilty conscious always serves as a good reason not to get drunk, but I did anyway, and look what it got me.

I only ever get this dream when I've fallen too far down a rabbit hole that led to past depressions; because, you know, depression never really goes away if we honestly think about it.

It just lessens.

Until it's sparked back to life one day your senior year of high school when you're trying to lessen a boy's - who you barely knew in the first place - on coming depression.

Inhaling a few times to stop my heart from escaping my chest, I slowly sat up. That's when I realized I wasn't in my own house, in my own bed. Still breathing slightly hard, I gazed around the familiar room, ignoring the piercing pain in my cranium and the subtle pang of nausea. There was a small closet across the room with white folding doors, and next to it was a desk with an almost finished solar system model of extra detail. My eyes leave it behind to glance at the walls full of NASA propaganda and drawings of planets, meteors, astronauts and models of rockets. Finally, I stare up, my breathing now slow and shallow, to see the greenish white stars contrasting against the white ceiling.

I knew who the room belonged to before I really even realized anything.

I brought my hand up to rub the back of my neck, and sucked my bottom lip under my teeth to bite at my skin: a habit I had stopped before moving to this place, but found that it was coming back. A lot of habits were coming back.

The pounding in my head only grew each second I was coming to my senses, and my stomach rolled uncomfortably inside of me. Although, I didn't focus on those things; only on the Spider-Man blanket sprawled out on the ground I could barely see from my position on Andrew Parsley's bed. Pausing, I let go of my bottom lip and leaned over the edge of the bed. Below, lazily clutching his pillow to his head, laid Andrew. I blinked a couple of times, somehow not believing what I was seeing.

Lowering my head to rest against the bed, I laid my eyes on Andrew's face as he peacefully slept on the ground of his room.

I've heard people say you look different when you sleep. Softer, more peaceful, younger even.