Life's for the Living

4. Dreaming Faye:

A while ago I was sat on the sofa reading 'The Book Thief' when my dad walked into the room. He collapsed down in the chair opposite mine to read the newspaper.
"Y'all right Faye?" He asked when he saw me watching him. I decided this was the best time to ask him something. My younger brother (Toby) and Emily were out shopping so we were alone and I decided this was the only chance i was going to get.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine." I replied. "I was just wondering, erm, why you split up with my mum?" I asked, looking across at him nervously for his reaction.
He sighed, closing his newspaper and folding it up neatly.
"Has this been bothering you?" He asks, leaning forward so that I have his full attention.
"Well, no not really, I've just been wondering because all my friends know about their mums and Toby knows about his so I was just wondering about mine."
"Right, well there really isn't much to tell. We used to argue a lot and I guess we just didn't have anything in common anymore. We also hated arguing in front of you." He told me, looking down at his hands.
"Then why did she just leave me if she cared?" I asked, trying to squeeze more out of him.
"She did care Faye, she really loved you and she didn't want to leave but she just thought it would be the best thing to do." He said. It looked as if he was tearing up and I didn't know whether I should ask anymore questions. But I had come so far.
"Then why did she just leave and not keep in contact?"
"It's complicated Faye. It wasn't as sudden as that. She just couldn't cope and she didn't want to see you anymore, she didn't want to hurt you or end up hurting herself."
"And where is she now?"
"I really don't know Faye, I have no idea." He said, still looking at the table and fiddling with his hands.
At this I was satisfied. I knew what I wanted to know and I didn't know how many more questions I could have asked him before he would have broken down.
"Okay. Thanks Dad."
"S'all right."
I went back to reading my book and tried to find my place. I read on from the start of the sentence but it didn't make sense. I was sure it didn't say that before, it couldn't have, it made no sense.  The words I had just been reading had changed, they now said 'it's because of you two'. I looked up at my dad, completely baffled, then looked back down again but they were gone. The words had changed back. I read the sentence through a few more times to make sure I wasn't going even more barmy than I already felt. This whole thing was very strange. I puzzled over it for a few more minutes but I concluded that I must have just imagined it, or perhaps I had simply read a different line? I shook the whole thing from my mind.

I didn't get the chance to ask more questions for a while after that, but whenever I did try the same sort of thing happened. I tried to keep a log of it all in a note book that I had bought myself specifically for that purpose, writing down the words that I had seen.

Then the dreams started, the same sort of dreams over and over again about this girl. I swear I knew her from somewhere, maybe she was an old school friend? 

In my memory we used to do things together although I can't remember what they are now. That's the annoying thing about dreams, you can never remember what happened. It's as if someone doesn't want you to know, like someone is trying to prevent you from remembering any of your dreams. Like they are pressing the buttons of your mind to blank out any recollections you have. The more you try and concentrate on remembering some part of it, the further away the memory seems to get. Sometimes, the odd dream slips through the system, but not for long. It stays in your mind until it slowly evaporates; your brain has no room for dreams, it focuses on the real not the pretend, the living not the dead.

I tried to record everything I remembered from the dreams as soon as I woke up in my note book but the memories of those dreams would fade away almost as soon as I picked up the pencil. 
They were puzzling me but I didn't know how to work it out, I even thought I might be going mad. The dreams weren't stopping however; in fact they were happening more and more often.