Dreamers [#Wattys2020]

7.

Rover.

I cough myself awake as I feel my mouth cave in under the water I gag all over my shirt. It's as if I'm drowning in my sleep and there's nothing anyone can do.

"Rover?!" I hear Avery call out from her own bunk.

It takes me a minute to somehow catch my breath although it still feels like I've inhaled an ocean.

"I'm okay," I tell her as I struggle a bit.

I wait for her to respond, but she's already fast asleep as I assume that it's still early in the morning.

That dream, I don't know what to make of it because none of it can be real, right? At least I wish that was the case. I just don't understand how I can remember every single detail about that girl. She's a stranger, but I can still see her clearly in my mind. Her hair is straight, she's almost the same height as me even in bare feet and she's got this look where she raises her left eyebrow whenever she thinks about something, I don't think she even knows she's doing it. So, maybe there is more to this than I can comprehend.

By the time the sun peaks through the windshield, I've been up for hours and have been sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing.

"Good morning," I didn't even notice Avery waking up.

"Hi," I clue back into reality.

When she gets a better look at me she comments, "Did you not sleep?"

"Nightmare," I lie.

"You mean you've been awake since one in the morning?"

I lift my shoulders, "I guess."

"Okay then," she pinches the bridge of her nose, "I guess will just have to pump you up with Red Bull today."

"Whatever it takes," I murmur to myself as Avery walks to the tiny washroom we have on board.

My world never stops and waits for me to catch up, it keeps galloping away as it drag me along the ground with my hands tied by the knot of a barb-like rope. The braid is becoming frayed, yet for some reason it just won't snap. It's been years, my whole teenage life, and now that I'm in my twenties I don't know if I will survive much longer. Maybe being dead will make them more money anyway, it's all they really want in the end.

I hear my phone beep at me all the way back in my bunk and under my pillow. When I get up and go to it, the blue light is flashing in the corner of the screen and I decide to unlock it to see what the notification is about. It's Isla, she's sent me another text and I know I haven't really been there for her recently but I don't want her to worry. I might not feel like myself right now, but I will one day and I don't see the use in telling her if everything is going to eventually be okay.

"I miss you," she writes.

"I miss you too, but I'll see you soon. You know that right?" I reply.

She doesn't send me another message and I have a feeling she probably just sent me the text when she was still in bed trying to wake up.

Avery pops back out from the washroom as she puts her hair up while her toothbrush is hanging out the side of her mouth.

"So?" I ask her.

She finally takes her toothbrush in her hand, "You've got an interview in an hour at a radio station."

Of course I do.

"Thank you for being here today," the radio host greets to me.

He's got the personality of every other six-foot guy who chose the same career. He's nice, maybe a little too nice, and loud to the point where when he's out in public he probably talks in the same voice.