Scars Along the Way

Taking the Reigns

Eva sat up in her bed with a start.

She looked down to see her blue knit blanket twisted up around her legs like she had been thrashing around in her sleep. She was in her bed.

Her hands shook, and she could feel her hair clinging to the sweat on the back of her neck. She looked around at her room, groggy and disoriented. Something felt very strange. Her room didn't quite feel the same.

She wracked her brain trying to remember yesterday... or anything at all. Trying to think felt like trudging through thick mud. She had no recollection of anything in any detail, but she felt that there was something she was supposed to remember.

As she was lost inside her head, she found herself practically floating down the stairs. She didn't even remember getting up out of the bed.

She was standing in her kitchen now, as if she had skipped through time once again. Everything around her was hazy, but her eyes focused now on a piece of paper on the counter. She was detached from her own body as her hand reached out and picked it up.

Her heart stopped immediately. It was an obituary, torn out from a newspaper. She recognized the face in the picture.

Jack.

The whole world had stopped. Her mind couldn't process anything else. With her hands trembling, she tried to focus her eyes and read the rest of the obituary, but his photo and the words "Jack W. Napier, Age 27" were the only things she could see. Everything else on the page was like some obscure chicken scratch... they weren't even words. She couldn't find out how it happened.

The shock quickly subsided and the pain - pain she had been dreading in her search for Jack all of these years - was taking its place.

She sank to the floor, her mouth open in a silent wail. She felt like she was crying, but there was no sound. She couldn't cry. She clutched the paper to her chest as she sat folded over on the floor in agony.

Her worst fear had come true. He was gone. She wanted to escape this. She squeezed her eyes shut, screaming inside her head to wake up. Wake up. Wake up!

Her eyes opened. Now she was looking up at a familiar cracked ceiling. She blinked a few times then rubbed her eyes. Her face was wet from tears and her throat was sore. She felt physically exhausted, and the familiar hiccuping sensation in her chest that always came after crying. She laid staring up at the ceiling, allowing sweet reality to settle back in.

The heavy feeling of grief began to lift with every shaky breath she took.

'It was just a stupid nightmare.' she thought, relieved.

Jack is alive. She smiled to herself. He's perfectly alive.

She had just sat up when she heard keys jingle and the door being unlocked. She was disappointed when it wasn't Jack. His goon walked in holding a paper bag and a water bottle. He walked over to where she sat and dropped the items unceremoniously on the floor in front of her. "Room service."

She would have thanked him, but an involuntary yawn and the need to stretch took over.

"Get ready to go. We're leaving in a half-hour." He said, turning around and leaving her alone in the room again, locking the door. She finished her stretching and groaned as she picked up the bag and looked inside. It was four Nutri-grain bars. She dumped the bag out on the floor. She was surprised to see a crystal light packet fall out that was hiding at the bottom of the bag. She picked it up, smiling. "Thank you, Jack." She whispered to herself.

After doing her inspection ritual, she finished off three bars and half the bottle of pink lemonade. She ate quickly so that she could brush her teeth and fix her horrible bed hair. She felt excitement erase the icky leftover sadness from the dream she had as she thought about spending time with Jack today. Something she had been longing for over the past twelve years.