So You Thought the Worst Was Over

Amara wakes up gasping for air and tries to think strait. “Why do I keep having this dream? It’s always the same, the girl dying everything revolving around death, the sadness.” Amara reaches for her glass of water on her nightstand. She stops though thinking of the girl. This was the fourth time this week she had awoken in the middle of the night after the same dream.

Closing her eyes Amara tried to forget the dream, but she couldn’t. It was 3:00 am now. Still too early to get up, so Amara pulls her blanket up to her chin and tries to sleep. She knows however that sleep won’t come. As soon as she’s awake Amara can’t go back to sleep. For awhile she tosses and turns in her bed trying to get comfortable but finally gives up. “I might as well get up now I guess.” Amara throws back the cover and jumps out of bed.

“Burr, why is it always so cold in the morning.” Amara grumbles as she goes to her closet to get her clothes for the day. She pulls out a pair of old jeans and a comfortable t-shirt and puts them on. As she pulls up her pants something falls out of the pocket.

“Huh, what’s that?” Amara asks herself as she bends down to pick up the thing that had fallen. She picks it up and turns it over. It was a photo of a girl not too much younger than herself. Well maybe about four years difference. The girl was outside, waving to someone in the distance and holding a black book.

“Amara is that you? Are you awake?” whispered her mom through the closed door. Amara looks up from the picture and walks to her door and opens it.

“Uh, yeah I’m up why?” Amara asks as she opens the door wider. Her mother was crying. “Mom are you OK, what happened?”

“Yes I’m fine but your father and I just had a bad fight.” Her mother collapses on the floor crying. “I don’t know what I did wrong Amara, I really don’t know. He just started screaming at me while we were getting ready for bed.” She continued to sob; Amara sat down next to her mom and tried to console her.

“It’s OK mom, I’m sure that you didn’t do anything wrong maybe dad just had a bad day or something and it was just too much pressure on him.” Amara wiped her mom’s tears.

“Uh, yes maybe that’s it; he just had a bad day. That’s all just a bad stressful day.” Her mother got up then and tried to fix her messy hair. She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you honey why don’t you get some more sleep.” Her mother said softly as if she were afraid that someone would hear her and yell.

“That’s OK mom just try and relax alright.” Amara said going back into her room and shutting the door behind her.

Four hours have passed now and Amara goes to stand out and wait for the bus. As she waits she hears her dad yelling from inside. “What, there still fighting! Why?” Amara considers running inside to check on the situation but just as she’s about to leave her bus comes around the corner.

“Crap!” Amara says still in-between going into the house or getting on the bus. The bus stops in front of her, now she has no choice but to get on the bus. Amara gets on the bus and goes to the back seat. She watches as her house becomes a small dot in the distance.

“I hope they won’t fight much longer.” Amara says to herself. She had not looking forward to the day ahead of her even before her parents had started fighting but now, she really wasn’t looking forward to it. Her parent’s fights had never been really bad but from the way her father had been acting lately she was a little worried.

“Uh, hi can I sit with you?” asked a boy. He looked nervous; he must have been the boy the whole school had been talking about. He was tall, correction really tall. He also had green eyes and brown hair that came past his ears. “Can I sit with you?” he asked again.

Amara realized she must have been paused for an awhile. “Oh sorry yeah, you can sit with me.” Amara says as she moves over so he can sit down.

“Thanks.” He says and sits down on the edge of the seat.

“You know I don’t bite you can sit closer.” Amara say sort of looking offended. I mean who does that? She thinks to herself who asks to sit with you and then sits as far away as possible in a seat that’s only three feet long.

“Sorry.” He says and pushes a in a little further. Another kid gets on and Amara yanks the boy further into the seat so that he doesn’t get stepped on or crushed it could go either way. “Ah, what the…” The boy looks and sees why Amara had yanked him in. His face evidently changes from shocked to a thankful expression.
“See told you I don’t Bite.” Amara looks at him then looks out the window.