He was falling. He was dreaming that he was falling. Tom kicked about in his bed, thrashing wildly. In the room next to his, his aunt slept like a snoring log. He thrashed his arms and his legs once more before waking up. Sweat was dripping down his face and matting his hair. The young teenager bit his lip to stop him from screaming out. He clambered out of bed, half falling, to try and find his phone. He needed to speak to someone. Not someone - Lily.
He was fifteen now, he shouldn't be having silly little nightmares. But when Tom had nightmares, they were quite exaggerated. More often than not they were reflections of the horrors that he faced in the day. Like today, he needed to speak to Lily. His dream had shown her hit by a car because she was looking at him when she crossed the road. He needed to speak to her. Just to put his restless mind at ease. But, his dream was only replaying the events that had happened last week. Just seven days ago. Her death was his fault, he just didn't know it.
He had blocked out all his memories of throwing that trolley across the room when the doctors had told her parents that there was nothing that they could do. He had buried his memory of punching Shaun in the face when the Lily's ex-boyfriend told him to 'get over it'. He had never hit anyone harder, and though he had the bloodied knuckles where his fist impacted on the beefy boys eye he had forgotten all about it. In Teddy's head Lily was still alive, sleeping in her room and not buried six feet under in the graveyard down the road.
He scrambled about in the darkness, on his hands and knees desperately searching for the tiny piece of technology. He needed to hear her voice. Tears of worry and fear began to fall silently from his eyes. Sliding down his cheeks and falling onto the carpet beneath him. Each one was a symbol of the pain he was in. He didn't know in the future that he'd be able to be happy all the time, in fact he didn't see himself being happy again until he heard his beautiful best friends voice. He grabbed his mobile, a noise escaped his throat that sounded like relief.
His hands shook as he tried to dial her number, missing the numbers occasionally. It took him three tries until he got it right. The first time he called a pizza place, then he rang his school janitor. Each time he had to restrain himself from screaming down the phone - asking them frantically 'why aren't you lily? Why aren't you lily?" On the third try, she didn't even pick up. Tom had slammed himself against his door, knees pulled up and his hand held his mobile to his ear.
He told himself over and over again that he was being silly. She would probably be asleep right now, her phone on silent in her schoolbag. Of course, her phone was on silent in her school bag and Lily was asleep. However she wasn't asleep in the sense that Teddy wanted to believe. He waited until the dial tone, but couldn't bring himself to open his mouth. She would know that he had had a bad dream just by the fact that he had called her at this time. He terminated the call, choking out a sob. In anger he brought up his hand and threw his phone across his room. The technology hit the wall with surprising force, the sound of the screen cracking echoed throughout the house.
In the other room, his aunt was awake and listening to him. She had noticed her nephews erratic behaviour and even though she had prayed and prayed nothing ever changed. Rachel had noticed that his 'nightmares' were becoming more and more frequent and were also getting worse. This was the second phone this week. Each time she had heard the boy throw himself around the room, calling for her. Worries that she would have to call a doctor plagued her mind. She needed to know what was going on with her nephew, she wanted - no needed - to help him.
But Tom was oblivious to this next door. He stood up, his lanky frame was shaking in anger and fear. He took a look at himself in the full length mirror - his face was damp and his hear stuck to his face in some places and stuck up in others. He looked like hell, no worse than hell. He looked like he had died and in a sense he had. His sanity was slipping through the cracks in his fingers like water in a sieve. The last thing keeping him in the real world was gone and he didn't know how to deal with it. He swung his fist at the mirror, trying to hurt himself and his reflection. His hand hit the glass and shattered it with surprising strength. As the shards stuck in his hand, blood began to flow from the cuts.
Tom's legs buckled, falling onto his knees and letting loud sobs break through the near silence of his bedroom. He stared at himself in the cracked shards of the mirror that had somehow managed to stay on the wall. He was disgusted at himself, he wanted Lily but she was nowhere to be found.