I wake up to the sound of screams.
I sit up on my bed and look up. Sitting on her bed, Lacey has her hands over her eyes and shakes. I look up at the clock on the wall. 2:30 in the morning. I sigh and get up. I walk towards Lacey and sit on her bed.
"Hey. Are you alright?" I ask. She slowly peaks one eye out from out of her hands. Her eye is red and puffy. She was obviously crying. She nods. "Y-Yes. Just a nightmare." She says, trying to hold back tears.
When Lacey was 15, she came to the orphanage. When she first arrived, she had nightmares every night. And 2 years later, she still gets them.
She removes her hands from her face and looks up at me. From the window, the street light shines, creating a dim light in the small room. I can see the tears streaks on her face. "Sorry for waking you up." Her voice cracks.
I nod understandably. "It's alright. I get them too."
And I do. I was only five when my parents died in a fire. After they died, I was sent to my aunt's house to live with her. But unfortunately, she wasn't a nice person. Whenever I misbehaved, I would always get hit or slapped. And not just one. She used to just beat me for hours until I couldn't even stand because of the pain. I have scars from when I lived with her. When she got reported to the police for abusing me, I was sent to this orphanage. And when I get nightmares, it seems real. I can still see the orange flames. I can still hear my mother's screams. And I can still feel the pain when I got beat. I don't get the nightmares as often as Lacey, but its horrible when I get them. I can't imagine how Lacey must feel when she gets them every night.
Before Lacey came here, her father used to beat her. Her father was an alcoholic, and after her mother died he kinda went crazy. One day after Lacey came home from school, her father had hung himself. She had no other relatives that could care for her, so she had to come here.
Tears begin to stream down Lacey's face. She sniffs. "I just want them to go away. It was terrible when in it happened, but now it keeps repeating itself over and over…and I feel like it's my fault. If I hurried home from school faster, maybe I could have stopped it. I can't help but feel responsible for what happened." She sobs. I lean over and give her hug.
She cries into my shoulder. These are the awkward moments where I don't know what to say. There wasn't really anything to say, so I just let her cry. After a few minutes she stops crying and leaned her back against the wall.
"I feel defenseless against my own mind. I want them to stop, but they don't." Lacey whispers, looking up at the ceiling. I look at the ground. I knew how she felt. You want to forget, but it's like a constant reminder. It plays itself over and over in your mind until you know you can't forget and you know you won't ever be able to forget. I didn't know what to say, so I just sat there.
Then Lacey spoke, "I'm going to try and go back to sleep." I looked at her and nodded. "Ok. I will too." I knew she wasn't going to go to bed right away, she probably just wanted to be alone. So I stood up and walked back to my bed.
I got back under the quilt and faced the wall. I knew I wouldn't be able to fall asleep right away, so I just laid there and stared at the wall. I listened to the sounds of cars passing by on the road and I wondered what it felt like to be free.
It must feel good to be able to do whatever you want without your past holding you back. A lot of people don't appreciate that. The freedom of being able to do whatever you want without the constant reminders of your past haunting you. I don't have that. I never will.
I know that when I turn 18 in a few months, I'll be able to leave this orphanage, I'll be an adult. But I know that whatever I do, I won't be able to do the things that normally people do. I can't get married because I'm afraid if I fall in love I'll always be scared they'll leave or something will happen to them. I can't have kids without the constant fear of something happening to them or me and I can't take care of them.
When I turn 18, I'll be free but not truly free. I'll always be a prisoner of my mind. I'll always be different because of my fears. I won't ever be normal. I won't ever be normal because I know the cruelness in this world, and that's what scares me the most.
I duck my head into my pillow and sob into it. I close my eyes and drift to sleep.