"Yes, operator, I will accept the charges."
Atticus is going to kill me when he sees his telephone bill at the end of the month. This is the second time in one day that I've been on the phone with my special someone in New York. I will add this to an already long list of reasons why I want Dill here with me.
"Hello?"
"Hey, sweetheart."
"Have I ever told you how much I love it when you call me sweetheart?"
"No. Now that you mention it I promise to keep calling you that, though."
"Wouldn't bother me at all."
"You sound like you're having a better day."
"Because I finally told Atticus and Jem the truth about why I've been so off-kilter."
"Why are you?"
"Promise me you won't be mad?"
"I won't get mad."
"I've been having dreams about my mother."
"Good or bad?"
"Both, I guess. She's the reason why I'm here in the first place. She told me that Atticus was waiting for me and that I should go home with her."
I gave myself the chills when I said that. It reminded me of the conversation I had with my brother and how he was ready for her to take him away. I know our circumstances were very different but eerily similar at the same time.
"I'm glad to know you do what you're told. You should listen to your mother."
"Yeah, like you ever listened to yours."
"Your mother loves you, mine didn't."
"How do you know?"
"My mother never comes to me in my dreams but yours does. That's got to mean something."
"Well, why did she wait twenty-five years to come visit me then, Mr. Smart Guy?"
"Maybe she knew that you weren't ready for her until now."
"I don't feel ready for her, though."
"Well, like it or not, she's in your psyche."
"I know," I say in hopes of changing to a new topic. "Did you submit your piece?"
"Not until tomorrow. Once my check comes, I'll be out of this apartment and in your bed."
"It's been rough not having sex for two days."
"Oh God, it's been that long?"
"Yeah," I laugh. "Well, I'm gonna go to bed here soon so I'll let you go."
"Okay, sweetheart."
"Have a nice, naughty dream about me for yourself, okay?"
"Only if you do the same for me."
"Hey, my mother would be watching!"
"Oh my God, Scout! Good night!"
"Good night," I laugh again as I hang up the phone. He's a doofus but I love him anyway. My body tingles all the way to my toes at the thought of him. I miss the way he would touch me at night and his hot breath on my neck while I slept. I miss the way he would squirm in his sleep while I kissed his neck or massaged his hair. The best feeling in the world is going to sleep with the someone you love, wanting to love on your mind.
"Run, Scout," Jem calls out for me. I opened my eyes to see that I was in the forest. I could only squint and squirm as I try to break free from what was holding me back. "Run, run!"
"I can't!" I want to scream but the words won't come out. I open my eyes to see Bob Ewell beat up my brother. Why was I reliving this nightmare again?
"Scout, stay there," I hear my mother's voice from overhead. "Don't take off your costume! You stay there! Help is on the way! You're going to be okay."
I do as I say as I watch helplessly as Bob Ewell takes his knife out of his pocket. It was then that mama came in between him and Jem.
"Duck!" Mama shouted as soon as Bob tried to stab Jem. Jem would listen to her and duck while she took the blow. I had to keep reminding myself that he couldn't hurt her because she was already dead.
"Duck again!" She shouted as the same thing happened. That was when Bob decided to give up already and in his drunken stupor flung his arms in the air and knocked mama to the ground. Mama didn't have time to get up before Bob grabbed my brother and laid into him. My poor brother was too tired to fight back by this time.
That was when I saw Boo show up. I was waiting for him to go get the knife and stab him like I always believed he did. He didn't though; he just went to Bob and tried to pull him off Jem. That was when Bob got up and tried to fight Boo as he looked down on the ground to try to find his knife.
"You want your knife?" Mama asked as she held it in her hand. "You want your knife? You got it!"
He got it all right, right in the ribs. Bob fell hard as mama seemed to have disappeared into thin air as Boo picked up my brother and carried him home.
"Scout, go home," Mama told me out of nowhere. It was this time that I finally got the strength to take off my costume and follow Boo and Jem back home. Something makes me stop as I look at my mother stab my ham costume. What did she do that for? I could have died when she looked at me crying.
"Don't look back," she said with her voice full of sorrow.
"I'm sorry, mama," I whisper before I run back to my house. All the while my mother's words of, "Don't look back," rang through my ears. I woke up once I made it into the inside of our house. It was three in the morning; the soul's midnight. What was it that Heck Tate said to my father about that night? Oh, yeah...
"Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch."