"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
-Victor Hugo
I'm sitting in the front row of the funeral parlor. Beside me are relatives I've never met, all sniffling and wiping their eyes as the pastor speaks about the deceased who is laying behind him in a closed coffin. I am staring at it, dry-eyed, they said that his face was too disfigured from the accident to show...
Strangely, everyone in the room seems to disappear and I am left alone, still staring at my father's coffin. Suddenly, the lid of the coffin moves! A hand is pushing it off. I stand up, overjoyed; my father didn't die after all!
My father sits up and faces me. I choke back a scream as his battered, bruised, and bloody, face stares at me. The corpse points an accusing finger at me... "It's your fault!" he hisses. "Your fault!"
"No!" I scream but the corpse's voice is louder, more powerful than mine and he drowns me out.
"YOUR FAULT!"
I awoke with a cry and had to bite back a sob. I had been waking up frequently with dream-memories, but this was the worst so far. Rubbing my arms fiercely, I realized I was drenched with sweat so I got up and changed into a new pair of pajamas. Slipping back under the covers, I lay awake the rest of the night, willing the last vestiges of the nightmare back into a dark corner of my mind. The darkness outside my window was fading into light before I finally fell back asleep.
The next day, Erik and I seemed to resume our teacher-pupil and friends-during-class relationship with no hint of the emotion from the night before. But I did notice a change in him. He walked the hallways at school with more confidence, no longer shying away from stares but staring back at the person with a quiet strength until they looked away. The badly whispered jokes made his eyes burn with anger but I was proud to see that he didn't turn to face the ignorant troublemakers.
The dark circles under my eyes did not escape Erik's scrutiny, as I had hoped. He asked what was wrong but I could only shake my head, tears threatening to fall... and although I saw that he wanted to, he did not question me further.
Rod no longer spoke to me in the hallways or in class but only talked and laughed loudly with his friends whenever I was near. Once in the hallway, I saw Charlotte clinging to his arm like some unhealthy growth emitting high-pitched giggles every ten seconds. Strangely enough, I only felt the briefest twinge of reflexive jealously before remembering that I didn't have any romantic feelings for Rod. But what defined romance anyway? Dates, stolen kisses, sex? I desperately hoped not. There had to be something else, something deeper then the physical desire Rod seemed to require in his romantic relationships.
Thinking about these types of things made me wonder why I had stayed with him as long as I did, after the initial attraction wore off. Then I remembered the nightmare from the night before and I realized that I had clung to Rod because of the happier memories he represented. Those had been the days when my father was still alive and everything wasn't so complicated. Rod sort of seemed like a stable and reliable person from my past and... I missed that. If the truth were known, I still missed it but it was more centered on my father than ever before…
"Earth to Christine, come in Christine. Hello?" Mr. Hayes' sarcastic tone through the microphone of brought me back to where I was currently, dress rehearsal for West Side Story. I reddened and hurried out on stage in my white Maria dress, only to find that Tom wasn't already there.
Mr. Hayes called for him over the sound system but received no response and no one seemed to know where he had gone. I timidly suggested that we just skip that part and go on to when Anita confronts Maria and he reluctantly conceded, muttering something under his breath about this being the worst dress rehearsal he'd ever helped direct. Obediently, I walked through the door to the room where Anita had just come in. Remembering my role, I lowered my gaze in mock embarrassment and pulled a threadbare robe tighter around my neck. Anita's/Charlotte's eyes flashed with anger, perfectly in character, but before I knew what was happening, her hand was up and I received a stinging slap to my cheek.
"Stop!" yelled Mrs. Lucas striding in from backstage where she had been watching and semi-directing. "What do you think you are doing?" she asked Charlotte dangerously.
"You told me to get into the role, Mrs. Lucas," she replied, managing somehow to look innocent and sly at the same time. "That's what I might have done in Anita's situation."
Mrs. Lucas sighed and fixed Charlotte with a half-hearted stern gaze. "Next time, clear it with us before you try something like that. It wouldn't be good to have something unexpected happen like that during a performance." She looked down at Mr. Hayes in the pit. "Where do you want to start over?"
"Actually, I need to hear the pit again in 'Gee, Officer Krupke', no voices. Let's start at..." He glanced up at the stage. "Oh, uh, go take a break Christine, Charlotte... just be back in about ten minutes."
I had just gotten off the stage when I heard a shout: "Christine, look out!" Startled, I automatically looked up... and froze. One of the statues directly above my head that lined the little space above the stage was wobbling back and forth. I couldn't move and saw as if in slow motion the statue topple over and fall.... A shadowy blur tackled me and we landed just as the statue hit the place where I had been standing and shattered.
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Author's Note: Please note that the very first dream sequence about Christine's father has been modified so you might want to re-read that one part for some upcoming chapters. I'm sorry the chapters are so short; one of these days I'll probably go through it and combine a lot but expect updates a lot more often than I've been giving them. Thank you for staying with me this long!