Minutes Before Sunset
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Jessica
I flipped over and over in my bed, wrapping the covers tighter around my shaking torso. My curly hair fell around me as I shoved my face into my pillow, trying to force the nightmare out of my mind. The man—he had gotten so close to me—and I couldn’t move—I couldn’t get away. I placed my cold hand on my burning cheek, and I could still feel his touch.
Trying to fall asleep was impossible. I was too nervous about starting my spring semester in an entirely new school—let alone school at all. My parents’ jobs forced us to move around, and, because of that, I was homeschooled. Now my mom was jobless, and we were living in our hometown in the middle of Midwest nowhere. I was born in Hayworth, but I didn’t remember it. Not at all.
I knew I was adopted, and my family moved us before I could walk, but I didn’t know anything about my biological family except the fact that they were dead. My adopted parents avoided the topic like they avoided settling down. Hayworth wasn’t particularly pretty, but I liked it. Only now, I couldn’t stop thinking about my biological family. How exactly did they die? Who gave me up? Did I have any siblings? Any information gave me control over my life, and now I was having nightmares. How much more complicated did my life have to get?
The stress was too much. I wanted to ignore the world, fall back into sleep, and escape into my dreamland.
“Wake up,” my mother sang as she burst into my room, bubbling with energy.
You have to be kidding me. I rolled over, pulling the pillow over my head. She was a morning person, as was my father. I was not.
She opened my curtains and basked in the morning light streaming through my window. “Jessie, I know that you’re dressed and ready to go under those covers,” she said, and I groaned. She was right.
“So what?” I mumbled.
“Aren’t you excited?” she asked, spinning around until her blonde hair escaped her loose bun. Ever since she gave up her job for the move, she was more of a friend than a mother.
“Not really.”
“Come on, Jessie.” She pulled my covers off and pouted. “You have ten minutes to get in my car before I go to your school without you.”
“When can I start driving to school?” I asked. I was sixteen, not ten.
“When you know where you’re going,” she said. “The sooner you get in the car, the sooner you’ll know where the school is.”
I rolled my eyes, pushing myself out of my warm bed. “Okay. Okay. I’m coming.”
I was off to start my new life, psychotic nightmares or not.