Sweet Dreams-63

*Before…

Then we’re done and we’re both as spent as the sky after a rainstorm and there’s almost that same feeling too.

You ever stand outside and get completely drenched and weather the cloudburst and there’s this moment when the world sort of stops and it’s all something.

Still, quiet and almost elemental?

The right after was just like that…maybe thirty seconds long but it was just.

Perfect and it actually took us more energy than I thought it would to pull of the covers around us and to spoon together and drift off.

I fall asleep with Alex’s hear beating against me back and his arm wrapped around my waist and fingers sleepily tracing over my navel and his breath in my hair.

*And Now…

You ever have those mornings for no good reason you wake up in the middle of PTSD?

I hate those.

I was so tired and I was tired in such a good way and that’s when it jumped me.

I was sore.

And that was okay because I’m good with pain in a really unhealthy way.

But tired enough to sleep and to sleep deep and sore just enough to make that a part of it all and I was sucked into dreams and not the good dreams but actual dreams, nightmares of all of me and Alex was a dream.

That was really disturbing to feel that every little bit of everything that I had in my life, all the things that I had gained was just bullshit and tricks of my own mind because I was still in the old apartment and was having fever dreams.

I must have been tossing and turning and doing other things because Alex woke me and for a few seconds he wasn’t Alex he was Cliff the step-shit and he was grabbing me and I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off.

So yeah I woke up screaming and then I woke up crying and hitting Alex and punching him and just having a right royal freak out.

“Let me go! Let me go you sonofabitch1”

“Hunter! Hunter it’s me, you’re okay!”

“NO!!!”

I kicked and bit and punched and these arms wrapped around me and held onto me and it was like in my head everything wasn’t were I was it was the shitty bedroom and it was all like black and white and at the same time it was all happening in blurry fast motion until I couldn’t get away and then the black and white faded away into actual living colors and with it the shitty old bedroom melted back into the place where my nightmares come from.

And I’m here, home and safe with Alex holding me tightly and my aches are there and not some of them like phantom hurts and some of them from fighting and my throat is hoarse from screaming and I can’t keep myself from starting to lose it and bawl as relief floods me.

He holds me and he holds me and it’s like that for a while until there’s knocking at our door and he gets up and wraps me in blankets and carries me out to the door and lets April and Adam in.

Adam looks at me. “What the hell’s going on?”

Alex is all… “Dad lay off she has a nightmare.”

“That’s some nightmare.”

I lift my head off of Alex’s shoulder and I try and give a smile only it’s really not so much a smile as the thing that I used to put there on my face. “Sorry, I guess I should have come with a warning label.”

Adam looks at me and he sort of frowns, only sort of though. He looks at me. “Sorry, I don’t know how to be good at this stuff….asshole’s my default.”

I nod. (Sniffle.) “The very best kind of asshole though right?”

He makes this don’t tease me facial expression and he says. “Yeah, built and made in Michigan.”

April comes right in and she hugs me and I hug her back which requires me letting go of Alex and then her holding me and me hugging her and me being very thankful she’s a strong woman and one of those graceful souls too because my post Alex dismount was as clumsy as I usually am.

There’s a very good reason why I don’t do sports and that’s besides all of the health issues and that’s I’m one of those people that has like bare minimum grace based skills. You know that kid in gym that dribbles by almost slapping the basketball? That’s me, put me behind a computer that’s awesome and I’m actually really decent compared to a few folks but give me a sporting equipment thing and I’m really iffy.

Geeks would say that I’d have like a non-profiency penalty.

-6 on all skill rolls or whatever.

April’s hug though is helping, them all being here and rushing to make sure that I’m alright is helping especially since my world from the nightmare was washed out grey and alone all over again.

She walks me to our couch and sits with me and I can’t help but to notice the somehow middle of the night still sort of semi-perfect thing she has going on.

Seriously her hair’s not brushed or anything and it sort of looks it but you know that sexy-messy some women can just sort of do? Well she’s doing it and she’s still in really nice sleep stuff that is like high end panties and a cami that matches and she always has this like scent of nice shampoo or body wash even without perfume and her nail are like done too and fingers and toes they like match.

I notice this stuff because as much as I was always put off by people with means and money there’s just something that struck me as something that was kind of sort of powerful? I mean April could go to her front door and answer it and she’d be a sort of force, she’d have like instant like lady cred.

Like right out of bed and she can do that? So I’m sort of a little in awe of that now that I know her a whole lot better.

And that kind of life and living is like the polar opposite of my life until recently.

April still hugs me and she does this little gentle rock back and forth with me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I was home.”

“Oh…well this here’s home.”

I shake my head no. “It is but it isn’t, I love it here but at the same time it’s all so knew and scary and really, really nothing that I’m used to. No I was home back in that shitty crack house in that filthy room and bed and all of the things that had happened here with all of you were just a fever dream from the beating I was still trying to recover from.”

Alex looks pissed but not at me pissed and he looks like he doesn’t know what to do with it either.

Adam just nods and gently pushes Alex towards our kitchen. “I think we all could go with some tea.”

Alex just sort of looks at him and there’s this sort of thing there and it’s such a them thing with Alex like on instinct not wanting to agree with Adam and there’s this like father son stare down anger on anger sort of stuff because Adam isn’t the kind of person that likes being questioned at all.

I cough.

Then April and I cough at both of them.

They look at us and while they weren’t going to likely get into it it’s just all that stuff between them that hasn’t died yet and it might not for a long time yet.

They do have the with-it-ness to turn from each other and sort of ignored the fact that they were both being kind of butts.

Alex looks at me. “What kind of tea do you want?”

He has that usual Alex look but there’s that undertone of tell me how to make it better in there.

“I’d rather have a coffee really hon, I don’t think I want to even try to go to sleep anytime soon.”

He nods and he reaches for the beans in the freezer.

I look at Adam who left the kitchen and he’s heading out. “I’ll be back, don’t cook anything.”

I blink and I look at the clock and it’s like twenty after two in the morning and I can’t imagine what’d be open other than like gas stations and places like Seven-eleven. Then again in my neighborhood it’s like that way it goes. You hit like midnight and there’s a lot of places that shut up lock/stock and barrel.

Or those places that have the bars on everything and the bulletproof glass.

Adam leaves and I sigh and Alex is grinding coffee for a new pot of his killer coffee and April looks at me.

“You’re safe you know that right? You’re here and that’s not going to disappear anytime soon.”

I shrug. “I know Mom…I know it’s just stuff that’s in deep…”

“You should see a counselor or a therapist or something Hunter it’ll help.”

I look at her. “I’m not sure that I’m ready for that honestly, I am right chalk full of trust issues and opening up to a stranger isn’t anything that I’m looking forward to doing…ever.”

She looks at me. “You know you can talk to us about it right?”

I kind of shrug and I pull my legs up and I turn so my back is against the arm of the couch and my feet slide under April who smiles at that and I just try to smile back again.

“Honestly I have no idea where or even how to start…it’s just, it’s like I just don’t know. It’s hard.”

She nods and she bites the inside of her cheek some I think and she takes a breath. “Okay so like if we can’t go there Yet. (She did emphasize yet.) then we can at least work at getting your mind off of that stuff.”

Alex pipes up with. “We’re running for homecoming this year.” As he loads the basket for the coffee machine.

April bounces a little and she looks like she’s fight the urge to do the girlie thing and I smile at her and nod and she’s hugging me. “Are you serious that’s great and it’s only the start too!”

I laugh a little. “Only the start?”

“Well yeah you have two more years after this in school and that will really help with like all sorts of things to get you built up for college.”

“One year hopefully. I’m taking extra credits to graduate in time with Alex.”

She grins. “Well that’s awesome too actually because it’s a surefire sign of commitment that you can handle that kind of a course load. You can handle it right?”

I nod and smile. “Yeah the course work’s fine especially compared to what I had to use back home and stuff in my own schools.”

I look at her. “I had to get good marks and to push it and try hard as I could because that was the only kind of hope that I had of getting out.”

April nods. “Wouldn’t they have mooched off of you?”

“Hell no I was going to school in Canada, The Step-shit would have never passed border security.”

We all kind of laugh but actually I was serious. I wanted to get away so far and so badly it was pretty much the only thing saving my butt day in and day out.

Alex says. “Hunter has a lot more ideas for Homecoming too.”

April’s asks. “Like what?”

I smile. “It’s a pretty useless office really it’s popularity and you do a little bit of like in school stuff that’s basically be pretty and you can work on the prom committee.”

Alex says. “Actually the old queens pretty much ruled prom committee so they’d win that too and they’d have like their underlings do all of the work while they were all whatever about like everything.”

She laughs and I laugh because Alex actually kind of sort of did an impression. I say that because his voice changed when he said whatever. Seriously he’s a kind of quiet and serious boy so you kind of notice when he does something like that.

I look at her. “Homecoming should do things, raise money at least for the school and the clubs and it should also help out with things like maybe helping hands when they need it and like do social stuff.”

She nods. “I actually agree and I sort of did the same thing for my cheer team and basketball team when I was Homecoming queen with a few things like car washes and stuff but that was like a long time ago really.”

She blushes some at that but I just smile at her. “Yeah you have experience and stuff with the other stuff that I don’t have a clue about. I think I’m going to need that. I really barely know how to be a girl honestly, well I am one but you know what I mean I don’t have the whole years on years of like exposure and stuff.”

April nods. “I can so do that and I can show you all the stuff that I learned after high school and college and all of that while we try and keep you classic and yet still you.”

“Still me?”

“Well, we keep all the piercings I think and just get better stuff and we stay with the new color but you can temp color it for things and tip it and whatever you do for that but we’ll look at kinda like edgy hair styles and stuff too that you can use because you’re like Hunter and not these other girls.”

I nod. “Yeah that’s exactly what I wanted to like do for the whole thing and I want to learn that stuff anyways and be like able to go anywhere without…without people like tracking me for it.”

She nods. “That I can do.” Then Alex is bringing us coffee and I’m telling her about some of my ideas and some of the one’s for Alex when Adam comes back and he has Subway subs and I’ll be honest a breakfast sub with the bacon and the eggs and the bread and the cheese with the coffee really just hit the spot.

And he brought Krispy Kreme doughnuts too and I’ve never really had these much but they’re horribly awesome.

I’m a coffee and sugar junkie kid and strong coffee even after the sub and a jelly filled doughnut is actually incredible good right now and I’m aware the caffeine and carbs are doing that too but it’s just right.

We kind of keep talking as we eat and April’s keeping him up to speed and Adam looks at me. “Learn the procedures. Student council and the faculty have ways of doing things and so will the office figure out how they like things and that will go a long ways in getting your ideas taken seriously.”

He looks at me. “And…go and take these ideas to the guidance counselor.”

I tilt my head and Alex is sitting down too and he takes out a chess set from the shelf stuff that’s under the end table and he’s setting it up for him and his dad.

Adam takes a drink of coffee and smiles. “The guidance office is the place you go to for college stuff and it’s for part time jobs and troubles and advice so that’s a good mark on you with the guidance counselor that you went to them for their opinion. They will talk you up and be an ally with the vive and the principal and that will help you get things through.”

“So…I’m smoozing the Admin crew?”

“You’re being good and respectful and guidance is essentially HR in a high school.”

Okay Alex and I are both looking at him with this whole huh look.

Seriously I never thought of it that way.

Alex actually says as he holds his hands behind his back with a pawn in each then putting them out for Adam to choose. “So applying the stuff from the outside world and real life to high school?”

Adam chooses black. “Exactly and it does work like that, Admin being still the head of the place, the office staff is still the office staff, school paper and media things is advertising and the classrooms are division heads as well as clubs and teams are like special projects.”

Alex moves first and they start to play and they’re not bad and they’re not slow at first either the first ten of twelve moves are fast and that’s just positioning and April gets the coffee pot and fills us all up and she sits back down to watch too and Adam says.

“So if you two are going to do this we should take a real hard look at things so…” and he has this look on his face like he’s not quite sure that he even thought that he’d be asking us this. “Tell me about your school.”