“NO!” She screams. “Make it stop, I can’t take it!” As she tries to shake her dream from her mind. Blood splattered walls and a bullet hole where her brain use to be. Her parents crying over her lifeless corpse. Her father sobbing through the phone to the emergency responders. As she finds herself slowly regaining consciousness, she finds tears streaming uncontrollably down her face. Shaking, laying in her cold sweat from the awful night terror she just had. Moving slowly to her journal to write

“Another death last night, I don’t understand why or how I have the exact same dream night after night. Tonight I might just stay up throughout the night. Because I don’t even feel tired when I go to sleep nor do I feel rested when I wake up. So I might as well just avoid it. Because there’s no point in sleeping when you can’t dream.¨
-Kay Lewis
December 9, 2014

Stripping her bed and leaving the pile of rotten sheets in a heap on her dirt infected floor. She heads to the bathroom losing her clothes on the floor and washing away the salt stains that remain from the previous night. Sitting down, letting the water hit her face and the rest of her body she shuts her eyes to find a glimmer a hope in her dreams, only to find darkness once again reach for her. Before it can catch her, she wakes with a startle and checks her phone. “Once again no response from anyone. Oh look another fantastic twitter notification.” Opening it with no enthusiasm to read what it contains. “I miss you Kay, I wish we could go back to the old days. Back when we would swing through the summer days. Leaving every worry behind us.” “Well Tom, that wouldn’t be an issue if you could just answer a simple text, you selfish bastard!”
Breaking down inside, but holding back the tears. “Oh damn.” Looking at the time displayed on her phone. “Mr Livingston is gonna kill me.” She races to her dusty towel to dry off, looking in the mirror containing moldy edges and streaks of grum across it. She combs the knots out of the hair that hasn’t been cut in what seems like ages and is now down to her hips. Throwing on whatever is near to her, she grabs her backpack and runs down the stairs to say goodbye to her mother. Who has lately refused to clean the house as much as she use to. “I am going to school, have a good day Mom.” Not willing to stay and wait for the response she will never get, she is out the door.

She opens the door to the classroom with her head down she heads straight to the back of the room. Opening her book to follow along, keeping her hair to hang down. Blocking the any possible eye contact with any of her classmates. The bell rings and a flock of students leave and another herd stays to question Mr. Livingston on his lecture for the day. Kay follows this herd to his desk. “Everyone out! I have work to do.” Kay starts sympathetically, “But…” Mr. Livingston cuts her off before she can finish, “I don’t care what it is you have to say, just leave.” Kay, avoiding being trampled, steps to the side and trips on a classmate’s carelessness to push in a chair. Her classmates leave, engaged in a conversation that she believes only can be about her. She gets up with lakes in her eyes, staring at Mr. Livingston who refuses to make eye contact with her. He gets up in anger, “WHY, KAY?” punching the chalk board. She breaks down and shoves the door open. Running to the bathroom. Finding two friends she hasn’t talked to in months. Listening in on their conversation from the stall. “Kay is terrible, I can’t believe she did this to Alex and I. We can’t even see eachother anymore because he believes it’s his fault. But its not his fault, it never was.” Kay thinking to herself, “Did they not see me come in? And I never did anything to destroy your relationship, Olivia. Yes, I wanted Alex back, but he was yours. You knew that too.” Kay runs out of the stall and out the bathroom entrance. Missing out on the statement from Olivia, “But God did I love that girl.”  Kay can’t take it any longer. Running out of the building. Straight to her therapist she has been paying for herself. She knows this will cost her much more than normal because not only is it an emergency session, but she is going to be taking up the rest of his day.
She arrives with an irreversible grip from darkness on her throat. The secretary picks up the phone, “David, we need you down here right away.” Kay falls to her knees and covers her eyes with her palms. Her therapist reaches down and picks her up like she might as well be a six month old baby. Heading to the closest open door and lays her down upon the couch. “Kay, you need to calm down! You need to breathe!” She continues to wail and let loose with her tears of painful sorrow and despair. “Kay, please,  you need to work with me so I can help you.” She finds a way to utter the statement, “They all hate me, even my mom.”
“I’m sure they don’t.”
“Yes they do!”
“Kay you know that isn’t true.”
“They told me how terrible I was, they talk about me and act like I’m not even there.”
“What do you mean?”
“They refuse to make eye contact or even listen to any response I might have to say.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Like s***.”
“Okay, of course you feel that way, but I guess what I mean is, how do you feel about them?
“After they hurt me?”
David nods to acknowledge her question.
“I feel, angry with them.”
“But do you truly?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is that not truly anger, but rather a defensive feeling to protect yourself?”
“I don’t know, maybe…”
“Well what I see is a lonely girl with lost friends that she desperately wants back.”
“So you don’t believe that I hate them.”
“No I don’t, and I believe they want you back just as bad.”
“Then why do they not care to respond to my texts or even acknowledge that I am standing right beside them?”
David looks on with tears in his eyes. With a stare that tells a story of knowledge and understanding. Sitting in silence David tries to hide his pain, refusing eye contact and any chance at an emotional connection. “Have you ever heard of using mnemonic devices to remember certain things?”
“Yes why?”
“How far back can you remember?”
“Only to the start of the summer...I thought you told me that was from my insomnia?”
“No, insomnia only causes short term memory loss. Besides, you don’t even have insomnia.”
Wiping his tears away David doesn’t even attempt to cope with the expression of disbelief and disappointment on Kays’ face.
“What the hell do you mean?” Kay gets up in rage and looks down on David with a deathly stare that causes him to lose the focus of his conversation.
“I can’t stand it any longer.”
“Kay”
“I am going to end it now, it’s over. Thank you David.”
“Kay, wait.”
“Thank you for all of your help, but you couldn’t save me. Not that you ever had a chance.”
“Kay, please sit down.”
Before she could reach the door knob, David seemed to be talking to himself when he said, “You are already dead.”
“What the f*** are you talking about? You are making no sense whatsoever. I mean first you lied to me about my inso-”
Before she could finish David shook the room with a bloodcurdling scream, “SIT DOWN KAY, please.”
Kay sits down. Head hanging and hands held tight together.
“Kay, what dreams have you been having lately?”
“The same one where I see my dead body, and my parents in pain.”
“Why do you think you have this dream?”
“I have no Idea.”
“When is last time you had anything to eat?”
“Four days ago...what does this have anything to with my dream?”
“What about to drink?”
“Three days ago, I don’t understand why this matters.”
“Do you ever feel hungry or thirsty anymore?”
“Not really, no.”
“When was the last time you have really truly had to go to the bathroom very badly?”
“I don’t remember…”
“What color was your urine last? And when was this?”
“Clear, and last night. Why do you care? Are you going to send me off with all of the other suicidal teenagers?”
“Don’t you think it is very strange that you don’t feel hungry? Don’t you think its odd that you still have clear urine after not having anything to drink after two days? Just think about it for a second.”
It finally occurred to Kay that she has not done laundry in months, and it only smells as if it was unworn for a long period of time. It also occurred to her that she hasn’t had a conversation with anyone but the people here at therapy. Kay raised from her seat and ran in tears out of the door.
“Goodbye Kay.”
Kay not knowing what to do she runs home to her room. Looking around in confusion, only to find everything where it was exactly six months ago. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a blood stained wall and carpet, strictly like her dream. Running down stairs to find her mom over on the couch in tears.
“MOM!”
“Oh, why couldn’t you have just talked to me Kay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why couldn’t you tell us, I thought you we were happy.”
“Mom we are happy together.”
“I just want to start over and fix it all for you.”
“No mom it’s all perfect how it is now. We just need to talk it out.”
“I could have gotten you help.”
“I have found help mom, I’ll look him up to show you.”
Kay heads to the computer. Typing “Counseling for Life” in the search bar. No results. She then typed “David Burch therapist.” No results. Kay looked down at the newspaper to find the date. June 9, 2014. “Six months ago today” she said. She looked through the contents of the local paper to find her name on the front page “Kay Lewis a soon to be Freshman at Virginia High School has taken her life.”  Kay dropped the paper to the floor and fell to her knees, crying herself to sleep.