67"God!" I choked out as I sat up in bed, panting. "What in the hell was that?" My eyes were almost painfully wide, and I had a thin sheen of sweat coating my body. It felt like it was on fire, like something was burning me from the inside out. And still I clutched the sheets closer to me. My pajamas were damp with perspiration and I lay back down slowly. "What the." I mumbled between pants as I tried to calm down. My shallow breathing was the only sound in the still room, and they bounced emptily around the walls. I wiped a hand carelessly across my forehead and got out of bed slowly. My whole body felt like it had been through days of rigorous exercise.
I got a glass of water from the bathroom down the hall and immediately felt a rush of déjà vu. Darla.? She had been here? "Not HERE," I told myself as I filled glass, "just in the same position. Who is Darla?" Same position. Those two words rang out in my head until my eyes went wide with realization. "Same position," I whispered and shoved the glass aside violently, knocking it over. I turned away from the bathroom; the lights suddenly seemed too glaring and harsh. The piddling of the water on the floor seemed too loud, and everything was spinning around me. I looked at the clock on the wall and it read quarter to eight. I heard someone moving around downstairs and descended the staircase slowly.
I rubbed my wrists absently, my mind whirling. Something was slowly settling over my head, like a blanket of white lace, or sticky cotton. I looked at my father, sitting in the kitchen innocently and drinking his coffee. He looked up as I entered and smiled warmly. "Hey there, sleepy head. Breakfast? Your mom had to take off early."
At the mention of my mother my body went rigid. I suddenly had the deepest craving to see her right away, instantly. I felt like I missed her, when I had only seen her not eight hours before my sleep. My dreams last night were hard to remember; they were like a tangled mess inside of my head. I could remember them, but the harder I tried the more that I forgot. The most vivid thing that I remembered was the blood everywhere, and the burning itchiness of my wrists, and of course, how I woke up.
My father sensed my uneasiness and set his paper down. "Something wrong, Celeste?"
"No, Dad, nothing's wrong," I muttered absently as I picked up a muffin and stared at it. My stomach turned and I put it back in the basket of pastries. My head felt like a goddamn Mack truck had run over it a thousand times, and I kept getting these images of people I didn't know and places I'd never been. All I could think of was the name 'Darla', and little bits and pieces of her story. Was it a book I'd read? No, that didn't seem logical. I remembered the last book that I'd read and it had nothing to do with a girl named Darla. These things that coursed through my head terrified me more than anything that a book or movie could give. It was as if I had lived these nightmares. But that's all they were: nightmares. I rubbed my temple absently and sighed. I was going crazy.
I decided to get dressed and go for a drive as soon as possible. I'd be off to college in about a week and I definitely didn't need spooky dreams and lost memories coming to visit me now. I was going to UCLA, a good school, and it was a new experience. If I let something like this interfere now, I'd never complete my goals and live by myself. I'd been dependent on my parents for way too long. I climbed into the car and started to drive subconsciously. I had no idea where I was going; I was just driving. I supposed walking would have been more constructive, but I very possibly could have killed myself.
I just realized something: Jarrod. My boyfriend, whom I had neglected for the umpteenth time in a month, was waiting for me. "Shit!" I shouted as I pounded my hands frantically on the steering wheel. "Great," I muttered as I sped off toward his house. I knew there was something that I had to do. I stopped at a light and tapped my foot impatiently on the clutch. I was already over an hour late for our "breakfast" and I was supposed to meet his parents. To be perfectly honest, I didn't give a shit about his parents and I had worse problems right now, but I knew that this was the last straw for him. I already knew that it was a lost cause, but I had to get there as fast as possible.
Just as I started out into the intersection something shot so violently through my head that I swerved and almost hit a car. My head slammed against the steering wheel as my foot crushed the brake. I blacked out for a second to the sound of cussing, angry drivers and a lot of honking. "God, what a shitty day," I muttered as I shifted gears and started to move forward. What was that vision? Green eyes? Darla's eyes? No, a man's eyes. "Jarrod?" My mind questioned. But he had brown eyes, so it couldn't be him. They stuck in my mind and I couldn't get them out the whole way home. I shook my head and tried to think about other things, but for some reason they persisted inside of me. I'd nearly forgot about my little accident in the intersection now, my mind too focused on those eyes. They reminded me of.
"Poison," I said aloud, looking up into the sky dreamily. I pulled into Jarrod's house carefully, not bothering to look myself over or smooth my hair before I got out of the car and approached the house. A sudden disinterest for his parents arose in me; I really didn't care. Why were parents a stepping-stone in a relationship anyway? So, what, if his parents didn't like me it was the last two years out the window? Fuck that, if I hated his parents I would tell them and leave. I smiled outwardly at my cynical thoughts.
I knocked violently on the door before I saw Jarrod's smiling face through the window on it. I plastered a fake smile on my face for show and waved at him quickly. His face quickly grimaced in concern, and then looked at his watch in annoyance. For a minute there, I thought he wouldn't notice that I was almost an hour late. "Hi," I said quickly, kissing him on the corner of his mouth. I searched around inside for any sign of his parents, then stared into his eyes. They were vibrant green; they were plain and dull brown. They held no allure, held no poison; they just held simplicity and the loyalty of an old dog. I shook my head violently. Where were these thoughts coming from? This was ridiculous; I get a little vision and suddenly my mind is on a whole different track. I couldn't help it though, I felt like I was turning into a different person.
"Come in," he said quietly, leading my arm toward the kitchen. I made simple introductions with his parents, found them bore quickly and excused myself to the bathroom. I got up slowly and noticed that they had the same dull eyes that he had. Oh well, can't win 'em all. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to gain some sense of self. Some kind of change was running through my veins. Yep, I think I hit it right on the mark when I said 'poison' before.
I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door quickly but quietly, immediately leaning against it and letting out a loud sigh. I didn't need to use the bathroom at all; I just needed to get away from those people. I had only spent a good fifteen minutes with them and already I could hardly stand them. I look toward the mirror, but didn't gaze into it, feeling the same tugging deja vu that I had felt before. I finally confronted the mirror head on, placing my hands on either side of the sink. I stared into my own eyes. They were green too, but not the same kind. I let out a loud gasp and a little yelp of surprise and leaped back, noticing a face behind me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around quickly.
A large, dark, and handsome figure loomed over me with an eerily large smile. I noticed his eyes and smiled back. I could get lost in head snapped forward as he brushed a knuckle across my cheek and stared at me. He hadn't said a word but he didn't need to. I was putting it all together. Well, I didn't really know the full story, but it didn't matter. He was here now, everything was okay.
"Oh, Celeste," he whispered inside my head. "It's so sad the way she died. I only hope you don't go the same route."