Chapter 2: Chapter 2 – Wiping the World Clean

“Genna?” 

“Hm?” Genna looked at Mr. Linn, startled back to reality after zoning out for what seemed like ages. She’d been staring off into space, or rather out the the window, toward overcast skies and the Ann Arbor skyline, close enough to touch, far enough away to make her feel like an island in the bustling city. Above, in the clouds, gleaming glimpses of sunlight cast shadows on the space, playing havoc with prismatic surfaces and giving the office an surreal, almost noir feel. It was hard to focus when she felt so disconnected.

He cleared his throat and then looked at her with the same quizzical expression as always. Genna leaned forward in her chair, clasping her hands together and tensing her shoulders as she anticipated his next words, even though they were completely predictable. 

“I asked how you’re fitting in at school, I know it must be hard, coming back to that environment,” He tilted his head, his eyes studying her, as they always did. They were beady, like two little black BB’s mounted in his irises, always following me, always piercing, always knowing way more about her than she did about herself. If it were up to her, she wouldn’t be here; father had insisted upon therapy from the moment she’d woken up on that lived-in bed in the hospital.

“It was fine,” Genna swallowed and repositioned herself in the chair; her skirt dragged across the vinyl, making an uncomfortable noise. She grabbed the hem of the skirt and tugged to straighten it out; she’d dressed nice for the occasion, as always, but was starting to hate the selection of materials in her closet. “I didn’t really talk to anyone.”

“I see,” He furrowed his brow again and began to scribble in his notepad, Genna cringed as the pen dragged across the surface of the yellow legal paper. 

“You really going to do that?” She asked him, her expression went slack as she tried to withhold a glare. He stopped writing; the scratching of ballpoint against paper was momentarily replaced by the hum of the air conditioner overhead. He set the pen down across the tablet and then folded his hands overtop, looking toward her quizzically. 

“Do what, Genna?”

“That,” She rolled her eyes. “That…thing shrinks do. I say something, you sigh and go ‘mhmmm’, and then you scribble something down on your little notepad. You know exactly what I’m talking about. What are you writing, anyway?”

“Well, Genna,” He picked the pad up lightly between two fingers and turned it so she could see it. “I’m writing that in my professional opinion you need to get back into a routine, try out some familiar extracurriculars, and most importantly, talk to old friends. Jogging your memory is important, but getting back in touch with your old life, that’s even more important. The more you entrench yourself, the more comfortable you’ll be and the quicker those memories will come back.”

“I didn’t really have that many friends, and I have even fewer now,” Genna shrugged. “Just Deidre. We use to hang out with Susannah but she’s like…doing this creepy thing where she watches me from afar.”

“And Susannah was your friend before the accident?”

“She was Megan’s friend,” Genna shrugged. “Why are you writing on a smelly old notepad anyway? You have this super modern office, why dont you join the 21st century and get an iPad?” 

“My notepad is hardly smelly, Genna,” He shook his head and gave the legal pad a mocking sniff. “Besides, while this office is filled with modern amenities, old habits die hard.”

“Just seems tacky,” Genna shrugged. He chuckled.

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“Which is?” 

“Your friend, Susannah,” He said.

“Megan’s friend,” Genna corrected him. “She doesn’t want anything to do with me now. I don’t blame her.”

“Then who do you blame?”

“You know who I blame,” Genna rolled my eyes. “We go over this Every. Single. Time. You talk about forgiving myself, I tell you that I can’t forgive myself for killing someone!”

The last words of her statement came with an edge sharp enough to slice through the building tension between them; Genna’s fists bored down on the metal armrest of the chair, her wrist colliding, and pain shooting down her arm, even though she barely noticed. 

“Genna, you need to calm down,” Mr. Linn said evenly. “You know we’ve talked about this.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Genna rolled my eyes again and rubbed her left wrist with her right hand. “Why don’t we cut the bullshit Jay; let’s talk about how my dad hired you to talk to me about forgiveness and whatever other bullshit you’ve got cooked up for me? No matter how much he’s paying you, Megan is dead. She’s not coming back, Jay! So, how about it Jay? I forgive myself and her friends just move on? I forgive myself and I live a guilt-free life? That what you’re looking for?” 

“There comes a point,” Mr. Linn said. “Where you can accept it and forgive yourself without absolving yourself of responsibility. You can move on with the understanding that yes, you did this horrible thing, but that it doesn’t have to rule your life. You don’t have to dwell on it, you can accept that you made a mistake and make a resolution to be better in the future. “

“Be better,” She scoffed. “Be better. I killed her, Jay. I see her every time I walk around a corner at school. I see her in the mirror when I wake up, I have nightmares about finding her blood soaked body on the road, Jay. Accept and move on? You’re full of shit.”

“It’s perfectly natural for you to have some anger built up, and it’s not necessarily unhealthy to release it so long as you’re doing it in a healthy manner, Genna. There’s a great place down on third, we call it a ‘rage room’. You go in, they give you a baseball bat, a hammer, crowbar, whatever, and you just let loose on some fine china.”

“I could do that right here,” Genna said, looking about the room at the glass-topped desk behind him and then to his shelf just beside the plate glass window. She looked back to him, expecting have evoked some sort of emotion, but he remained stoic. 

“Genna,” He said. “I mean it when I say I’m concerned that you aren’t interested in your old hobbies and your old friends. This ‘Susannah’ girl, it’s natural that she would want to avoid you, and yes, given what happened there are bound to be others that will want to keep their business but what about this ‘Deidre’ girl? You said you were friends with her before, so why not lean into that now? Why not use it as a stepping stone to other social connections? You’ve been cooped up for a long time, Genna, time to spread those wings.”

“I’d really rather keep walking,” She muttered. “Not really ready to fly.”

“In your own time, obviously.”

***

 

“How was school?” Mom asked; she was likely the hundredth person to ask. Mr. Linn had asked, Dad had asked the moment Genna had walked in the door. Surprisingly, he’d managed to tear himself away from his work for that. Genna looked up at her warily across the  table; she was dressed in black and gray, a perfect match for the long dining room table which took up the majority of the kitchen space, but which the three of them only occupied about a third of. Her thin hands were folded in front of her on the onyx surface, practically glowing beneath the round, recessed ceiling light ten feet above. It was centered perfectly so that the LED lighting would play off of the deep black surface, giving it an almost ethereal glow while seemingly darkening the rest of the dining room. It nearly made it seem as if the table was the only place in the entire universe, just her, mother, and father. She liked it better in here with all the lights on; instead she sat there with the two of them, and Celia moving about in the background, plates scraping against the kitchen counter as pots reached their boiling point on the stove. Celia eventually emerged from behind the concrete partition bearing a tray burdened with three ceramic plates. Genna watched across the table as she wordlessly stepped behind father, nearly invisible outside the little cone of light, and gracefully set the plate down in front of him. She followed suit, moving spectrally from one point to the next, delivering each plate with practiced precision; if you weren’t paying attention, it probably would have seemed like they’d appeared out of nowhere. Genna looked wordlessly at the plate, her attention drifting and fading as mother’s knife and fork clanked against the ceramic; a simple gesture that echoed loudly through the silent atmosphere of the dinner table. “Genna?”

“Hm?” Genna looked up from her plate; a dish that was more of an art piece than a meal. “oh, it was fine.”

“Did you see any of your friends?” She spoke without making eye contact, other than with a stalk of asparagus which she stabbed with her fork. 

“I saw Deidra,” Genna said quickly. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

“And how is Deidre?” Father asked, his voice just as distant as Mom’s. Both of them lacked any sort of attachment to the conversation; they were just going through the motions. Maybe a year of rehab, shuffling schedules, and dealing with doctors did that to a family. Maybe. 

“She’s fine,” Genna said, trying to elevate my tone to inject at least some emotion into the conversation. “I saw Susannah too, but…you know, she didn’t really want to talk.”

“Megan’s friend, right?” Father asked; she watched mother visibly cringe at the mention of Megan’s name. Internally, Genna felt the same, as if she’d been shocked with a live wire. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Genna said quickly, hoping to turn the subject to anything else.

“You should stay away from her,” He suggested before shoving a bite of steak into his mouth. Genna looked to him questioningly, though his features were shadowed by the position of the dome-light overhead. He sat there like a specter, his facial expressions invisible and unreadable to her. 

“I don’t…I don’t know about that,” Genna said in a half-hearted argument. “Shouldn’t I be trying to remember things? Mr. Linn said-”

“I’ll have a talk with Mr. Linn,” Father interjected. “If she was Megan’s best friend then she’s still angry with you and it’s going to cause problems.”

“Maybe she should be mad,” Genna suggested; as soon as the words left her mouth she could hear Father’s chewing come to a halt for the briefest of moments before it resumed, as if the small outburst had never happened. He swallowed, and began to speak, but it was mother instead.

“We’ve been over this, Genna,” She issued a soft lecture that Genna had indeed heard many times before. Many of those times having been at her hospital bedside.

“Yeah, we have,” Genna said, cutting her off. The plate of sirloin, asparagus, and mashed potatoes stared up at her as she kept her eyes trained on the plate, only occasionally glancing up across the table to catch a fleeting glimpse of mom’s brown hair illuminated to a white sheen beneath the light. 

“And what did we talk about?” She asked pointedly. It wasn’t a real question; it was more of a statement that required a specific response in kind. Genna resisted the urge to sigh, or rather scream.

“You keep saying it’s not my fault,” Genna finally looked up and made eye contact with her; she stared intently across the table, her gaze fixed on her daughter. 

“Genna,” She said. “If it had been your fault, do you think the judge would have dismissed the charges? Don’t you think you’d be in jail?”

“I guess not,” Genna muttered. 

“That’s how the system works, Genna,” My father interjected. “you do crime, you go to jail. You don’t do crime, you don’t go to jail. What you’re feeling is survivor’s guilt, Mr. Linn talked to you about this already.”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “But why do I have to be the survivor?”

“If you believe in a higher power-”

“We don’t,” Father said quickly, interrupting mother who shot him an annoyed look. He regarded her quickly and then returned his attention to his plate, stabbing a piece of sirloin as if the four prongs were searing a live animal through the heart; myoglobin trickled from the crevices of the meat, pooling on the ceramic plate and glistening beneath the light. 

“If you did,” She continued. “then you could say that you survived because you still have a purpose to fulfill. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“You don’t need to belive in God for that,” Father grunted. 

“But it helps,” Mother argued.

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“Since when did you get religious?” Father stared at her, the fork rigid in his hand.

“I didn’t,” She snorted; her eyebrows shot up in amusement. “You know I’ve always believed in a higher power, it doesn’t mean I’m going to start going to church or hanging up crucifixes.”

“Better not,” Father stabbed another piece of steak and lifted it up halfway to his mouth. “you’ll ruin the aesthetic. Besides, churches don’t want to help you, they just want your money. On the subject of money-”

“Don’t tell me you have to leave again, Dear,” Mother’s voice held a hint of exasperation as father had returned just a few days before. 

“For a week,” He confirmed. “duty calls, and bills must be paid.”

“Where are you going this time?” Genna was genuinely happy that the subject had shifted, even if dad was abandoning them again.

“Nowhere you’ve heard of,” He replied. Genna looked at him quizzically.

“You act like you work for the CIA or something,” Genna was only partially joking. He continued to eat, unaffected by the almost snide comment.

“For all you know, I do,” He said evenly. “You need to focus on yourself; get back into track, hang out with your friends, well, friend.” 

“Yeah I wasn’t exactly the queen of popularity, was I?” She smirked a little. 

“It’s a cutthroat school,” Mom shrugged. “It was the same for me at Jacemount. Besides, dear, you’ll lose touch with your high school friends eventually. You have another year to go and then you’ll never look back.”

“I’m ready for that now,” Genna muttered. “Why don’t you send me to study abroad or something? I hear Europe is nice this time of year.”

“Europe is nice every time of year, dear,” Mother said. “It’s why they call it Europe.”

“The vacation spots, maybe,” Father agreed. “Dig too deep and it’s just like anywhere else. Well, maybe not anywhere else. Also, no, you need to stay close to home, we’re coming up on that final injection.”

“And then I’ll remember everything?”

“We’ve talked about this,” Father said, launching into another rehearsed lecture. “It will help. You’ll have to do the majority of the work, but it will give you a significant advantage.”

“Any by ‘do the work’ you mean run track, talk to people I barely remember…yeah, got it, Dad.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

The rest of dinner was devoid of conversation; the only audible interaction was the clinking of forks, the occasional chewing sound, and the shuffling of Celia’s feet somewhere behind the concrete partition. 

Eventually Genna  found herself heading away from the table, crossing through the open living room, past the couch and up the concrete stairs. Her fingers glided smoothly along the metal-topped glass baluster that led her to the second level and ultimately her room. Solitude at last. She felt an enormous weight lift from her shoulders as the day’s social obligations had reached their inevitable conclusion. She shrugged out of her top and let her skirt fall to the floor, leaving them for the morning as she continued disrobing; discarding her bra and opening the top drawer of the dresser. Her head shook and agitation rose as she surveyed the contents of the drawer; nightgowns, mostly silk or satin of all lengths and cuts. After digging through a pile of slipper silk for what seemed like an eternity she managed to come up with a pair of cotton pajama pants, and after a quick trip to the walk in closet, she found an old t-shirt that somehow wasn’t body conforming and slipped into both. 

It was hard for her to believe that this was who she was. Tight tops, skirts, a vanity filled with every piece of makeup known to womankind; for the millionth time she took a quiet walk through the room, tiptoeing as if she were trespassing in someone else’s domain; as if the true occupant of this room of this room would be alerted to her presence at any moment and come storming in. It was nonsense because this was her room, but it was getting harder and harder to make herself believe it. Maybe that third injection would bring her back; make into the person she was supposed to be. But, that was the question, wasn’t it? Did she want to be the girl who ran track? The girl with her sights set on law school? The girl enjoyed living in this concrete bunker? Dad called it brutalism - an architectural choice. Genna just called it brutal. 

She continued her walk through the room, stopping at a bedside table where a silver-framed photo depicted me posing for a picture in her yellow and black Jacemount Academy track uniform. A smile across her face, white teeth stealing the show as she clutched a silver trophy nearly as big as she was. A girl that she couldn’t remember, yet the same girl that stood right here, in this room.

Brutal indeed. 

 

***

 

Genna’s eyes opened slowly to be greeted by a brief flash of lightning and a blurry view of the backyard through a picture window coated in streaming drops of rain, new ones forming every second; a regular, predicable smack against the glass. Genna rolled onto her side, tensing her shoulders and hugging herself with the satin blanket that enveloped her body. The warmth under the covers and the softness of the memory foam mattress were more than welcome to her exhausted body at first but the welcome wore thin quickly as she grew more and more alert. 

“Damn it,” Genna muttered as she realized she was wide awake, probably in the middle of the night. Her stomach growled lightly, and finally, she slowly cast the blanket aside, allowing herself to rise and place her feet on the floor. There was no carpet, but radiant heat beneath the composite floorboards kept the chill from her body, allowing her to stand without a second thought. She stepped forward, standing in front of the window as rain pelted the landscape beyond and flashes of white lightning played with the horizon. Each flash momentarily displayed the Ann Arbor skyline and their backyard, each becoming visible in tandem with the rain, as a strobe light inside of a haunted house, or a club. Her small form silhouetted against the glass as another flash rocked the world beyond her room and she raised a small hand, pressing it against the tempered surface and catching a glimpse of her transparent reflection. Finally, she turned toward the door and crossed the room in silence, pulling the door side and stepping out onto the landing. It was much the same out here; a tall picture window at the head of the living room, a view of the front yard and the houses across the street, each briefly bathed in light as the storm released a primal scream in the form of exploding thunder and stabs of pale lightning. 

Long shadows stretched across the room as she made her way down the stairs, spectral forms danced on the gray concrete beside her until she passed through the brief hallway to their ‘mud room’ where she stood before a wide three-paneled sliding door. Just outside the glass, the rain still pounded and wind played with the branches of trees, but the exterior door led to a concrete apron that was partially covered by a heavy awning - assuming the awning hadn’t been torn off by the wind and thrown miles down the street. 

The floor in the mud room differed from the rest of the house; while the other rooms were laden with black slate tile, the mud room was a white porcelain with the grout between each tile perfectly visible. The radiant heat wasn’t working in here, and here feet began to grow cold as she wrapped her arms about her body, shivering in the darkness.

“I have to get out of here,” She muttered to herself, her voice a cracked whisper as she reached out her right hand and laid it against the metal handle. It didn’t take much effort to open the door in reality, but with the wind and the rain tearing through the landscape just beyond the glass, she felt as if she were cracking the hatch on an in-flight airplane. There was a tangible change in atmosphere as she opened the door and took a step forward, making the daring transition from the mud room to the outside world. The back patio was constructed with a wind shield and an awning, ensuring she wasn’t immediately soaked the moment she stepped outside but she could feel the moisture hanging in the air, and she could feel the faint hint of wind playing against her skin. Off in the distance beyond the veil of rain, lightning cracked and arced across the sky, then a second flash brough the night to light, the backyard illuminating and showing as clear as day for the briefest second. The rush of wind and rain just in front of her beyond the bounds of the patio swept across the yard, as if wiping the world clean of the previous day’s atrocities. 

She closed her eyes, holding her breath for a moment as she considered just what she was doing out here. Reflections on the past few days brough her little comfort, from her preparations for the inevitable return to school, the return to normal, and the mounting anxiety as she approached the front doors of Jacemount High. She recalled the way they’d looked at her, as if she weren’t a person but a thing to be avoided and ultimately they weren’t wrong, were they? As with many times in the past she felt the guilt rising in the back of her conciousness. The memory of that night, the decision that had brought her to this very point; the point where she and Megan, her friend since childhood had parted ways. With her eyes closed, she screamed into the wind, curses and primal screams issued and immediately swept away by roaring wind. Her chest expanded and contracted, her fingers curled into fists, knuckles pale as circulation stopped. Another scream, then another, then another. Then nothing.

The wind stopped, the rain came to a halt, and the world around her changed as she stood there with her eyes squeezed shut. Her body trembled as she tried to work up the courage to open them and face the world, and when she did, a small gasp escaped her lips. She was no longer standing on the back deck and no longer felt the crushing force of rain on the awning above. When next she opened her eyes she stood dead center of a two-lane road shining with a mixture of drying rainwater and the reflection of moonlight. The unmistakable scent of petrichor filled her nostrils as her eyes traveled from left to right, seeking some sort of explanation.

On either side of her, tall trees intertwined with thicket, and for the first time she noticed that the sky had a red hue about it. The air here was still, yet suffocating. Dead silence lay over the stretch of seemingly endless road save for the the sound of an idling car in the distance. She frowned and squinted, trying to make out the shape of a car just down the road. She stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, wincing as her bare feet pressed against a sharp rock in the middle of the road. As she lifted her foot and proceeded to hop for a short distance. Just as she placed her foot back down, on the asphalt, she nearly leapt from her skin as a doe, spotted with blood spray darted toward the center of the road perhaps six feet in front of her. It stopped in front of her; Genna held her breath as it still, bathed in the luminescence of the car’s fresnel lighting, flickering off and on almost indistinctly in cadence with the vehicle’s failing electrical system.

The deer flicked its eyes and then turned its head in Genna’s direction, staring down the road as if looking through her before finally moving to the other side of the road. Genna was left there her face dimly illuminated by the flickering headlamps as she gathered her courage and began to walk forward. The sound of the idling engine grew increasingly louder, each raise in the decibel range punctuating her footsteps as she took in the sight of what had once been a blue Mercury Milan, its hood now entwined with a telephone pole, cracked at the base and leaning, kept barely upright by the tension of electrical lines high above. Smoke poured from the hood of the car, and as she tried desperately to see through the windshield, her view was obscured by spider-webbed safety glass and a translucent red stain spattered across the inside. 

“I know this,” She said aloud, her voice nearly caught in her throat as she recognized the blue Milan she’d been driving that night. This dream, this stupid dream. It felt so real! The dream was frustrating, it felt so real at first, but she could always tell, and that in itself was never enough to escape it. She broke into a run, bolting toward the car, her fists tight in frustration as the driver’s side of the car came near. Her bare feet smacked against the blacktop, her hair trailed softly behind her as dead air rushed past her cheeks. Then, as always, the car faded, dissolving into a stream of particles that trailed off down the road, and then the rest of the scene followed suit. The car, the trees, the road, all of it twisting and scattering, a load roar accompanying the cascade of particles, as it always did, signaling the end of the dream as she stood there in the forming void, bathed in a blood-red hue. As always, she screamed, loudly. Her mouth wide, a cry of frustration distorted and then dissolved on the waves of the vanishing dream. And then, for the briefest of moments, she remembered. 

She sat bolt upright in her bed, a scratchy breath inhaled through her dry throat, her hands gripping the silky sheets as she tensed her body and then leaned forward, aching to escape, but to where? The urge to flee was not one that could be satisfied by running or hiding; it was a compulsion to escape her own body, to flee from this existence, and she had no idea how to achieve it. Finally recovering, she threw back the blankets and stepped onto the radiant-heated floor, her heart beating and an unshakable sickness in the pit of her stomach. Outside, the storm still raged as she crossed the room and stepped out onto the landing. 

After a quick walk through the dimly-lit upper floor, she stood in the second floor bathroom, her tired gaze fixed on her reflection in the mirror. She leaned forward, hands flat against the composite wood vanity, just beside a porcelain vessel sink. Her hair hung loosely about her shoulders, some of it clumped and matted; the feeling of sweat on her back partially dominated her awareness as the cotton t-shirt stuck to her skin. As she examined her face in the mirror she could see dark circles forming beneath her eyes and a redness manifesting near her corneas, prompting her to ball her fists and rub, as if that would alleviate the growing irritation. Sighing, she clutched the nickel-plated handle and twisted it toward her; cold water burst forth from the faucet, splashing against the bowl, stray drops pelting her t-shirt. 

“The fuck is wrong with you,” She muttered to her reflection as she waited for the bowl to fill. It didn’t answer, of course. She contemplated turning the light on, but opted to wash her face in the waning moonlight instead. The surface of the water nearly reached the rim of the bowl, crystalline liquid, immediately rippled as she slipped her fingers beneath the surface, cupping her hands and bringing them to her face. She was momentarily blinded and relieved as cool water splashed against her face, tripping down her chin and soothing the irritation for the briefest of moments. She did it again, another handful brought to her eyes, and she began to rub them while resisting the urge to simply dunk her head in the vessel. Finally, she gave in and placed her palms, sopping wet against the vanity. She leaned forward, resting her weight against her elbows and plunged her head beneath the surface, letting out a sigh of relief as the cold water flooded across her face, killing the irritation and flooding into her ears. 

She held herself down, allowing the water to envelop her, to drown out the world around her. It was cool, it was soothing, and now, all she could hear, was the deafening roar of water.

How long could she stay down here? How long could a person survive without oxygen? Two minutes? Three? Four? A part of her desperately wanted to try and find out, and other part of her wanted to wait until that impending deadline, and then take it a minute further, then another, then another, until finally…

She broke the surface, pulling herself from the water and letting out a garbled gasp as she immediately brought her hands to her face, then to the top of her head. Finally, she opened her eyes and emitted another gasp, this time freezing in utter disbelief as she observed herself in the mirror. There, just for a moment, she saw a figure standing behind her. Slender, long hair, partially enveloped in shadow but she’d know that face anywhere.

“Megan?” She asked the mirror, her voice barely a whimper. The form remained silent and rigid as Genna stared at it, unable to break eye contact and terrified to turn. The hair on the back of her neck took on a life of its own and a chill formed on her skin as her own tiny form began to shake. The face in the mirror, just behind her became clear; it was Megan, her right eye was red with blood, the upper half of her face deformed as if it had been sliced with a knife. Genna breathed heavily as the full countenance of her best friend came fully into view. Standing, starting, unmoving, unfeeling. Mutilated. “Megan?” She said it again, her voice reduced to a squeak as she tried to summon the courage to turn. No, maybe if she blinked it would go away. She was seeing things, she had to be seeing things! Mr. Linn had told her there would be after-effects. PTSD, all sorts of things. Yeah, that’s what this was, a hallucination.

She squeezed her eyes shut and counted. One, two… As she did, she dreaded the thought of opening her eyes; where would the ‘girl’ be once she did? Still behind her? Would it move closer? What if it was sneaking up behind her right now? 

“Ms. Alvord?” 

Who was that? She balked at the sound of an unfamiliar male voice, no wait, it was familiar. Where had she heard it before? 

“Ms. Alvord, are you okay?”

‘That’s me’, She thought to herself. ‘Genna Alvord. My name is Genna Alvord.’

“Genna?”

‘Genna. Genna. Genna. Come on. Genna. That’s me. GENNA.”

She opened her eyes gradually and found her forehead resting against her folded arms, a wood surface beneath her. The hiss of air conditioning, a numbness in her fingertips. She slowly raised her hear head, briefly acknowledging a budding pain forming in the bag of her skull. 

The voice was coming from Mr. McGinnis, her second period teacher. It was all coming back to her now; getting up in the morning, getting showered, leaving for school. First period, and now second period. The day came back to her like liquid poured through a sieve, those experiences replacing the dream and giving her a sense of displacement as she returned to reality. She looked around the classroom, numb as the other student stared at her, each one ignorant of the horrors she’d just experienced but even for her, the memory of the dream was beginning to fade. The details of her dream, traumatizing in the moment suddenly became insignificant as she rubbed her eyes unsuccessfully tried to suppress a yawn.

“Ms. Alvord,” Mr. McGinnis said. “I know you’ve had a rough year, but are you getting enough sleep at night?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Genna nodded, eliciting a chorus of muted giggles from the students around her. 

“Well then,” Mr. McGinnis said, stepping back toward the front of the room. “Despite the dry nature of my curriculum, I’d like for you to at least try to stay awake in my class.”

“Right,” She nodded. “Right. Sorry.” 

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