Freefall

First Chapter

"Honey? Honey!"

The voice had a soothing sound to it, but the grating tinge of worry broke into my world.

With a sigh, I forced myself to enter the world of the awake. I wanted to sleep. I needed to sleep. However, I couldn't explain the recurring nightmare that only affected me when I tried to sleep at night. I couldn't explain how suddenly that nightmare had become my reality.

When I finally opened my eyes, I started back with a strangled cry. Less than two feet away, my mother's anxiety-wrinkled face was watching for my every sign of life.

"Mom, I'm okay," I told her for the umpteenth time, running a hand through my straggling hair. As soon as I did, I tried to hide the pain that wracked my body from exerting even that small amount of energy.

As always, her eagle eyes didn't miss a thing. "Oh, honey!" she exclaimed sympathetically, reaching out to smooth my hair.

"Oh, honey!" had been her standby phrase over the last week that I had been in the hospital. It was her way of asking me why I had done this to myself since I wouldn't answer her when she asked the question outright. The problem was that I didn't have an answer. I had no idea why I had done this to myself.

Perhaps I should have made up an answer. After days of being unable, or unwilling, to tell my family and the doctors my reasoning for trying to kill myself, I had been assigned a psychiatrist to help me work through my "issues."

I would have willing explained the suicide attempt if I had been able. However, I knew that no one would believe the truth—the fact that I had been dreaming about falling through the air each night for a week before I actually woke up in a hospital one morning with no clue that my dream had turned into reality.

"Mom, really, I'm fine," I tried to insist.

It killed me to see the look of confusion in her eyes, hurt even, at my seeming unwillingness to talk to her. She thought that she deserved an answer, and she did. I just didn't have one to give her.

"You do remember that Lisa is visiting today, don't you?" she asked, trying to distract both of us from the elephant in the room.

I tried not to show my annoyance. "You know I'd prefer it if no one saw me like this."

"Well, you're like this," she said harshly before quickly trying to amend herself. "I just mean, the doctor said that you have to stay here for a couple more weeks so that they can continue to monitor you. You fell off of a twelve story building into concrete. You should be dead!"

"Thanks, Mom," I muttered, turning my face away.

"Honey." She reached out to turn my face back towards her. "You know that I'm so glad that you aren't dead, but the doctors are shocked. And, frankly, so is everyone else. Your sister has a right to see you."

"I know." I sighed.

I wasn't usually so grumpy, but the whole scenario had me on edge. I couldn't stop thinking about my dreams. I was worried that one of these mornings I would wake up to my mother worriedly telling me that I had done it again. Maybe a visit from my sister would help me to forget for a day.

"Is she bringing the boys?"

"Of course, dear, your nephews want to see you too."

For the first time that day, I smiled. Grant and Freddy were one-and-a-half-year-old twins, and I loved when I got the chance to be "Aunt Meg." Neither of them were old enough to say my name yet, but they did their best. Coming from them "Aunt Meg" turned into "Teg."

As silence finally descended over the room, I leaned back against the many pillows on my bed. With nothing left to distract me, my thoughts fell back again to the recent events that had, literally, landed me in this hospital bed.

Closing my eyes, I tried again to rationalize it all. The dreams began one week to the day before my alleged swan dive off the Pierce Building. Other than those dreams, nothing unusual had occurred over the week.

Another week had passed since the fall, and the dreams hadn't gone away. Some nights, I was successful at staying awake. If I took enough naps during the day, I could keep myself awake by reading or watching TV through the night. Except whenever my mother was around she seemed afraid that if I slept during the day, I was going into a coma. Apparently, she didn't understand how "rest and recuperation" worked.

Three days ago, I had been assigned to Dr. Arnold Harris for psychiatric treatment. As much as I insisted that I was a-OK, no one would believe me. Honestly, I knew I probably wouldn't have believed myself, either, but I still wanted to be left alone. Sadly, Dr. Harris wasn't taking that approach. Since I still had a minor concussion, three broken ribs, a fractured wrist, a badly bruised shoulder, and two broken legs, he had come to my room for our first appointment.

First, he had asked simple questions that ranged from "what is your name?" to "what is the last thing you remember before you jumped?" At least the first one I could answer truthfully. The second one gave me pause, though. So I told him that the last thing I remembered was dreaming. He took that to mean that I had been sleepwalking.

That story didn't check out though. My roommate didn't fall asleep until 11:50 p.m., on the dot she insisted, and as of that minute, I had been asleep in bed. Someone else said that they saw me jump at 12:05 a.m.. There's no way I could have made it across campus in fifteen minutes if I was sleepwalking. Sleepwalkers did some pretty crazy things, Dr. Harris told me on our next visit, but that kind of thing was unheard of.

Speaking of crazy things, Dr. Harris was one of them. When I heard the name "Arnold Harris," I expected some sixty-year-old, bald guy. Instead, a twenty-seven-year-old-surfer-wannabe walked into my room and insisted I call him "Elliott" for aforesaid reason—"Arnold" made him sound like a stuffy, old dude. Those where his words.

Needless to say, I called him Elliott.