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COLBY DIDN'T sleep much for the rest of the night, the nightmare replaying every time she closed her eyes. If she wasn't so shaken up, she would have asked Diego to stay with her, but by the time she snapped herself out of her daze long enough to form a coherent thought, it was too late. After finally falling asleep at about five, Colby was exhausted when Claire shook her awake at ten.
"I'm surprised to see you still sleeping. Usually you're gone by now." Claire said with a small laugh. Colby sighed softly, rubbing at her eyes tiredly.
"I didn't sleep much last night." She admitted, sitting up to lean against the headboard. Claire frowned, placing her cup of coffee on the nightstand by Colby's bed.
"Bad dreams?" Claire asked, pressing a hand against Colby's forehead, checking just to make sure she wasn't sick. Colby shrugged, not able to meet her aunt's eyes.
"Yeah, something like that." Colby said flippantly. Claire sighed, running a hand through her messy, long brown hair. Claire Scott was young, only 34 years old, and a nurse who often worked night shifts. Claire had put everything on pause to help raise Colby with her sister, Colby's mother. Claire tried her best to be there for Colby, and she knew it. "I'm just gonna go shower and maybe clean around the apartment today." Colby said, finally standing from the bed. Claire nodded, pressing a kiss to Colby's forehead before leaving the room, purposely leaving the coffee there for Colby.
-•-•-
The shower did not help Colby clear her mind, and cleaning the apartment did nothing to help her either. She spent the entirety of her morning tidying things up, but she still couldn't get the dream out of her mind. Colby had never experienced anything like it before - the way it all came into focus, feeling too real, like she was actually there. She could feel the cold stone of the street beneath her bare feet, could clearly hear the two voices as they snapped at each other. She'd had plenty of nightmares before, but none were ever like this.
Huffing in defeat, Colby grabbed her messenger bag, before kissing Claire on the cheek as she got ready to leave for work. She quickly made her way out of the apartment building, making her way down the street, retracting the exact steps she took the night before. Wandering back into Rousseau's, Colby found her way over to the bar where Camille was working. Colby gave a small smile to a man in a suit as she took the seat next to him, leaving an open barstool between them. Camille gestured for her to hold on a moment, before she ducked back behind the bar for a few seconds. When she reappeared, she had a glass of chocolate milk in her hand, setting it down in front of Colby.
"I missed you this morning! Everything alright?" Camille asked, looking Colby over to see if she could detect any glaring problems right away. Colby shrugged, drinking some of her chocolate milk through a bright green bendy straw in the glass.
"I didn't sleep very well last night, so I overslept this morning." Colby explained, and while it wasn't a complete lie, it also wasn't the entire truth. Camille nodded, frowning slightly. There were nights when Colby stayed up all night drawing, or reading, and still came in the next morning at the same time - this was strange for her, but Camille dropped it, turning to the man in the suit.
