Epilogue
Hayden
I haven’t been home in two weeks.
I haven't eaten.
I haven't showered.
I haven’t lived.
The truth is, this is harder than I imagined. When my mom died, nightmares would wake me in a deep sweat, where my heart beat so hard it felt like it was trying to outrun the darkness.
Death.
In every dream, I’m never fast enough. I watch as death feasts on my mother, laughing and taunting me.
The harder I try, the louder the beat of my heart grows.
The more I beg, the slower she dies. I wake up screaming, lost in a nightmare.
However, it’s only when I wake that I realize the nightmare isn’t the worst of it; my reality is.
Both my parents are dead, and I’ve never felt more alone.
Since my father died, my dreams are back, and now instead of saving one parent, I have to save them both, and if I don’t, I watch them die all over again, both right there, within reach but so far away.
Running led me here to this bar, where I’ve made this seat mine, where the alcohol has been my escape from a reality that is nothing but darkness, an escape from the nightmares that wage war on my mind.
I’m running from myself, and in the process, I have run from every person I loved, including her.