My name whispered out in despair from someone other than myself. My head whips around, expecting to find my mother or father standing in my doorway. My heart plummets to my feet when I see my door still securely closed.
What the hell?
I start to back up when I hear it again. This time the unknown voice is louder and more forceful.Millie!
My hands slam over my ears as my breathing becomes more labored and erratic.Am I losing my mind?I spin in circles, looking for any possible source of the frantic voice, but I come up empty-handed.
I close my eyes and try to reason with myself.It’s just your imagination, Millie. There’s no one here with you. You’re overly tired and rightfully emotional over the evening. There’s no voice, there’s no one here.
Just as I begin to calm myself down, I hear it again. This time it feels like someone is screaming directly in my ear, the voice fraught with a desperation I’ve never heard before in my life. There’s no mistaking it, no denying its existence. I even feel the puff of air to accompanyMILLIE!
I scream and stumble back, tripping over my own feet as I try to turn and run towards the door. I hit the ground with a loud thump, turning on all fours to try to escape. Just before I reach my door, it bursts open.
“What’s wrong?! What happened?” my father asks frantically. “I heard you scream.”
I scramble to my feet and throw myself into his arms, more shaken up than I’m willing to admit. I still can’t make any sense of what I heard, of what I felt.
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his chest. “What’s wrong?”
“I—” I stutter, unable to give voice to whatever the hell just happened to me because it can’t be real, right? It’s not possible.
“Did you have a nightmare?” he whispers, his hand rubs soothing circles on the back of my neck, replacing the foreign and now very unwelcome sensation from just moments before. I nod and I lean into his touch, a comfort only a father can provide for his daughter. I have no other way to describe what just happened, other than calling it a nightmare because it scared me to my core.
I feel safe and protected, and eventually my heart rate starts to calm. The goosebumps and tingling subside.
But her voice still echoes loudly in my head. Distinctly feminine. I can hear it so clearly now that my brain has had some time to process.
“Let’s get you back to bed.” He gently guides me to the side of my bed and pulls the covers back even more than they were. “It’s just a dream, sweet pea. No reason to be scared.”
I nod, feeling like a child that needs to be tucked in and for her dad to check under the bed for big bad monsters, I don't stop him when he pulls the covers up over my body and tucks them in just like he did when I was little.
I smile weakly when he leans down to give me a kiss on the forehead. “Sleep now, nothing’s going to get you with me here to protect you.”
His words are meant to be a comfort, and they are to a certain extent. I know he has no other reason to believe that it was anything but a nightmare, but I’m worried that it wasn’t just a dream. I’m worried it was real.
My hand reaches up and grazes an area on my cheek, the same spot where I felt breath skate across my skin, when for all intents and purposes I was alone. I can’t explain it, none of it, but I can’t shake the feeling that whatever it was,it was real.
“Sweet dreams.”
“Night,” I whisper. I’m still pretty freaked out, but I’m not brave enough to ask him to stay with me either.
I spend the rest of the night wide awake, staring at my ceiling and replaying that one word—my name—being called out over and over in my head. And no matter how hard I try to come up with an explanation, I can’t.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Millie
Ieventually gave up on sleep finding me and came into the living room and turned the TV on. I’ve been in here since about 3 a.m., watching reruns ofFriendsand Hallmark movies.
“You’re up early.”
I jump at the sound of her voice, letting out a little yelp of surprise. My hand goes to my chest to press against it.Dang, this can’t be good for my heart.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mom’s eyebrows pull together with worry. “You okay?” she asks as she comes around the sofa and sits next to me.
I’m sure I have dark circles under my eyes from pulling an unwanted all-nighter. “Yeah, just tired.”
Her lips pucker before she says, “Your father mentioned something about a nightmare last night, but I didn’t quite catch all the details.”
