Day One Writing
Daily Word Count: 1165
Total Word Count: 1165
Days Left: 28
My eyes were tightly clenched around the edges of the too-familiar nightmare. It was old hat by now, something that happened every night before the first day of school - I'd pretty much stopped trying to circumvent it by now. Chamomile tea, journaling, and deep breathing had all failed consistently over the years as preventive measures. Complete preparation only seemed to make it worse, as if my subconscious didn't believe my mind hadn't lulled me into a false sense of security. Normal people would call this a problem. Me? Well, to tell the truth, if this was the strangest thing my subconscious chose to do, I would throw a parade. As it stood, all I was doing was trying my hardest to keep from waking up completely.
I knew I wasn't late. I even knew, rationally speaking, that my head wasn't pounding and my throat wasn't swelled shut, so the sudden illness that had kept me locked under my bedcovers couldn't possibly have carried over from the dream. That didn't change the sick feeling that kept me hovering at the boundary between consciousness and sleep, though; even the tiniest of chances that I had overslept, had missed the bus, had made myself unforgivably late for school - might not get there period - was sending my brain into overload. Of course the only thing to do was impersonate a five-year-old. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
The shrill blare of my alarm clock nearly made me jump out of my skin. I hated that machine with a violent passion, but it was the only way I had found so far to make myself wake up to a ready-made anxiety attack, which, generally speaking, was also the only way I wouldn't spend the next two hours hiding under my comforter and debating the merits of conveniently “forgetting” it wasn't still the weekend. Sitting straight up in bed, I instinctively reached out and hit the snooze button as hard as I could. My eyes scanned the room bewilderedly for a few seconds as I tried not to hyperventilate, but soon enough they fell on the uniform hanging from my bedroom door. This was exactly the push I needed to forget my blind panic and start organizing a mental to-do list.
School mornings for me resembled an experience most other people could only connect to fire drills. From the moment I woke, everything was organized in ten-minute segments: shower, dressing and making myself a sight that wouldn't have children running away in terror, breakfast, and last-minute organization. There's a common misconception that all anal retentive types can put their lives into order effortlessly; my only answer to that is it's obvious no one thought to tell God that when he was putting together my genetic coding. On a good day, I run back into the house at least five times to get something I've forgotten. And if I don't spend at least forty-five minutes before bed getting things together? Forget it - the morning is a lost cause before it's had a chance to start.
The door bounced against the hollow wall of my bedroom with a sickening crash as I raced across the hall. I looked up, only for a moment, and immediately regretted it.
Him.
“There's my favorite bat out of hell!” He smiled cheerily, too excited to pull off smugness or even any cheek. “Another nightmare?”
I chose not to dignify that with a response past rolling my eyes. After yanking the bathroom door open and remembering I needed towels, I came back out into the hall to find him still standing in the place I'd left him. “Stay here,” I ordered, not in the mood for his sick idea of a practical joke or an early-morning heart-to-heart over the sink. Towels in hand, I slipped past him and shut the door firmly behind me. The lock gave a metallic clink as I switched it into place, and I had to wonder why I still bothered - it was nothing that could keep him out if he was really determined to get in. Still, keeping up the pretense that it could do anything seemed to convince him half the time. It helped that for a stalker, he had a twisted sense of politeness (if, of course, you discounted all the common-sense manners most of us learn at birth).
There was no way I would be done with my shower before the alarm went off again. Thank God (thank goodness, I mentally corrected myself, too tired to feel guilty about swearing) that I'd set it twenty minutes before my usual school year wake-up time. The cold water, another great but necessary evil, was already losing its shock value by the time I was washing the shampoo out of my hair. I wondered if I had time for conditioner, but decided to pass on it almost immediately; my face was the one part of my daily routine that I really became obsessive compulsive about, and I hadn't even started on it yet. By the time I was done scrubbing it into chronic dryness, the bus would probably be pulling up by the front steps of St. Monica's. Seven minutes later, the ugliness of my alarm muted by but still audible over the squealing pipes, I flicked the faucets off victoriously. I was doing better than I'd expected.
“So I was thinking -”
My hand had been inching toward the hook holding my towels, but at the sound of voice it fisted and swung out crazily, almost as useless as the shriek that popped out of my mouth.
“I told you not to come in here!” I hissed, withdrawing my arm and fuming.
“Oh, yeah...” He trailed off in embarrassment. My father's concerned call up the stairs sounded into the tense silence and I gritted my teeth.
“I'm fine, dad!”
“I'm really sorry. I honestly didn't remember.”
“Of course you didn't.” A high-pitched giggle was bleeding into my voice, and I did my best to stifle it. “You must have thought I begged you to join me while I was in the bathroom, naked, on the first day of school, right?”
“You don't have to get all accusing about it! I just wanted to talk,” he sulked. His so-called explanation shed light on so many issues I honestly didn't know where to start.
“Get out. Now.” I waited a beat, even though I knew, the same as I always did, when he was no longer in the room. A cursory peek through the shower curtain proved it. My temper was hardly at the boiling point - if I got angry every time he did something I'd specifically asked him not to, I'd have been doped up on sedatives before my fifteenth birthday - but I was feeling more anxious by the moment. I really hadn't factored that little spat into the schedule. How could I have fallen so far behind? It wasn't even six A.M. yet.
Total Word Count: 1165
Days Left: 28
My eyes were tightly clenched around the edges of the too-familiar nightmare. It was old hat by now, something that happened every night before the first day of school - I'd pretty much stopped trying to circumvent it by now. Chamomile tea, journaling, and deep breathing had all failed consistently over the years as preventive measures. Complete preparation only seemed to make it worse, as if my subconscious didn't believe my mind hadn't lulled me into a false sense of security. Normal people would call this a problem. Me? Well, to tell the truth, if this was the strangest thing my subconscious chose to do, I would throw a parade. As it stood, all I was doing was trying my hardest to keep from waking up completely.
I knew I wasn't late. I even knew, rationally speaking, that my head wasn't pounding and my throat wasn't swelled shut, so the sudden illness that had kept me locked under my bedcovers couldn't possibly have carried over from the dream. That didn't change the sick feeling that kept me hovering at the boundary between consciousness and sleep, though; even the tiniest of chances that I had overslept, had missed the bus, had made myself unforgivably late for school - might not get there period - was sending my brain into overload. Of course the only thing to do was impersonate a five-year-old. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
The shrill blare of my alarm clock nearly made me jump out of my skin. I hated that machine with a violent passion, but it was the only way I had found so far to make myself wake up to a ready-made anxiety attack, which, generally speaking, was also the only way I wouldn't spend the next two hours hiding under my comforter and debating the merits of conveniently “forgetting” it wasn't still the weekend. Sitting straight up in bed, I instinctively reached out and hit the snooze button as hard as I could. My eyes scanned the room bewilderedly for a few seconds as I tried not to hyperventilate, but soon enough they fell on the uniform hanging from my bedroom door. This was exactly the push I needed to forget my blind panic and start organizing a mental to-do list.
School mornings for me resembled an experience most other people could only connect to fire drills. From the moment I woke, everything was organized in ten-minute segments: shower, dressing and making myself a sight that wouldn't have children running away in terror, breakfast, and last-minute organization. There's a common misconception that all anal retentive types can put their lives into order effortlessly; my only answer to that is it's obvious no one thought to tell God that when he was putting together my genetic coding. On a good day, I run back into the house at least five times to get something I've forgotten. And if I don't spend at least forty-five minutes before bed getting things together? Forget it - the morning is a lost cause before it's had a chance to start.
The door bounced against the hollow wall of my bedroom with a sickening crash as I raced across the hall. I looked up, only for a moment, and immediately regretted it.
Him.
“There's my favorite bat out of hell!” He smiled cheerily, too excited to pull off smugness or even any cheek. “Another nightmare?”
I chose not to dignify that with a response past rolling my eyes. After yanking the bathroom door open and remembering I needed towels, I came back out into the hall to find him still standing in the place I'd left him. “Stay here,” I ordered, not in the mood for his sick idea of a practical joke or an early-morning heart-to-heart over the sink. Towels in hand, I slipped past him and shut the door firmly behind me. The lock gave a metallic clink as I switched it into place, and I had to wonder why I still bothered - it was nothing that could keep him out if he was really determined to get in. Still, keeping up the pretense that it could do anything seemed to convince him half the time. It helped that for a stalker, he had a twisted sense of politeness (if, of course, you discounted all the common-sense manners most of us learn at birth).
There was no way I would be done with my shower before the alarm went off again. Thank God (thank goodness, I mentally corrected myself, too tired to feel guilty about swearing) that I'd set it twenty minutes before my usual school year wake-up time. The cold water, another great but necessary evil, was already losing its shock value by the time I was washing the shampoo out of my hair. I wondered if I had time for conditioner, but decided to pass on it almost immediately; my face was the one part of my daily routine that I really became obsessive compulsive about, and I hadn't even started on it yet. By the time I was done scrubbing it into chronic dryness, the bus would probably be pulling up by the front steps of St. Monica's. Seven minutes later, the ugliness of my alarm muted by but still audible over the squealing pipes, I flicked the faucets off victoriously. I was doing better than I'd expected.
“So I was thinking -”
My hand had been inching toward the hook holding my towels, but at the sound of voice it fisted and swung out crazily, almost as useless as the shriek that popped out of my mouth.
“I told you not to come in here!” I hissed, withdrawing my arm and fuming.
“Oh, yeah...” He trailed off in embarrassment. My father's concerned call up the stairs sounded into the tense silence and I gritted my teeth.
“I'm fine, dad!”
“I'm really sorry. I honestly didn't remember.”
“Of course you didn't.” A high-pitched giggle was bleeding into my voice, and I did my best to stifle it. “You must have thought I begged you to join me while I was in the bathroom, naked, on the first day of school, right?”
“You don't have to get all accusing about it! I just wanted to talk,” he sulked. His so-called explanation shed light on so many issues I honestly didn't know where to start.
“Get out. Now.” I waited a beat, even though I knew, the same as I always did, when he was no longer in the room. A cursory peek through the shower curtain proved it. My temper was hardly at the boiling point - if I got angry every time he did something I'd specifically asked him not to, I'd have been doped up on sedatives before my fifteenth birthday - but I was feeling more anxious by the moment. I really hadn't factored that little spat into the schedule. How could I have fallen so far behind? It wasn't even six A.M. yet.