So yeah, a nightmare.
Only I don’t remember falling asleep and I don’t think he ever talks in my nightmares. He’s too busy shooting me condescending and hateful glares.
But he’s talking now.
His lips are moving and oh my God, this is not a nightmare at all. This is worse. This is reality.
He is here.
Here.
Outside of my bedroom window.
“Open the window.”
I shudder at his words. At his gravelly and deep voice, now that I can hear it.
Squinting at his crouched form, I try to speak. “What the…”
“Open the window.”
“What?”
Finally he seems to be getting to the end of his patience with me and that stubbled jaw of his clenches. “Open the fucking window.”
“How did you…” I shake my head. “What are you doing out there?”
“Trying to get you to open this fucking window.”
“Why… I don’t…” I shake my head again and breathe deep. “Why didn’t you use the front door?”
I don’t think that’s the right question, given how absurd and bizarre this is.
Him, outside my window. Him,on a branch of that treeoutside my window.
“How did you even get up there?” I ask then, without giving him the chance to answer.
He shoots me a look. “How do you think? I climbed.”
“Youclimbed?”
His jaw clenches again. And that’s the extent of his response.
“But it’s a tree,” I add.
“Hence theclimbing.” Then, “Unless you think I’ve got magical powers and I can fly, that’s pretty much what you do with a fucking tree. Youclimbit.”
Okay, not two minutes,not two freaking minutes, into this conversation and I want to strangle him.
“You’re such a —”
“And you really think your parents would’ve let me in? If I had knocked at your front door.”
No, not at all.
I don’t think my parents would’ve let him in.
They’re both downstairs right now, watching TV, winding down for the night after a long day of work in his family’s employ. If their boss’s second son had showed up at the door, they would’ve freaked out and slammed it in his face. Because my parents are the best and they know everything, all the rumors about him and about how he’s treated me all these years. Which means they would’ve sent him away and given him a piece of their minds.