If you are awake at four in the morning for no particular reason, would you say you’ve had a late night, or an early morning?

Both?

Perhaps.

My point is, that I woke up exhausted, and I cannot find any kind of inner peace that will allow me to go back to sleep.

I’ve been having nightmares, and sometimes, they turn into the worst of terrors. I do not wish to scare you, so I will keep it brief. Murder. Blood. Guts. Corpses. Traitors. At first, I thought I’d gone mad. But even madness has a reason, and if I take the effort to think it through, I suppose these gruesome dreams shouldn’t even surprise me.

Now, before I carry on with my story, I feel I should give you a little bit of context; for without it I fear you may find yourself lost concerning the events that will follow.

When I was seven years old my parents were muted to another country. It’s not a trauma in my mind for I did not care. They had their lives and I had mine. And it’s not like they had abandoned me either – for they wanted me to stay in order to have a better education. This led to me moving in with my cousins. I admit I was used to a big city, so the prospect of a town was a tad less exciting at first, thankfully though; I was the type to adapt and learn lessons in the process instead of sinking when subject to change. This was around the time where I met Alec. He’d befriended my eldest cousin who seemed to hold some weird kind of undying love for him. Unfortunately for her, Alec rejected her feelings a few years later. I never really understood why. If you asked me, she talked nicely, and was a very pretty and lovely girl. But I suppose Alec was always stubborn when it came to love, as even after this, whenever girls asked him out; it was always the same response – “Sorry, it won’t be possible.”

And then, at the age of nine, that’s when the bullying began. Contrary to popular beliefs, students aren’t the only ones involved, sometimes it is the teachers — as it was for me. Her offhanded remarks spread quickly, creating a powerful domino effect, amongst the small crowds. After two days had passed, the whole class already hated me; it’s at this moment that I found the book Alec read to me yesterday on my aunt’s porch.

So there I was, surrounded by a bunch of kids my age that hadn’t a clue of who I was, yet were set out to get me. Oh, and if you’re wondering why Alec wasn’t acting like my saviour yet, he was in a different class; and I put off telling him because I didn’t want to burden him with a responsibility that I believed was entirely my own.

Except he found out, because people always talk, and in this case: they talked a lot. I guess you could say he was angry at first, not at me, but at my actions. I remember his words – Why didn’t you tell me? We could have figured something out, Erika! Don’t you trust me?

I do trust you, I had wanted to say, but the words came out as tears and apologies, as we had our first fight behind the school’s main building.

Once Alec had calmed down though, he wasn’t so mad anymore, mostly down. He asked me questions, he wondered why I had chosen to go through this alone, I told him I didn’t need a shoulder to lean on and that I could handle it on my own. “I’m not weak, Alec,” I’d said.

He parted his lips. His hands were trembling. I could tell he was trying to shape words, and yet, no sounds were coming. Eventually, he gave up, and approached my trembling body with his own. Alec put his arms around me. He embraced me. He said, “Okay. But remember that I’m here. If you need me, I’ll always be here.”

Then, he walked away.

That was the last time I ever saw him mad at another.