I approached my dad who was adjusting all the crap in the trunk of our car to make sure it would close. “Need help?” I initiated the conversation as tamely as I could. “It’s okay. I’m done. Did I wake you up?” His tone was so calm it tipped me off balance. “huh?” He closed the trunk harder than he needed to. “Are you deaf? I said: Did I interrupt your nice little dream? Is that why you hung up on me?” So many questions that needed no answer. “I’m sorry.” What else could I have said? “I’m sorry is all you can say, you useless brat. All you do is sleep. I bust my ass every day and all you do is daydream. It’s like you don’t live in this world anymore.” Empty words, as always. And yet, he made a very good point. It was all just a dream. That was it! I was having a nightmare and I bit my lip in my sleep. My dad’s call woke me up and I hallucinated half asleep. Yeah… That made perfect sense. It was stupid to think a girl I just met would kiss me and then kill herself. It had all just been a very bad dream. Hopefully.

I said good bye to all of my relatives one by one. All of them told me they loved me dearly. Surely, I would see them again soon and we would go through the same horsefeathers of a conversation hoping, yet again, to have a heartsome gathering of loved ones. I was not looking forward to that in the least.

After wrapping up the platitudes and the, also, very traditional prayer before leaving, I hopped in the car and put on my headphones. I was so bent on drowning the sound of my own memories I could not even tell if the music was on. Gazing trough my window something caught my attention from the corner of my eye. On the side view mirror, I saw the face of my sister. She was breathing visibly hard and had red, watery eyes. I turned left to the driver’s seat and I saw my dad’s jaw swinging up and down as he swung his hand from side to side. For some reason, the picture-perfect representation of my routine filled me with rage for the first time in a long time. Why was he always yelling? Why did he need to hurt others to feel satisfied? Did he enjoy making others cry? What kind of sadistic monster could think that emotionally subjugating your family was a good parenting practice?

“Do you hate him?” SHE asked. “Yeah. I do.” I replied, almost instinctively. “Are you going to do something about it?” Came the second question. What could I do?

As if pulled out of a waking dream I realized that the music was still playing loud enough for it to be considered a detriment to my hearing. Where did those questions come from? My dad and my sister where so invested in their ritual of hate that they did not even hear my answer and even if any of them had asked me, I would have not heard them at all. “I’m going crazy.” I said with a mocking tone and a snort. For a few minutes, I pondered upon the questions and where they came from. I realized my snarky remark about my sanity was that of utter anxiety. I had been seriously affected by that nightmare, I rationalized. All I wanted was to get home and get some sleep. I had a big game the next day. I focused on the lyrics of my already familiar playlist of hate and depression and before I knew it, the trip back home was over. Finally, my bed was all that stood between me and the part of the weekend I liked. Game day.

I was there early. Saturdays were normally so important to me that my alarm would never really serve its purpose. The day was perfect in our old high school’s baseball field. A cloudy day with no hopes of rain and a strong wind that would surely make for some interesting plays. I was not very good at batting but what I lacked on cage experience I completely made up for in the pitcher’s mound. I had been my team’s pitcher since we started playing every Saturday. I was still very shocked by what had happened the day before—the dream—but, I decided to not let those things affect me. One by one, my friends showed up and went straight to their team benches. Where were there to win. Friendship would come right after the game. I saw a battered old red Nissan Sentra approaching and I felt a strange mixture of joy and rage.