So when he left me there I panicked – I didn’t tell him, of course.

He was just there for me, always, and I had grown to rely on that, almost depend on it.

Nor was my dad overbearing and overprotective. I probably sound like I was a clingy, annoying child, but honestly I wasn’t. I was so used to having my father around that I almost felt like I couldn’t… be safe without him. My father had dropped me off at my ballet lesson, in the gymnasium at the elementary school, and I remember being nervous because this was the first time he wouldn’t be there with me. The first time it happened, I was seven years old. Maybe something will finally fall into place, make the whole puzzle complete and solved, the mystery gone. Maybe if I lay it all out and work over the details, something will eventually stand out to me. I guess I’m not being very clear, am I? Look, I don’t understand it any easier than someone else, and I tried explaining that to the shrinks, to my father, but no one seems to really get it. Some girls get cramps and bloating, I get nightmare realities.

And it always happened again, like clockwork – well, more like my period, because for some reason it happens more frequently around the time Aunt Flo comes to visit. I refused to get in the car with him, I’d leave the apartment for a while, ignore his calls, crash at my friend Katy’s place for a few hours until I was sure he’d let the issue drop until another time, until it happened again. I couldn’t stand the idea of being some sick investment for one of these jerks, so I fought it tooth and nail. They’re just looking for an increase in their paycheck. I don’t like the idea of them, because to me all it seems like they’re interested in is dishing out meds like candy and not caring about the person behind the problems. I didn’t see what good a shrink would do, and I told him that. I don’t know how I’d handle it if my daughter… I used to be angry about how he’d react, but now I just feel terrible, like I could stop it if I wanted to, but I keep pushing it, testing his patience. It scared him just as badly as it did me, which only made me feel… guilty, like I was somehow to blame for it all. I used that line on my dad when he had the last straw of it, of me disappearing, and reappearing, and told me he was taking me to a shrink. How can I even begin to explain it to them? Or to anyone. I wouldn’t dare tell any of my friends about this kind of stuff, they’d just think I was nuts – though it is kind of hard to hide it when it happens, when they ask me where I disappeared to and why I look like I’ve just had the bejeezus scared outta me. They’re not the kind of crap you want to keep down in a dream journal, okay? Not something you’d share with, well, anybody. I can tell a dream from reality – once the dream is over, and thank god it does because half the ones I’ve had aren’t exactly light and fluffy. For instance, I don’t think narcoleptics wake up not remembering how they got there, or find themselves trapped in one of their dreams.ĭon’t worry, I’m not crazy. That makes me sound narcoleptic or something weird like that, but honestly I can’t quite explain it, and I don’t think that’s what it is. I’ve been having some trouble with sleeping lately… the dreaming part, now that’s no problem: I dream all the time, whether I can remember it clearly or not, but lately… the trouble is how often it happens.

Flip trickster unblocked