My Dream Lover

ELISE The wooden door of my small room slammed against the wall with a loud sound. The force of it was so hard that part of the frame broke. The first thing I smelled when I opened my eyes was rotten water, a mixture of rotten vegetables, old grease and whatever is in there. Before I could even figure out what was happening, she emptied it all on me. I choked, gasping for air as filthy liquid drenched me head to toe, soaking through my clothes, and flooded on my small bed. Stinging debris burned my eyes. Slime dripped down my nose and stuck to my hair. "Get up, you useless, ungrateful leech!" Aunt Rose towered over the bed, her face twisted with disgust, her knuckles white around the handle of a dripping, rusted metal bucket. "A-Aunt Rose—" I sputtered, coughing as the foul water seeped into my mouth. "Don't you dare speak to me!" she shrieked, shoving the rim of the bucket brutally against my collarbone. "You lie up here sleeping like a princess while my daughter sits downstairs waiting!” “Chloe needs her breakfast now! If you take more than two minutes to scrub this filth off yourself, I swear to God I’ll double the interest on your useless parents' debt tonight!" “I—I’m getting up,” I forced out, voice small. “Then move!” She slammed the empty bucket down so hard the handle shifted. “And clean this mess before you set foot in my kitchen, or so help me—” She didn’t finish. She turned and stomped back down the stairs, leaving the door wide open. I was dripping, freezing and shaking with a rage I had to force deep into my chest. I wiped the slimy particles from my eyes, my breath coming in shallow gasps. The lingering warmth of his hand was completely gone, washed away by the foul stench of the reality I woke up to. I sat there for a moment, staring at the doorway. My hands curled into fists. Four years. I had lived in this house for four good years, and somehow every morning still found a new way to remind me that I didn’t belong here. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I don’t feel safe in this house. Every new day scares me. I have to find a way to escape this hell. The only place I ever feel safe is in my sleep. That probably sounds strange. Most people fight their way out of dreams, desperate to wake. I fight to remain there and never to wake. Because when I sleep, I see him. I have dreamed about him since I was back home in Lyon. The dreams started on my nineteenth birthday. I thought the dreams would die with the life I left behind. They didn’t. Night after night he was still there, waiting in that beautiful garden. Somewhere along the way the dreams became the only thing that kept me breathing. I still don’t know his name. I have never asked. I fear that if I ask, he might get angry and disappear. And I can’t lose him. Not when he is the only person who makes me feel loved. Even if he isn’t real. Then I stood up from the bed, peeled the dripping nightgown off my skin, and began to move. I hurried downstairs. Chloe was already sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through her phone. She glanced at me and immediately laughed that her devilish laughter. “Mom really poured that water on you?” I didn’t answer her.. She laughed like the little witch that she was. “You smell terrible.” She mocked. I walked past her and reached for the eggs. “Hurry up and make my breakfast,” she said. I ignored her still. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept cooking. I had learned that surviving this house required silence. — The rest of the day was a nightmare. I spent hours on my hands and knees scrubbing grease off the kitchen floor, carrying heavy loads of laundry until my fingers were sore and bleeding. And through it all, I had to listen to every cruel word Aunt Rose and Chloe threw at me. The day flew by, and by the time I finished all my chores, my entire body ached and my head was pounding. I felt so weak that even standing felt like a struggle. They had pushed me to the absolute limit of human endurance, working me like an animal until my muscles were weak with exhaustion. Tonight I climbed the narrow stairs back to my room the moment the last dish was stacked. Calling it a room is generous. It is a narrow space hidden beneath the roof, where the Whitmores once stored old towels and torn sheets before they decided I could sleep there instead. With a tiny window that breeze hardly enter. Barely enough space to turn without hitting my elbow against the wall. But it is mine, and it is quiet, and after years of living in this house, my room is the only quiet place that gives me peace. Despite the fact that I have lived in Kingswell for some years now, the kingdom still feels like a foreign country. Sometimes when voices rise downstairs I catch myself listening to them, expecting to hear French, or my mother’s laugh, or for the smell of freshly baked bread that oozes out of the bakery. I miss a life that no longer belongs to me. I did not eat dinner. Aunt Rose said I had not finished the laundry quickly enough, so the meal was “not earned.” I did not argue. Arguing only teaches her new ways to hurt me. I didn't even have the energy to change out of my stained, damp clothes. My body collapsed onto the thing I called bed like a log. The thin mattress felt like concrete against my tired body, but I was too weak to move, too spent to even weep. I closed my heavy, burning eyes, as the darkness swallowed me. Just let me sleep, I pleaded to whoever is listening, praying my battered body would hold out long enough to cross over. Please... just let me go back to him.