Paradise Falls (Paradise Falls #1-5)(16)

“What gave you such a fright?”

“I had a nightmare, that’s all. I’m sorry I woke you.”

Mrs. Carmody shook her head slightly, as if shaking it too hard might send it rolling off her neck. “Don’t you worry about that. You didn’t wake me. I’m too old to sleep. That wasn’t just a nightmare, girl.”

“I dreamed about the bridge,” she said.

“Oh.” Mrs. Carmody nodded heavily with a sad, knowing smile.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jennifer said, taking a sip of cocoa. “It happens now and then. It’s just a dream.”

“I’d say it isn’t.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “It’s normal to have bad dreams.”

Is it normal to wake up on the floor? Is it normal to scream in your sleep?

Jennifer brushed her hair back over her shoulder. The old woman looked at her patiently, as if there were something obvious she wasn’t seeing. Jennifer looked down.

“When are you going to stop wearing that?”

Jennifer drew her ring to her chest. “It’s mine.”

“That boy wouldn’t want you to live like this, child.”

“I’m not a child,” she said sharply.

Mrs. Carmody leaned forward.

Jennifer tried not to scowl.

“I was ten years old before my family owned a radio. I remember sitting right there in front of it when we heard that Pearl had been attacked. That radio sat there all through the war. Used to sit around it and listen and wonder where my brother and uncle were. One came back with one leg. The other didn’t come back at all. My uncle had six children, and them and his wife moved in here, with us.

“That radio broke and we bought another, then one after that. I remember when we first got television. We had one channel, but that was enough. Never thought I’d watch a man walk on the moon.

“My uncle’s children are all gone now. If they were here they’d have grandchildren older than you. I lived my life tucked up in this old house, I don’t want to see you do the same, you hear?”

Jennifer frowned. “I… I don’t know. I…”

She downed the rest of the cocoa with a gulp, not caring that it was too hot. Mrs. Carmody took the cup, hobbled to the sink, and rinsed it out under the faucet.

“Your boy Franklin wouldn’t have wanted it either. He was a sweet boy. Not like them other ones.”

“Thank you for the cocoa,” Jennifer said, her voice hollow and flat.

Mrs. Carmody touched her shoulder at the door. “Now you get to bed. School’s early.”

Jennifer bolted her own door as soon as she was inside, and headed up the stairs. The bed was a mess of sheets damp with sweat that would take time to dry. She gathered up sheets and pillows, then carried it all downstairs before falling asleep on the couch.

Her alarm went off at five. A quick shower and breakfast later, she was on her bike with her jacket folded up in the basket over the rear fender and her messenger bag lashed to her back. Today the school did not look like a fortress. It looked like a prison, but at least it was safe. Between her door and the school was no-man’s land.

“Hey, Jenn,” Lisa the secretary said, looking up from her papers. “You get home okay? It was a hell of a storm.”

“Yeah, I got a ride,” she said, absently.

“Rachel?”

“No, Jac-“ she shook her head, “Mr. Kane. The new math teacher.”

Lisa nodded slowly, and smiled.

Jennifer stormed out of the office, scowling. Why was her personal life everyone’s business?

It was early yet. The door to Jacob’s classroom was lit from within, casting wavy light on the lockers opposite. She opened her door, dropped her bag on her desk, and strode across the hall. His door was unlocked, but she knocked anyway.

“Come in.”

She swung the door open. His classroom smelled of dry-erase markers, that ugly rubbery smell an overheating computer makes, and an undercurrent of cologne. The school-issue printer was chugging out his assignments for the day. He looked up from his computer and sat back in his seat.

“Good morning,” she said.

He turned. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

She rubbed her arm.

Say something. You're acting like a fourteen year old.

He stood and leaned on his desk. “You still look a little shaken up.”

Sighing, she looked up. “I… I had a nightmare last night.”

Why did she tell him that?

“Ah.” He looked off, away from her. “I get those too.”

He did? Why? Oh.

She yawned. “You’re up awfully early. It’s not even six thirty.”

“I do most of my prep work in the morning.”

She shrugged. “That might not be a good idea. You have a first block class.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Jennifer shifted from foot to foot, like a nervous teenager. “They’re not so bad. I mean they are, but they’re not malicious, they’re just teenagers. We were all that age once, too.”

Stop dancing around it and ask him.

There was something questioning in his look, and Jennifer’s cheeks heated. Her braid slipped over her shoulder, and she absently played with it.