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Heather woke up screaming.
There was a moment of sheer blind panic— where am I this isn't my room what's going on—before she clamped down on her emotions and bit her palm to muffle her cries.
It's okay, she thought. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine... She was trying to convince herself more than anything else.
Heather forced her breathing to slow, and blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. This was her room; it had been her room for almost two weeks now. She had fallen asleep on this bed—no one had moved her in the middle of the night. And when she got up and walked out the door, the most frightening thing she was going to see was Douglas without his morning coffee.
She was safe.
Heather groaned and rubbed at her eyes. The clock on her desk read five-thirty in the morning. She should probably try to get some more sleep, but she really didn't feel like it right now.
Her heart was still pounding rabbit-fast, but that was hardly anything new at this point; it wasn't even the first time this night she'd woken up in a panic. At first, Douglas had run to her side every time she'd woken up screaming, ready with a glass of water and his solid, comforting presence. She'd eventually asked him to stop, though, as much for her sake as his. It was humiliating for her to be seen like this
She hated the fear that rose up and threatened to overwhelm her every time her conscious mind wasn't there to stamp it back down. So many things she'd taken for granted were suddenly terrifying to her: mirrors, stuffed rabbits, her own need for rest. She didn't want to be reminded of it any more than she had to.
Douglas had suggested therapy, but what would she say? Well, I have a feeling my intense phobia of fire comes from the time my psychotic mother tried to burn my previous incarnation to death, and my dislike of children probably has roots in the fact that I murdered my monster-daughter with a katana. Is there a support group for that?
(And anyway, Douglas was a total hypocrite about that sort of thing. He could try to hide the bags under his eyes, but they both knew there was a reason he was able to make it to her room so quickly in the first place.)
Suddenly, there was a soft knock on the bedroom door. Heather tensed, then very deliberately forced herself to relax. There was no one in the apartment who wanted to hurt her—and if there had been, they certainly wouldn't have any reason to knock.
“Hello?” she called softly.
“Heather,” Douglas said. His familiar rasping voice was more of a comfort than she'd care to admit. “Are you coming downstairs?”
Downstairs? Heather frowned. Normally Douglas encouraged her to try and sleep until at least seven-thirty—and then it suddenly hit her just what day it was.
Heather groaned and let her head flop back against her pillow. “Five more minutes?” she asked hopefully. “Or ten, or a hundred, I'm not picky.”
“Heather...” Douglas sighed. “You know I'm not doing this to torment you.”
“I know, I know.” Heather groaned again, though this time it came out more like a snarl. “Just give me a moment to get dressed. I'll be right down.”
She quickly exchanged her pajama pants for a pair of mostly-clean jeans she found crumpled in the corner of her room—laundry was neither of their strong suits. Before she pulled on a shirt, though, she took a moment to press her face against the rust-brown stain splashed across the front of her vest.
She'd had to wash it after... after what had happened. It had reeked of grime and sweat and rot and a hundred other unimaginably disgusting things. But she'd made no particular effort to get the blood out, and so the discoloration had stayed.
She slept in the vest more nights than not, now, and woke up clutching its front when the nightmares were particularly bad. It was something her hypothetical therapist would probably disapprove of. Douglas had never commented, which meant he was better than a therapist in basically every imaginable way.
Heather finally managed to pick out a shirt which was both clean and reasonably presentable, if rather on the ugly side—she had no idea where she'd managed to pick up a shirt with a smiley wearing an eye patch in the first place. She ran a comb though her hair, which these days was more brown then blonde, and yanked her brand-new backpack onto one shoulder.
It was time to face her first day of school.
---
Douglas was waiting for her in the kitchen, standing in front of the stove and looking a little lost.
Heather felt a little lost herself. It was one thing to say that life would go on—it made for very noble-sounding declarations, after all. But actually having to deal with the realities of daily existence after quite literally going through hell... well, that was something entirely different. (And significantly more difficult.)
“Did we run out of coffee grounds again?” Heather asked. “I told you to add it to the shopping list.”
Douglas chuckled. “Nah, nah. I'm pretty sure I've bought enough coffee to last us the next fifty years.”
“At the rate you drink it? There's not enough coffee in the world to last us fifty years.”
“Yeah, well, I'm not a private eye anymore. I have to keep my noir reputation somehow.”
“I'm sure all the ladies at the supermarket find you very mysterious.” Heather giggled.
The two of them stood there for a moment. She wasn't sure if they were basking in the pre-dawn stillness together, or if it was just that neither of them was awake enough to carry on a proper conservation. It was comforting, though, so she didn't much care.
Finally, Douglas jerked his head up and gave a little start. (Which pointed towards it being the latter option, she supposed.)
“Hey,” he said, rather awkwardly. “We have a couple of minutes before we have to leave. Are you hungry? I can make pancakes if you want.”
Heather was seventeen years old—she was almost an adult, chronologically speaking, and she certainly counted for one in terms of life experience. Adults didn't let other people make pancakes for them on their first day of school. She should just grab a bowl of oatmeal or cereal or something.
“Sure,” Heather said, “Pancakes sounds great.”
---
Douglas' offer had left Heather a little worried—there was a reason they had nearly every take-out place within a ten mile radius on speed dial—but as it turned out, he was actually a fairly decent pancake chef. They'd run out of frozen blueberries at some point within the past couple days, but Heather had managed to find a half-full bag of chocolate chips buried in the pantry, and he'd cheerfully added them in.
All in all, it added up to what was quite possibly the least healthy first-day-of-school breakfast Heather had ever had.
“So,” Douglas started as he slid a couple of pancakes on her plate, “You know where you're going, right? There's a map in the front of your planner, and you can ask any of the teachers if you're not sure—”
“Douglas!” Heather tried to say, but with the food in her mouth it came out sounding more like “Dmmm-fss!” She swallowed, took a quick drink, and tried again.
“Douglas, come on. You know this is probably the thirtieth time you've brought this up in the past week, right? I'm going to be fine. It's not like I've never switched schools before.”
Douglas sighed. “I know,” he said softly. “It's not that I don't trust you or anything like that. It's just—it's just that I worry. I might not have been any good as a father, but I still have some of the instincts that are supposed to come with it.”
Heather's next words caught in her throat.
She and Douglas had been living together for almost a month, and it still felt strange to her more often than not. His complete inability to wash dishes drove her crazy, and she was fairly certain he wasn't too thrilled with the amount of makeup cases she'd spilled across the counter of the bathroom they shared. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye and see her father standing there instead; occasionally he'd start when he walked into a room and saw her there, like he was expecting someone else. It was bizarre and awkward and uncomfortable, and there wasn't anyone else she'd rather be going through it with. He might not ever replace her father, but he was family nonetheless.
Heather didn't know how to say any of that, though. Instead, she slid out of her chair, crossed their tiny kitchen, and wrapped her arms around Douglas' back in the biggest bear hug she could manage.
The tension fled Douglas' form like air from a popped balloon. He pulled the hand he wasn't using to flip pancakes out from Heather's grasp and ruffled her hair.
“Seriously?” she complained, twisting around to glare at him. “I spent a whole thirty seconds getting the style right! Now how will I ever become popular?”
Douglas chuckled. “Is this the part where I lecture you about finding friends who accept you as you are?”
Heather giggled. She honestly wasn't too optimistic about her ability to make friends—she'd had enough trouble before Silent Hill, and that was when she only had one or two inexplicable neuroses, rather than the dozens she currently worked around, worked through, or simply refused to acknowledge. But telling him that certainly wouldn't help his worries any.
She gave Douglas a quick, extra-tight squeeze, then released him and sat back down at the counter. Douglas joined her a minute later, and the two of them ate their breakfasts in a companionable silence.
Once they were done, Heather ran upstairs to brush her teeth and re-brush her hair. She couldn't look over herself in the mirror (Douglas had removed it, at her request), so she just assumed she looked fantastic.
Douglas was waiting by the door when she came back down, a coat thrown over his somewhat tattered pajamas and his car keys clutched in one hand.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
Heather considered. She was returning to high school during the middle of the year, in a place where she knew absolutely no one besides Douglas and at a point in her life when every casual brush on the shoulder left her self-preservation instincts clamoring in panic.
If she wanted, she could refuse to go. It would be as simple as dropping her backpack and heading back upstairs to try for another few fitful hours of sleep. Douglas had offered to get her enrolled in a home-schooling plan. It would mean calm, relaxation, and an excuse to avoid ever leaving the apartment for anything more nerve-wracking than picking up Chinese food.
But it would also mean wondering, for the rest of her life, whether she would have been able to manage if she'd only made herself try.
Heather shifted her backpack a little higher and took a deep breath.
“Yeah,” she said. “I'm ready.”
Wish me luck, Daddy.