NELLIE COULDN’T SAY what woke her. But when she opened her eyes, a woman
wearing her white, lacy wedding gown stood by the foot of her bed, looking
down at her.
Nellie’s throat closed around a scream, and she lunged for the baseball bat
leaning against her nightstand. Then her vision adjusted to the grainy dawn light
and the pounding of her heart softened.
She let out a tight laugh as she realized she was safe. The illusion was merely
her wedding dress, ensconced in plastic, hanging on the back of her closet door,
where she’d placed it yesterday after picking it up from the bridal shop. The
bodice and full skirt were stuffed with crumpled tissue to maintain the shape.
Nellie collapsed back onto her pillow. When her breathing steadied, she checked
the blocky blue numbers on her nightstand clock. Too early, again.
She stretched her arms overhead and reached with her left hand to turn off the
alarm before it could blare, the diamond engagement ring Richard had given her
feeling heavy and foreign on her finger.
Even as a child, Nellie had never been able to fall asleep easily. Her mother
didn’t have the patience for drawn-out bedtime rituals, but her father would
gently rub her back, spelling out sentences over the fabric of her nightgown. I
love you or You’re super special, he’d write, and she would try to guess the
message. Other times he’d trace patterns, circles, stars, and triangles—at least
until her parents divorced and he moved out when she was nine. Then she’d lie
alone in her twin bed under her pink-and-purple-striped comforter and stare at
the water stain that marred her ceiling.
© motivational