Impact

Sleep was almost impossible for Asher. He had awoken by seven in the morning, panting and sweating harder than he did after a basketball tournament.

The dreams were always the same.

He had consented to hanging out with Riley, instead of doing his work. He called Riley back, claiming he could do his work later, and put on his purple jacket, heading out to wait for Riley to come by.

Two minutes later, they were out walking to the grocery store for a Hershey’s bar, or two. As they were crossing the street, a beat up Toyota Corolla came out rushing at over ninety miles per hour. Before Asher had time to think, the car struck him and Riley, and they both flew over the windshield.

The last thing he always saw before waking up was Riley’s bloodied body, laying face-down on the ground with no pulse whatsoever.

It was the fourth time he’d had the dream, and the fourth time he’d gotten only four hours of sleep. He lethargically got out of his bed and prepared for the long day ahead of him at school.

School had become even harder to bear with. Posters were stuck all around the halls with Riley’s smiling face on them, preaching about the grief counselors who were to be at school all month. Asher himself hadn’t gone to seen one, but most of his and Riley’s mutual friends had gone, truly believing it would help with the pain. Asher was skeptical about everything, though. It wasn’t strange, since his father was a call-in investigator for departments around the world.

So, it surprised everyone when Asher decided to walk in and try the counselor out. He would do anything for the nightmares to go away. The images of Riley’s battered body haunted him through the day. If this counselor would make the blood go away, then what was there to lose?

The woman was wearing bright red lipstick and had strangely small lips that seemed to be pursed inward, as if she was afraid the lipstick would fall off.

“Hello,” she spoke with a kind voice and gave Asher a closed-mouthed smile, tilting her head to the left a bit.

“Hi,” Asher awkwardly responded, not quite sure what he was supposed to do, feeling foolish of trying it in the first place.

“I suppose you are here to deal with the grief of Riley Williams, correct?”

“Yeah… he was my best friend,” Asher quietly said, trying his best not to sound rude, or even apathetic.

“How do you feel right now about the situation, then?” she asked, once again seemingly sympathetic. Her hands were folded onto her lap, and her body seemed to be leaning toward him.

“I… I’m sad about it. I’m losing sleep over it… how am I supposed to feel?” he demanded, as the redness of anger spread throughout his cheeks.

She stayed quiet for a minute, or two, and then spoke again quietly, “It’s okay to be angry. It is okay to hate everything around you. It’s all normal.”

Asher broke down crying, a habit that he seemed to have developed lately.

“I dream about it… I dream that I’m there with him, and I dream about the car hitting him, and it hurts so bad, oh God,” he rambled and incoherently said through the tears.

The counselor was still looking into his eyes, as if she could see his soul through them.

“That’s normal, too. That’s how your brain deals with grief.”

“How do I make it stop? How do I make it just all go away?” he mumbled through tears.

“You take your mind off of it and you do new things. You move on. That’s the only thing you can do, Asher,” the woman carefully responded.

“I can’t, don’t you get it? I just can’t,” he rose his voice, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

After an awkward pause and more sympathetic glances from the counselor, he got out of his seat and finally said, “Thank you. You really helped me. I’ll try my best to move on.”

She smiled her close-mouthed smile and waved to him, as he walked out of the room.

In reality, Asher knew her advice would never help him. If moving on were that easy, he’d have done it already. The nightmare of his best friend would be with him forever, apparently.