Living next door to an idiot

4. Comfort is nice

Haley's POV

I jumped out of bed with the petrifying sound of none other than . . . lightning. I know you may probably think that, wow she's such a coward. But I have a perfect explanation as to why I was so scared.

You see when I was eight, I was playing outside hide and seek tag with Juli and my other best friend, Charlie (he left around the age of eleven and I had never seen or heard from him since, I never knew where he went). I hid behind a tree, when all of a sudden rain began to pour on us.

We kept playing though and soon after there was thunder scaring all the little kids away but us three stayed outside. We thought it was really cool and fun to stay outside and get a 'little' wet because believe or not we called ourselves 'rebels'. Then as I saw Charlie coming closer to me, I ran away to try and escape. He was chasing and then I saw a muddy puddle so I made him follow me there and I jumped over it but he didn't as he was too busy staring at me and therefore he dove face first into the puddle. Juli came out from behind a car and we both burst into laughter falling backwards into the puddle as well.

Before long, lightning came out of nowhere and I felt something zap me, something sizzle and cook me. Everything turned to completely silent instantly. I felt as though my body was on fire and every part of me was burning. I felt my body shaking abruptly and throwing itself around the backyard. The last thing I remember, was seeing Juli and Charlie ran towards me. Charlie lent his hand but I think I was paralyzed as I couldn't move let alone even try to speak and then just when I had thought I was gaining my senses back my body had a spasm before everything was blacked out and I had passed out.

After that I don't clearly remember what happened because I had passed out. Everyone told me I would've been dead if it weren't for Charlie saving my life. My sweet Charlie.

Juli told me he ran inside as fast as he could and told his and my parents who then called 911. He ran back out to me and revived me slightly with CPR to get my lungs working again (somehow we had learnt about it a week ago, in a safety class when the hospital had come over to teach us a few safety rules so talk about the irony).

When I woke up, I had realised I was in hospital and Charlie and Juli had told I had been unconscious for nearly two weeks and I had been in a small coma. The doctor had informed my parents that thankfully the lightning that had striked was a weak one but it did do a lot of damage to me, fortunately it wasn't permanent damage apart from getting a headache now and again but I guess that too was natural.

From the ages of eight to eleven, I suffered from short term memory loss and had slight difficulty mentally storing new information and accessing old information. I often found it very difficult to carry out more than one task at a time and I was easily distracted. My personality changed a little bit and I became easily irritated. I often complained of being easily fatigued to my mom and became exhausted after a few hours of work.

Although I slept excessively at first, after a few weeks found it difficult to sleep more than 2 to 3 hours at a time. Thankfully, all those effects from the lightning had gone and I was the same girl I had been before the lightning strike. My brain healed slowly from time and my personality went back to normal.

However, everytime lightning striked, I felt terrified remembering all the pain and suffering I had gone through when I was a child. Thunder boomed, mocking me and then lightning joined in flashing everywhere.

"Oh, god. Make it stop." I wept loudly. I hid myself under the duvet and cried until my eyes were sore and red. Suddenly, someone pulled the door wide open and ran inside.

"Haley!" A masculine voice shouted at me. I poked my head out from the duvet and looked at who it was and quickly hid back under the duvet.

"Dante, please go away." I cried, I didn't want him to see me crying like this. I had known Dante since the first day of high school and I had always shown him that I was a brave, strong girl that never cried. Now, he was seing me, the girl who never wept or showed any signs of weakness crying under her duvet . . . because of the lightning.