Nellie had attempted to brush it off: “Just stressed about finals. Once, she came downstairs to breakfast in her sorority house and her Chi Omega sister told her she’d been yelling something unintelligible. Her insomnia worsened sharply, and her sleep became fractured by vivid dreams and abrupt awakenings. When she finally dozed off, she usually slept hard for a good seven or eight hours-so deeply and dreamlessly that her mother sometimes had to physically shake her to awaken her.īut following an October night in her senior year of college, that suddenly changed. 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. Other times he’d trace patterns, circles, stars, and triangles-at least until her parents divorced and he moved out when she was nine. I love you or You’re super special, he’d write, and she would try to guess the message. 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. 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.Įven as a child, Nellie had never been able to fall asleep easily. When her breathing steadied, she checked the blocky blue numbers on her nightstand clock. The bodice and full skirt were stuffed with crumpled tissue to maintain the shape.
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. She let out a tight laugh as she realized she was safe. Then her vision adjusted to the grainy dawn light and the pounding of her heart softened. Nellie’s throat closed around a scream, and she lunged for the baseball bat leaning against her nightstand.
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.
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