Thunderstorm

Lying in bed with the blankets over my head, my hands pressed over my ears and it does no good because the booming of the thunder vibrates straight through to my bones. The room lights up as the lightning crashes and I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as I can. I hate it when the weather is like this, bad things happen when the thunder sounds and no one can hear you scream. But this isn’t then, and there’s nothing out there. That’s what I tell myself anyways.

I hum quietly to myself and with my hands still pressed tightly against my ears all I hear is the tune I’m using as a distraction. I don’t even know what I’m humming and it doesn’t really matter so long as I have something else to listen to. Outside the lightning sets the sky ablaze and I can see the flash behind my closed eyelids, underneath my blanket. I could just go hide in the closet but I’m an adult and the children are sound asleep. If they can sleep through this then I can endure it while I’m awake.

He lays in bed next to me and tries to comfort me, wrapping his arms around me and running his fingers through my hair but I cannot help the tears that start to well up. I should be able to handle this, it’s just an act of nature. Thunder and lightning can’t hurt me and those bad things that happened in the past are just that- in the past.

Thunder cracks through the sky, a bolt of lightning hits seemingly right outside the window, closer than comfortable for me and the power goes out. By this time I am shaking in terror because bad things happen in the dark. Terrifyingly, horrible, life-altering things. Things that leave mental, emotional and physical scars and no one can hear you scream over the thunder. I try to steady my breathing and count down from a million while all around me the storm rages on.

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