Obliterated

Freefalling from space, looking at herself from above, completely out of body- staring up at his face, his emotionally detached, shit-eating grinning face. She reaches forward like she's riding an invisible bicycle with her arms and legs, dry drowning in air, willing herself desperately to wake up. Jude gasps and wakes herself up with her sobs. Suddenly she feels how overheated she is, soaking through her tank top, hair damp with sweat. The sound of blood pounding in her ears overrides the white noise of the fan. It's sweltering, the hottest day of May so far, hotter than she can remember. It's been months since she dreamt, at all; now the same dream, three times a night. She prays each time she falls back asleep it will be a different dream or nothing at all but there he is, over and over. He's cruel and unforgiving, angry, malicious. It breaks Jude's heart- she can't communicate; he taunts and laughs, dismissing her as if she never meant a thing. Jude can feel her heart race then break into a thousand tiny pieces, capillaries bursting, like a glass ball dropped onto granite, obliterated. One am, three thirty am,  then five forty five. Is it a full moon or some sort of mercury in retrograde? Jude racks her brain, grasping at any explanation, justification for why him, why now, why over and over and over. Maybe it was the Magnesium before bed and these are weird mineral dreams, causing her neurons to wreak havoc with her emotional response system or however that works. It's too late to go back to sleep. Too early to get up. The sun is cresting above the shaggy white pine that sheds in front of her window, a hot orangey pink mirage. Steamy- too hot, too soon. Everything's pell mell and Jude can't stop dreaming.