The Dream Dweller

By Pamela Swyers

College student Amelia Michaels' life spins out of control after a painful accident that leaves her broken and addicted. With her mother's help, Amelia begins to recover, only to find herself lost again... in a world of dreams

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pamela Swyers
• Release date: Aug 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452430973

Pamela Swyers

Pam lives with her husband Bill in Gwinnett County, Georgia. She is the mother of three grown children and has dabbled in creative writing since she could hold a pen. Pam has written poetry, children’s stories and dramatic scripts but her passion and calling is penning fictional novels. Pam currently writes full time and has seven books in print, with more on the way. She can often be found toodling around NE Atlanta, doing book-signings and making appearances when she’s not working hard on her computer. Pam is a professional member of the Georgia Writers Association.

Book preview

The Dream Dweller

By Pamela Swyers

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

The Dream Dweller

Copyright 2012 by Pamela Swyers

www.pamelaswyers.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Published by Swyers Publishing at Smashwords

September 2012

Smashwords Edition

This book is available in print.

ISBN (for hardback edition only):  978-0-9843113-9-2

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not bere-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

I dream of you to wake; would that I might Dream of you and not wake but slumber on.

Christina Rossetti

Dreams are the touchstones of a character.

Henry David Thoreau

This book is dedicated to Iz and El.

You light up my life.

Prologue

The pretty dark-haired college student climbed into the passenger seat. She laughed at a lame joke her best friend had just told her. Classes had been going well and she pictured herself graduating, making her parents proud of her.

A piercing scream filled the night… lights on the windshield, brakes squealing. Spinning, spinning, glass everywhere… then the pain. So much pain. She wished for it to stop. And it did.

Chapter One

Amelia Michaels spoke her first words in six months as the doctors poked and prodded at her until she was fully awake and somewhat aware. She fought to open her eyes and tried hard to remember where she was… who she was.

Let me go back, she said in a breathy voice after the painful tube had been removed. The doctors assumed she was in pain and had the nurse come in and crank up the morphine in her IV drip. She drifted off, the corners of her mouth turning up in a peaceful smile.

Within weeks of that first awakening Amelia found herself awake more and more. The hospital staff continued to check on her every couple of hours. The machines beeped, the nurses poked and adjusted and Amelia (or Amy as she had been called her whole life) longed for the rest of extended sleep. Though she did not yet understand why, she craved the long stretches of sleep that would bring about REM (rapid eye movement) and thrust her back into the world of dreams.

Not so many months ago, Amy (Amelia) had been living a normal life. Twenty years old and attending the local community college in Justice, Kansas, she’d had the life of many of her peers. Her roommates Cindy and Anne were her closest friends and the three went out together many a Friday evening and had dinner, talked of life, love and many philosophical things. It was a good life, if boring and at times, lonely. Amy worked part-time at the local coffee house to supplement what her mother gave her. Martin and Camille, her parents, believed that school was important and didn’t want Amy trying to go to school full-time and working full-time as well, so they worked hard and gave Amy a check every month to help with the rent and utilities.

Amy hadn’t had a serious boyfriend, in fact had only had one relationship in high school that had seemed doomed from the start. The young man couldn’t stay out of trouble with the school and his family and eventually Amy learned that he hurt everyone in his life, and she decided to move on—that no relationship was better than a bad one.

And then it had happened, the unthinkable, every mother’s nightmare. Anne had been driving and had only had one glass of wine with dinner at the local grill, but the driver of the truck didn’t care. He hadn’t stopped to think about the occupants of the little blue Toyota when he drunkenly sped through a red light and plowed into them, spinning them around four full times. Anne died instantly, as did the truck driver. Cindy, amazingly, was thrown from the car and suffered a broken leg and a few bruises and nothing more. Amy would spend the next months in and out of a coma as her physical body slowly but surely began to heal. Her right arm had shattered and had been pieced together during several surgeries and her broken ribs had healed nicely. The blow to the head had taken weeks to heal. The doctors speculated that Amy would eventually come out of the coma. Best they could tell, there was no permanent brain damage, yet Amy lingered for nearly seven full months before awakening.

Camille Michaels had tried to stay by her daughter’s side, but worked long hours as the manager of the local dry cleaners, and eventually began to resume somewhat of a normal work schedule again after the first month of Amy’s hospitalization. She would stop by the hospital and see Amy either before or after her shift each day, depending on her schedule.

At the seventh month point the doctors announced that Amy was out of the coma, but still not responding well.

Martin Michaels (Amy’s father) died of heart failure during the second month of Amy’s hospital stay. Camille wasn’t quite sure if Amy fully understood that her father was gone. Whenever she brought the subject up with her, Amy would close her eyes pretending not to hear.

Each day that passed made Camille worry more about her daughter’s condition. It shouldn’t be this way, she thought. Time is supposed to heal all wounds.

Though Amy’s physical body seemed to get stronger by the day, Camille still worried that Amy just wasn’t mentally there anymore. The doctors said that even though she had come out of her coma, she seemed forever different. Amy refused to speak beyond the simplest of every day niceties and seemed to shut down if anything painful was talked about.

Finally, her doctor diagnosed her with depression and Amy was moved into a rehabilitation facility where she remained on several different medications. Doctors at the center thought Amy was suffering from a chemical addiction to pain killers and worked with her to get off the debilitating medications while simultaneously working with her physically to get full movement back, especially in her right arm. Her depression lingered, and no amount of counsel or any combination of anti-depressant drugs would help… in fact they seemed to make her feel worse.

The day came for Amy to be released from the rehab center, and Amy moved back into her apartment, surrounded by memories of her friends. Bringing no prescription meds home with her was tough, but Amy agreed to at least try other methods of battling her depression.

Cindy had moved back to Florida to be near her family, taking all of her worldly possessions with her and Amy hadn’t heard from her in weeks. Anne’s mother had long since collected her things, but her ghost seemed to linger in the small apartment. It spoke to Amy, taunted her, dared her to feel alive.

Camille begged Amy to move back home with her, but Amy was still in too much denial about the death of her father to go back into their family home. Camille had kept up the rent on the apartment while Amy recuperated, managing to keep it together with the help of the insurance policy that had paid out upon Mr. Michael’s death.

Now the apartment seemed too large for just Amy, and she wandered through it at all hours of the day and night in between sleeping binges that lasted up to twelve or sixteen hours at a time.

Camille worried as Amy continued to sleep her life away, and then one day she made the decision: she would find someone that could and would help her daughter get her life back. She began to research doctors who have worked with depressed patients who were also recovering from physical injuries. She acquired a short list of local physicians. She would get help for Amy… she would.

Chapter Two

Honey, I’ve brought you some chicken salad, just the way you like it, Camille said, letting herself in to her daughter Amy’s apartment with a key. Camille learned long ago that she would let herself in or never see her daughter again. Amy’s depression had barely let up in all these weeks, as far as Camille could tell and she came by at least weekly to make sure Amy was still alive and breathing. Her biggest fear was that Amy might try to take her own life.

In here, Mom, she heard back, and relief washed over her. Camille placed the Tupperware container into the fridge and went into Amy’s bedroom, finding her once again, in bed. Amy tried lamely to smile. Camille set about fluffing pillows and straightening covers, then cleared the dirty cups and glasses from the room and placed them in the dishwasher.

Camille sat at the edge of the bed and brushed a hair back from Amy’s pretty face. She saw her daughter’s dark brown hair that desperately needed a wash framing flawless, too-pale skin and green eyes. You need me to pick up anything special from the grocery, sweetie? She leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead.