Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?

― JK Rowling,

In the matter of sixty seconds, I managed to lose the grip on my pencil, send my test onto the hardwood to my left, and slam my face into the cold laminate.

I forced my eyes shut as my entire body flooded with warmth, down to my toes. Given that the lecture hall had stilled and was silent enough to hear the slight wheezing Professor Rodgers' nose made with every exhale, I was positive every pair of eyes had found me in the seconds it'd taken for my face to meet my desk. I'd admired the class clowns all high school-the goofy, one brain-celled idiots who'd jerk right back into position and pretend nothing had happened, or even better, make a joke of it. Unfortunately, I not only lacked hand-eye coordination, but confidence as well.

The squealing of a chair at the front of the lecture hall could only mean one thing-Professor Damien Rodgers was on his way up to warn me again. This was the third time in two weeks I'd disrupted testing in three classes, and I had no doubt all my professors sat around a round table brainstorming ways to make my life a living hell over it.

I started to lift my head, but the book I'd left open to the right of my desk was unnerving with the way I'd left the spine cracked. I extended my hand to grab the book, and in the second that followed, my chair fell out from beneath me and I hit the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of me. A hiss of pain came out in a quick exhale as I touched my palm flat against what should have been the hardness of the tile. My fingertips slowly curled as my eyes flickered from my hand to the concrete beneath it. Not just concrete, but a curb with a yellow sunflower growing through the crack inches from my index finger.

My head whipped to the right and I let out a startled gasp.

I was no longer in my Psyche lecture hall but the middle of a park, surrounded by trees and grass. Something that was close to nonexistent in my small little Arizona town.

The only logical explanation for the sudden change in scenery was that I'd been hit with the aftermath of my head slamming into the desk, evidently harder that I'd first thought, and this hallucination was the product of it.

Proving me right, the minute I moved my hand again, I was back in my lecture hall, a small crowd of my peers over me with concerned looks, a girl I'd been friendly with the last year the only soul brave enough to crouch at my side and touch her hand to my shoulder. I opened my mouth to offer an apology, or possibly an explanation, but the words quickly died on my tongue when I looked to my left to find that I had been moved from my desk at the back of the room to directly in front of Professor Roders' desk.

"Addie, are you okay?" the pretty blonde, Sydney, asked with a raised brow, her hand moving from my shoulder to my elbow. "We lost you there for a second."

"I'm good." I muttered, hardly audible. Louder, I added, "Sleep deprivation, am I right?"

She, nor any of my peers or Professor, looked the last bit amused or convinced by my comment, but they slowly dispersed and had forgotten about my episode by the time class was dismissed. To my relief, all Professor Rodgers did was give me a side eye and a shake of his head, but didn't ask me to stay behind, he hardly bothered to even look my way once I'd passed his desk.

I waited until I'd started my car and slammed my head back against the seat to finally try and figure out what the hell had just happened. If there was anyone who cared, I could call them and explain I didn't feel safe driving myself home. Unfortunately, I was on my own, and nobody would care if I lost my life on my way home.

Lost in my bitterness, I pulled out of the school parking lot and out onto the main street. Luckily, I made it to my apartment without having to stop. I half expected my knees to buckle and be lost in another crazy episode as I climbed the stairs to the second floor, but I made it through my front door and locked it behind me.

Dropping my bag onto my thrifted beige recliner, I headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall to splash water in my face. Despite having fully shaken myself from the hallucination, I couldn't shake the feeling that'd come with it. The cold easing its way throughout my body, every hair on my arms standing on end. I threw myself down on my loveseat and turned my phone on, not sure what I expected to find on my social media, but sure it'd distract me from what'd happened.

It sure did. But depressed me further.

The minute I opened my app, I was faced with my entire family in a beautiful venue, Andrea in the middle in Mom's old wedding dress. The dress that I should have been wearing at my wedding.

It'd been nearly two years of no contact with my family, outside of Andrea's pop in for the dress. I had blocked everyone's numbers, had my parents and older sister blocked on every social media outlet and email, but I'd left Andrea. I suppose there was a part of me that hoped that if there was any sort of reconciliation it'd be through my younger sister. But as I stared at the photo, and her gorgeous makeup and the smile that lit her face, I realized she enjoyed this. Me being out of the family. Because she was the focus of Mom and Dad now. She was the perfect child in their eyes.

She was and would be everything they had prayed and wished I was.

Somehow that hurt more than seeing her in that dress with Dad's arm wrapped around her and the proud smile and tears in his eyes. More than Mom gazing at her and her new husband with nothing but love and adoration. In the way our sister was holding her hand and smiling.

My family had moved on and acted as though I didn't exist. I was nothing but a name that anyone refused to utter under that roof.

"Screw this."

I huffed under my breath and tossed my phone to the other side of the loveseat, tears stinging my eyes. Both of frustration and hurt.

Once I'd worked through my emotions, I snatched the phone and looked up Mr. Relevart. I was surprised to find he wasn't alone in his profile picture, but with two young boys, in their early teen years, no doubt. I'd always assumed the man was a lone wolf like me. Knowing that he probably had both boys caring for him made me smile through my tears.

"When I was a young boy, I had always wondered what lay beyond the fence that encased my home." Mr. Relevart had once said years ago when I'd approached the register to pay, staring lovingly at an old copy of Where The Red Fern Grows. "I tried for so long to get out without my Mum and Dad seeing. One day, I did. But I didn't like what I found on the other side. Sometimes, Miss Chase, the unknown is best left as just that."

It'd been such a peculiar thing to say, especially when staring at a book with no relation to the words. But the older I got, the more I understood that he was trying to speak to me in the only way he knew how. He had undoubtedly noticed that Mom and Dad had stopped coming in with me, and my attitude drastically changing. I always assumed that the weird little conversation had been his way of telling me to be careful out on my own.

Sighing I stood, grabbed my takeout from last night, tossed it in the microwave, and headed for my room. As soon as I'd finished my food and tossed it in the waste bin by my nightstand, I looked down on my hand and blinked a few times to make sure it wasn't a figment of my imagination.

A few petals of the sunflower were stuck in the very minute space between my finger and the ring. Pulling one loose, I twisted it between my index finger and thumb.

How in the world had a piece of my hallucination ended up in my reality? Unless I was hallucinating again now. Yeah. That had to be it. I needed sleep. This and what happened in class this morning had been the consequences of sleep deprivation and with a good night of rest, I'd be fine in the morning.

I reached out to shut the light out, brushed my teeth in the bathroom, then curled up under my blanket and stared at the spine of Game of Shadows until my eyelids grew heavy and my exhaustion finally consumed me.