Nightmare

"Katie."
Just five more minutes. I just fell asleep, I think, flipping my head over with a thud.
"Katie!" the voice says sternly.
My head jerks up and my breathing is shallow and fast. I look around with wide eyes. Blood rushes to my cheeks, turning them crimson. Twenty seven pairs of eyes are staring in my direction. The mouths coupled with at least half of those pairs of eyes are trying to hold in a chuckle, while the rest are sending out guffaws. I tip my fedora lower over my eyes, trying to hide, but I can't escape my teacher's, which are glaring at me. I give a pathetic side smile and an awkward chuckle.
"Sorry," I mumble. "Again. Heh... What'd you ask?"
Mrs. Carlson sighs loudly and shakes her head. "I asked you to read page 43 aloud, but obviously, you have more important things to do." By this time she was standing right by my desk, crouching down to my level, as the rest of the class continued to whisper and snicker.
Putting a hand on my desk in an attempt to reach out to me, she says, "This is the seventh time in two weeks that you've fallen asleep in my class alone, Katie. Not to mention all the times in the other classes some of the teachers have talked about. Are you doing all right?" She honestly looks concerned about me. That's more than I could say about some people.
I rub my eyes a little and nod, trying to play things off as me still being out of it from the sleep.
"Yeah, I'm great. Never better," I lie. But she believes me, and walks to the front of the room again, forgetting about me reading. The boy next to me, Kyle, gets called on to read instead of me and immediately I zone out again.
Am I doing all right? Her voice just keeps echoing in my mind. Hardly, I think bitterly.
I don't remember the last time my mom came home before 2 am, and it's been even longer than that since she wasn't drunk as she walked through the door. I'm only sixteen and I'm already making dinner for me and the rest of my three younger siblings every night, not to mention taking them to every place their hearts desire. I never have time for homework these days. I've got too many other things to worry about. If you asked, I couldn't tell you the last time I hung out with my friends. Who, by all accounts, aren't even my friends anymore for the way they've been acting recently. But none of those things even matter compared to my current sleeping habits.
I haven't slept all through the night in weeks now. I'm lucky to get a total of three hours these days, between all the nightmares and screaming. I probably wouldn't mind so much if I actually knew what was going on in them. But I had no clue, and no idea how to figure it out. It was always the same girl, beaten and bloody, screaming for my help while telling me to run. Always the same girl. I'd help her if I could, but I've never met her in my life. Whoever she is.