I’m sitting in the corner of the room, he’s running the cold metal along my jaw. I close my eyes, but I hear his intoxicated laughter, her screams pleading for it to end. His gaze finds mine—his smile mocking.
Boom!
The sound of the gunshot rings in my ears and the smell of gunpowder suffocates me.
“Abby girl, you’re okay. You’re safe.” Wes’ voice pulls me away from my old house and back to reality.
When I wake up, my cheeks are damp. The room’s lit with the soft glow from the night-light next to the door. Wes is right beside me. His blue eyes are filled with worry, and his fingers tap my arm lightly with the same tempo he’s used since my second or third night at his parents’ house. One. Two. Three. Four. Pause. One. Two …
I breathe deeply, trying to catch my breath, and order myself to stop crying.
“Where are you?” He asks the same question he’s asked since my second nightmare.
With you. I open my mouth to respond, but I can’t find my voice. I freeze, my hands clutching the sheets.
“Abby,” he repeats my name louder. “Come back to me.”
His blue eyes filled with tenderness call out to my soul, soothing it. He’s so close to me that I could reach out and run my fingers along his rough jaw.
If I could talk, I’d beg him to hold me in his arms—to promise me that my nightmares are only bad dreams and not memories. To make me believe that I’m safe. That nothing will happen to me. I turn my head away and look out the window. It’s too open—unsafe. We’re so high, there’s no way he can climb and break in without being noticed.
“Where are you?” Wes asks, caressing my cheek with the back of his finger.
“I’m home, with you.” I finally find my voice, and with conviction, say the exact words he needs to hear.
The brave woman responded exactly how she should after a stupid nightmare. But the girl inside me still shakes in fear. Nothing has changed. I’m the same trembling girl afraid of the monsters that live in her house. The ghosts are back. It’s because I can feel him, near me. He can find me and …
Please, never let me go, I want to beg Wes. Stay with me, forever.
That’s too much to ask from one man, a man who has already put his life on pause for a long time because of everyone else. His dad, mom, brother—me. I can’t believe he doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor next to my bed or on the couch after all these years.
As I’m about to get out of bed to take a shower, he hands me two granola bars.
“You were ready.” I smile.
When I first started living with the Aherns, I had a strange ritual. Before going to bed, I made sure to have plenty of food at home. Then, I’d hide two snacks under my pillow. I don’t hide them anymore, but I do make sure to have plenty of food inside my nightstand. My disorder is so much different from any other. My food insecurity pushes me to store food everywhere.
After a nightmare, I would get upset. Emotionally agitated is how Linda described it. I’ve finally stopped eating large quantities of food in one sitting—but I eat more than many people. That’s the one thing I can control, what I eat—and when I eat. The second is how much I exercise my body—until I’m exhausted.
“I was prepared but hoping I wouldn’t have to use them.”
This hasn’t happened in so long.
Since I moved away from Denver, I’ve been so much better. Instead of coming home for the holidays, I’d meet with the Aherns somewhere else in the world. We’d go to Vancouver, Switzerland, Australia … there was always a place where we could travel to and celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, or spend summer vacation without having to come back to Denver.
Linda was the one who realized that I was doing a lot better once I left the hellhole where I was born. A fact Wes didn’t want to acknowledge even when I spelled it out clearly for him. Now, I’m here, back at the gates of the underworld. A part of me knows that I’m not that kid anymore, but another part, the one filled with fear, can’t seem to grasp that I’m free.
Am I free?
“I should’ve left the light on,” I excuse my lapse.
There must be a way to stop them. I was able