Next thing she knew, it was blaring, so loud it seemed to make the walls vibrate. Stale cigarette smoke, old sweat. Bad. You’ve been bad. Into the hole. Hands were reaching for her, her father’s breath on her face.
She floundered out of the dream like a marathon runner with no breath left, the TV screaming an alarm in her head.
“Daralyn, hey. You’re okay. You’re here. It’s all right.”
The TV sound disappeared, and she found Rory’s hands on her, his brown eyes close and concerned.
Not real. Not there. You’re no longer there.
She’d jerked up to a sitting position, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. She could barely speak, and he stroked her, continuing to soothe.
“It’s okay. You’re here, baby.”
She was clutching his thigh, his jeans fortunately protecting his leg from her nails. She needed to say, “I’m fine,” but she couldn’t get it out yet.
Elaine was still sitting quietly in her chair. She understood Daralyn’s panic attacks, so Daralyn didn’t need to look her way or apologize. Not yet.
Instead, Daralyn just looked at Rory. Not at his eyes. His hands on her, his chest before her gaze, and then she’d moved back close, had buried her nose against him, inhaling deep. Not a trace of the dream lingered in his scent, and the TV’s low murmur was no longer disruptive.
Rory coaxed her even closer, up against his side, fully under the shelter of his arm, where he continued to rub her upper arm. She rested her forehead on his shoulder, breathing. Just breathing.
After a time, he asked his mother another question about the show. A pause, and Elaine answered. They returned to normal conversation, helping her tension slip away like water under a bridge. Normal. They didn’t treat her like glass. Didn’t make a big deal of it.
A half hour later, when Elaine stood up to go to bed, she came to them. She leaned over, brushed a kiss over Rory’s forehead. Then she did the same to Daralyn. She cupped Daralyn’s face a brief second, her mother’s gaze reviewing what she saw there, before she straightened with a decisive nod and turned toward the kitchen.
“Turn off the TV and lights when you head for bed,” she said. “No sense in taking Daralyn home this late. I’ll fix a ham and egg casserole in the morning before the two of you head to the store.”
That was that. From that moment forward, Daralyn knew, whenever they were together at the end of the day, they could go to sleep together. Nightmares might chase her out of her dreams, but they wouldn’t follow her once his arms closed around her, reminding her he was there.
The high school reunion was coming up. Daralyn knew from Elaine that Rory was getting an award, but Rory’s take on it was he was accepting it on behalf of his family. Thomas and Marcus had already planned to fly back in for the event. Though a disappointed Les couldn’t get away from school, she called to find out what Daralyn was going to wear.
“I thought the wine-colored dress,” Daralyn told her. “Rory really likes that one.”
“Unh-unh,” Les said. “This reunion requires a new dress, trust me. Ask Amanda to take you shopping.”
When Daralyn hesitantly did so at the store, next time Amanda stopped in, she was startled and then amused by Amanda’s squeal of pleasure. “This is going to be so much fun,” Amanda told her. “And don’t worry. The secondhand place I’m thinking of will have something great, but nothing there is hugely expensive. You’ll get a great dress and accessories for under fifty dollars. And it’ll give me an excuse to get one, too. Something slinky that will steam up Marty’s wire-rimmed glasses.”
When Daralyn sent Rory a helpless look, he just grinned and made a “hands off” gesture. “No sane man gets in between women and their shopping.”
“Ain’t that the God’s truth,” Johnny said from the back.
“Oh shut up, both of you,” Amanda told them tartly. “Like you aren’t just as bad about hunting rifles and fishing poles.”
“That’s because those are useful,” Johnny pointed out.
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Just ignore them, Daralyn.”
Daralyn’s only concern about the proposed outing was that she’d never successfully gone anywhere without a member of Rory’s family being with her in some way. Like Elaine taking her to Dr. Taylor’s, or Rory going to community college with her. But she had improved enough about going to school that Rory could drop her off and come back