Because we were meant to be.
“He’ll make her happy,” Daddy continued. “I promise you that. You promise to vanish from her life, I promise, I vow, Sylvie will be happy.”
Creed’s eyes moved from the photo to Daddy and he whispered, his voice hoarse and weak, “He’ll never make her happy.”
Daddy yanked again on his hair, arching his neck pack, more pain, this excruciating, tearing through his entire scalp, down his neck and spine.
But Creed didn’t even groan.
All he said was, “Never.”
* * * * *
I shot up to sitting, the dream still having a hold on me but I didn’t get the chance to dart out of bed and do anything crazy.
This was because Creed had me on my back with him on me, his hands moving soothingly over my skin and his lips whispering, “Just a dream. Just a dream, baby.”
I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight through the shakes that trembled through me.
He rolled us to our sides and silently held me through the shakes, one hand drifting up and down my back, one hand sifting through my hair until the shakes left me.
Only then did he speak.
“This shit has got to stop.”
I tipped my head back and whispered, “I’ll get through it, Creed.”
I saw his darkened chin dip down and he replied, “Yeah. You will. By talkin’ to somebody. I don’t care who it is as long as it’s a professional.”
I felt my body get tight. “I’m not gonna go see somebody.”
“Yeah you are.”
I pulled up so we were face to face. “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “I’ll get through it.”
He disagreed. “Not on your own, you won’t.”
“Creed, it’s just bad dreams.”
“Sylvie, you got the beginnings of PTSD.”
It was then I felt my body go still.
Then I returned firmly, “I do not. It’s not a big deal. It’s just dreams.”
“It’s not just dreams, baby.”
“It is. That shit didn’t happen to me,” I reminded him. “It happened to you.”
“You’re right. The shit you’re dreamin’ about, it happened to me. What that shit led to, what’s buried and what’s f**kin’ with your head even if it isn’t comin’ out, is what happened to you after that happened to me. You’re dealin’ with a new load of f**ked up shit on top of the old load you haven’t sorted through and your head is focusing on what you didn’t experience in order to avoid what you did.”
Oh God, now he was making sense.
“That’s whacked,” I scoffed to cover the fact he was freaking me out and Creed rolled into me and on me.
“It f**kin’ isn’t,” he growled. “Trust me that shit happened to me so I f**kin’ know. Years after that, Sylvie, years, that shit did a number on me. You think I didn’t have nightmares? You think I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat time and time a-fuckin’-gain? You think, to this day, I don’t always carry water with me in my f**kin’ car? I hear the sound of chains, my gut gets tight. To. This. Day. You were sold to an animal, an owned human being forced to do what he wanted you to do in ways no woman should have to perform and ended up killin’ him with a knife. You don’t do that shit and move to Denver and everything is cool. You process it. If you’re smart, you find the tools to deal with it because it’s always f**kin’ there. You just gotta learn to control it before it controls you.”
I hated that he went through that, all of it but also this new nuance he shared with me.