AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ali?” His voice was nearer, in the hallway. Ali nearly whimpered, desperate to move but still frozen. The door creaked beside her when Cornell opened it. She could feel him looking around the room before he was instantly beside her on the floor. “Hey.” Ali heard him swallow. “What’s going on?”
Ali tried to press herself harder against the floor, digging her glutes so hard that her pants slid against the wood planks. Her voice was still stuck, body still immobile. But she could feel Cornell, even though he wasn’t touching her.
Cornell sighed softly, and Ali tried to hang on to it. “3-2-1, right?”
3-2-1, that’s it. Grounding.
“Tell me three things you hear.”
“Mowgli,” she pushed out. The dog was drinking water, his strong tongue moving the bowl against the baseboard in the kitchen. There was a familiar thump and clanging outside their window. “Mr. Edelman, taking out the trash.” Cornell’s phone began to vibrate from inside his pocket. “Your cellphone.”
Cornell cleared his throat. “Two things you see.”
Ali remembered Linda’s words. “You’ve got to prove to yourself that there is no threat, that you are safe.”
“The bed,” Ali croaked, shifting her weight. “Your sock.” Ali loosened the grip she had around her legs and let them straighten out, dropping her arms to the side.
Her gaze drifted down, where Cornell’s hand pressed firmly on the ground beside her. With a shuddering but calm breath, she took in the difference in size and skin tone, how delicate her hand looked compared to Cornell’s, calloused and tough from years throwing the ball.
“Something you feel,” Cornell spoke softly, his gentle gaze cooling her face, flushed from the panic that had seized her.
“I promise you, what’s going to make us stronger is each other,”he had told her on the second most painful night of her life.
Ali lifted her eyes to his while she reached for his hand. He immediately linked his fingers with hers, squeezing. “Us,” she told him with an affirming nod. “I feel us.”
