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Memories assailed me of looking into his eyes, laughing with him, making love and just enjoying life with Ramón at my side.
Everything was just…better when he was around.
I didn’t realize how sad and empty my life had been until he was gone.
Winter sighed. “I gotta go. Mom’s yelling for me to do the dishes. Email me and let me know when you can come over for ‘the talk.’”
I groaned. “That’ll be a fun night.”
I could hear my mom’s voice in the background yelling for Winter to get her butt downstairs, and Winter said quickly, “Gotta go! Love you!”
“Love you too, honey.”
Chapter 13
At 1:30 am, after four hours of broken sleep, I gave up the fight against my insomnia and began what was now my normal routine. First, a shower in the pretty silver, white, and gold bathroom off my bedroom. It was luxurious, especially for a struggling college student, and normally I would have found great pleasure in the decadence that I now called home. Being both mentally and physically exhausted, I found it hard to care about anything. It seemed like, no matter how much sleep I got, or how hard I worked to cheer myself up, I just couldn’t shake the fog of depression that drifted in and out of my life.
I wasn’t constantly sad, but it seemed to be my default setting these days.
That, and scared.
Memories of that man, Nova, glaring at me back at the high school prickled at my anxiety like little blades. The need to run surged through me, trying to take away my control. Before I could freak out, I turned the shower on and thrust my hand beneath the ice cold water. It instantly derailed my panic as my body tried to figure out why the fuck I was suddenly freezing. My heart still raced, but for a different reason. As the water warmed my pulse slowed.
Stepping beneath the steaming spray, I tilted my face up as I twisted my wild curls into a bun, letting the water wash the sweat from tonight’s nightmares from my body.
When Ramón left, he took my peaceful night’s sleep with him.
In tonight’s thriller/horror dreams, I’d been back in our old apartment, reliving the moments when I’d been frozen with terror as a massive, nasty bastard slapped and hit Hannah.
The sound of her screams echoed unnaturally through the twisted room in my dreams. Her lip split in a small burst of bright red blood, my mind slowing time down so it felt like everything was distorted. I’d always imagined I’d be brave if any man ever tried to hit me, that I would take advantage of some mistake the bad guys made and save the day. The terrible, gut wrenching truth was that I was a coward. A girl I loved like she was my flesh and blood was being beaten to a pulp, and I couldn’t force myself to move. Forget being clever and clear-headed, during my first encounter with true violence, with pure maliciousness, I’d turned into a scared rabbit. I was prey. I wasn’t strong, I wasn’t level-headed and smart. I’d flattened myself to the wall, frozen in horror while they hurt her.
Unable to control my dream, I once again experienced the staggering fear caused by Ray dragging me down the hallway by my hair, a scream choking me as flailed and tried to get away. I’d lost my mind at that point, fighting like a cornered animal, but he pinned me so fast I didn’t stand a chance. That shocked me, honestly—how fast he was able to physically get control of me.
At the time, I had no fighting skills, not real ones. I mean, I’d taken a few women’s self-defense classes that one of my mom’s feminist friends ran, but when it came down to it, I was a small, out of shape girl who sat on her ass behind a computer way too many hours of the day. The guy on top of me, however, obviously spent time at the gym. I’d been helpless against him as he ground his cock against me. He told me all the vile things he planned on doing with me, his revolting threats mixing with Hannah’s distant screams of agony.
Just like all my nightmares, my bedroom morphed to a dingy cell, complete with torture equipment as a group of men stood around. Dirty, disgusting men, all there to rape me while they filmed it.
Pain lanced through me, and I realized I was curving my hands into fists so tight, my tendons ached. If I had any fingernails that I hadn’t chewed off left, they would have pierced my palms. For a moment, I welcomed that pain, welcomed how it chased back my guilt and shame. If I were to try to diagnose myself, which we all know is a fool’s errand, I’d say I had some fucked up blend of survivor’s guilt and PTSD going on. Probably some depression as well, and for sure generalized anxiety.
