Natalie Cuddington
We get back to the school right before lunch ends, and I head to my class like nothing weird happened at all today. I see Shannon on my way and she smiles at me, so I smile back.
“Becca?” she asks after we’ve passed each other. I stop and turn to her.
“Yeah?”
“You didn’t tell Zac what I said at his party did you? About him needing to talk to me about my sister?”
“No, I would never.”
“Ok. I just don’t want it to get back to him and have him think that I’m talking about him behind his back or something.”
“Don’t worry about it. I won’t say anything.”
“Ok. Thanks.”
I smile and nod at her, and continue on my way to my class.
I don’t see Zac in the hall before my last class, and I don’t see him on my way out. Luckily I do see Chance, and he walks home with me.
“Are you ready to dream jump tonight?” he asks.
I shrug. “I guess.”
“It’ll be fun. I promise.”
“If you say so.”
Chance texts me at 10:00 that night, telling me he’s waiting outside in the driveway. I creep down the hallway so that my mom can’t hear me, and slip out the front door unnoticed. The air is silent, except for the occasional breeze that blows through my sweater. I sort of like walking down the empty street at 10 at night. It’s very quiet at this time on a Monday. I mean, it’s a suburb; everyone has work or school the next morning. It sort of feels like we own the whole place, and no one can stop us from doing what we want.
“Can I ask you something?” I start.
“Sure,” he replies.
“On the first day of school, you kept looking at me.”
“That’s not a question.”
“Ha, ha,” I say, slowly and sarcastically.
“Seriously, what’s your question?” I can hear the laugh under his voice.
“Why were you looking at me?”
“Besides the fact that you’re gorgeous?”
I raise my hand to my chest and almost choke on air. “What?”
“Don’t make me say it again.”
“What? Say what again? Did you call me gorgeous?”
“Yeah,” he huffs. “Like you don’t know.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“Really?”
“A boy has never called me gorgeous before. Or pretty, or anything. Well, I mean, Zac calls me beautiful all the time, and when I say all the time, I mean all the time. It doesn’t sound sincere; it’s like he’s just saying it because he can. Because he thinks it’ll make me like him.”
“How do you know I’m not just saying it because I can?”
“Because when you said it, it sounded real.” I stop for a second, sort of afraid to continue. “It sounded… like you had something to lose.”
He kicks a stone by his feet and I watch it skip across the road. “Yeah well… Maybe I do.”
"So what was the other reason then?” I say, eager to move the subject off of him thinking I’m gorgeous. It makes me feel a little uncomfortable and confused; especially after he’s tried to tell me a few times that he doesn’t like me like that.
“I knew you were an Aura.”
“Why?”
“Because I could see your aura.”
“Huh?”
“Everyone has an aura.”
“For their dreams?” I ask.
He smiles and shakes his head. “No, you know, that essence that surrounds people’s bodies?”
“Those are real?”
“Yeah. And they’re hardly even noticeable on regular people. But they really stand out on Auras – the dream people.”
“And mine stands out?”
“It does a lot now. But on Tuesday, it was sort of in the middle. Like it wasn’t sure where it was going.”
“I don’t get it. Do they have thoughts?”
“No, it’s just an example. I don’t know. Most auras just sort of look like dust floating around close to the person. But on an Aura – a dream jumper – they’re bright. Usually an orangey, goldy type colour. And yours was like a soft orange.”
“But it’s not soft anymore?”
He shakes his head. “No it’s full now, like the rest of us.”
“Well wait a second, why can you see people’s auras?”
“Because Auras – dream jumpers – can see them.”
“But I can’t.”
“That’s because you haven’t accepted it yet.” The corner of his mouth curls up a bit.
“What do you mean I haven’t accepted it yet?”
“You’re still new to this. You haven’t come to terms with the whole thing yet.”
“And when I do, I’ll be able to see other people’s auras?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s just a simple as that?”
“Yup.”
We’re coming to the forest now, and it’s so dark I can’t even see my feet in front of me. I step cautiously, and my shoes crunch on twigs and fallen branches. An owl nearby hoots, and I turn to try and see, but I see nothing. I keep thinking that I see branches in front of my face, but when I reach out to touch them, I’m just swiping at air. Chance puts his arm out in front of my chest to stop me and I stand silently while I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t though; he just grabs my hand about a minute later, and we walk a bit further until we’re in Rem.
“How did you see the wall?” I ask.
“I opened my eyes really wide.”
I hit him in the shoulder and he laughs. “Really,” I press.
“If you just let your eyes adjust to the darkness for a bit, a little bit of light’ll come in from somewhere.”
“From where? There was no light anywhere.”
“There’s light here, in Rem.”
“But there was no light in the forest.”
“But the light from Rem was shining through. You just have to look for it.”
“Sure,” I say, quite unconvincingly.
We’re standing in Nightlife Five, Chance’s favourite nightmare room, watching the moving images of scared dreamers across the curved walls. My heart is beating a little fast and I can feel it in my throat, but I just swallow, and put my hand on one of the nightmares, Chance’s hand on top of mine.
No feeling of transition. We were in Nightlife, and now we’re in an empty school. The flickering lights allow me to see just to the end of the hall, where lockers are opened and dented, and papers are scrawled across the floor. A nearby door flings open, banging loudly against the wall behind it. I jump and grab Chance’s hand without even meaning to. I look down at our locked fingers and instantly let go. I see him smirk, but I ignore it, and start my way down the hall. All I can hear are my footsteps echoing around me in the empty hall. Something skitters across the floor in front of me and I jump back a bit, trying my hardest not to scream. It hits the lockers to the right of me and squeals, before shaking and running back across the hall. What is it? The flickering lights are starting to make me dizzy and it’s hard to focus. I take a small step closer to it and lean down a bit, but the thing keeps running around in circles and it just looks like a blob. I lean in a bit closer and out of nowhere, it makes this awful screech and leaps into the air, flying right at my face. And even with it coming right at me, I still don’t know what it is. It’s just a black blob. But it has a mouth. A big, huge mouth, with hundreds of teeth circling the inside. I yelp and back up, trying to get out of the way of this thing that’s going to latch itself to my face, and I trip in the process, falling onto my tailbone. The pain shoots up my back and I manage to bite down a scream. The blob thing lands beside me and starts chomping at thin air, but jumping and making its way towards my hand. I stand up as fast as I can and spin around looking for Chance. He’s gone. Where did he go? I call out to him, but no one answers. All I can hear is a buzzing coming from the lights, and the chomping of the blob thing with the crazy teeth. I jump over it but it just leaps into the air and almost gets a hold of my knee. I step to the side and then back up into the wall and run at it, kicking it into the air. It makes a weird popping sound and squeals as it flies through the air and hits the inside of a locker on the other side of the hall. I shut the door on it before it has a chance to get out, and I lock it. It rams itself into the metal door and it dents out towards me, but I think it’ll be trapped at least for a little while. Now to find Chance. Or the dreamer. I don’t know. I turn around and bump into someone, almost falling back. But that someone isn’t Chance. It’s Zac.
"Hello,” he says with a smile.
“Hi.” I glare at him and try to step around him but he holds out a hand and doesn’t let me pass.
“What are you doing here? You’re not killing my nightmare are you?”
I can feel him trying to get inside my head and I try my hardest to push him out. It’s making me a little dizzy, but I keep fighting anyway. Is it harder to keep them out when you’re in a nightmare? I shake my head and try to push past him again but his arm is really strong.
“Why don’t you help me make this nightmare even scarier?” he says through a raspy voice.
“I’m ok, thanks.”
He grabs onto my arm and spins me around so that my back is facing him, and he presses me into his chest. He leans his head down so that his cheek is pressed against mine. His warm breath is sticky on my neck.
“I can make you do whatever I want.”
“Like hell you can,” I say through gritted teeth.
He kisses my ear and I lean away from his lips, trying to duck out of his hold. He squeezes my arm tighter and presses me harder into him and I can feel his heart beating against my shoulder blade. I want him to stop. Make him stop. Do it. Make him stop. Why won’t he let go? I want him to let go. The more I try to get into his head, the tighter he squeezes.
“Oh,” he says, a little cheerful. “Can you feel that?”
I don’t say anything.
“Your little friend is trying to change the nightmare. Something easy at first, like always.”
I feel him shrug when the lights stop flickering and come on completely, lighting up the hallway and already making it feel less creepy.
“Not good enough!” Zac shouts.
The light bulbs break and I scream a little in surprise as they pop and glass shards fly through the air. Each one goes out, and in about eight seconds, we’re left in total darkness. I can’t see anything, and all I can hear is my pounding heart.
“I have your girlfriend!” he shouts. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
I try to lean out of his grasp, but he’s too strong, so I kick my foot back as hard as I can, hitting him in the crotch with my heel. He gulps and lets go of me right away, falling onto the floor with his hands cupping his crotch. I smirk at him and kick him again. He yelps and I only wish it were light enough for me to see the tears streaming down his face. I turn around and start down the hall, but I bang into someone again. Who is it this time?
“That wasn’t very nice.” It’s Zac! How did he get there so fast?
I start to back up but I can feel him inching towards me. “Over here,” he says. Except the voice is coming from behind me, even though he’s standing right in front of my face. I’m afraid to look away from him, afraid that once I turn around to follow the other voice, he’ll attack me. But then he disappears, and I squeal, startled. I bring my hands up to my mouth and spin around to see Zac getting up from the ground. His hand is still gingerly cupping his crotch, and he winces as he stands. “I just made that illusion for you, to distract you while I gathered the strength back in my man region.” I don’t even have time to make a comment about how he said man region, because he’s walking faster now, and still talking. “Can your precious Chance do something like that?”
“He’s not mine.”
He scoffs. “Sure there. You just chose his side because it was convenient.”
“Because it was right,” I say strongly.
“No it isn’t!” He lunges at me and wraps his hands around my neck, pushing me into the lockers. I try to grab at his wrists and pull him off me, but he’s too strong. I choke and struggle to breathe, but every time I move, he tightens his grip. He starts to lift me off the ground and I can’t touch the floor with my feet anymore, and I start kicking my legs, trying to get him again, but I’m not high enough off the ground. I can feel my face turning purple, and I swear my eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.
“Come back with me.” His voice is raspy on his lips.
“No,” I manage to squeeze out. But it just makes him tighten his grip and I gasp, trying to get some oxygen into my lungs.
“I really don’t want to kill you.”
I want to tell him not to, then, but I can’t. I can’t even breathe. I try to shake my head, but I can’t even do that.
But then there’s a loud smacking sound and he drops me, letting me crumple to the floor. I’m on my knees, coughing and choking, feeling the air finally filling my lungs. It hurts, but it also feels good finally being able to breathe. I try to take in a steady breath but it makes me cough and scratches my throat. I look back to see what happened, but it’s still so dark that I can only see silhouettes. Two people are on top of each other, rolling around on the floor and I can only assume that it’s Zac and Chance. I don’t want Chance to get hurt, but I don’t want to get in the middle of it and get even more hurt myself, so I decide to leave the two to fight each other, while I find the dreamer and change the nightmare.
I hurry down the hall as quietly as I can, and turn the corner to see a girl about 13 years old, running from another one of those weird blobby things with the crazy teeth. I run past her and boot it as hard as I can, watching it fly down the hall. It smacks into the wall and slides to the floor, a trail of blood following it down.
“Thanks!” she says.
“No problem,” I say, my voice still hoarse.
“Who are you?”
“Becca,” I say.
“We should hide out together.”
“Yeah, we should.”
We run down the hall and open a door that leads to a stairwell. The door shuts behind us and we stop for a second to plan what we should do. I need to do more than just plan a way out of the situation we’re in; I need to find a way to change the nightmare to something happy. I guess it works the same way as the whole mind control thing, so I focus on something I want to change the dream to. What would make sense? Wait a second, why does it have to make sense? It’s a dream. Dreams never make sense. I close my eyes and think about a disco ball appearing in the ceiling. When I open them, there is in fact, a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Right in the middle of the stairwell, spinning and reflecting little squares of light around us. They dance across our shirts and over the walls, and the girl smiles.
“Where’s the music?” she asks.
“Oh yeah, I guess there should be music, shouldn’t there?”
I make some dance music come on, and just as it does, I feel a pull inside my head. Zac is trying to change it back. I remember now that the best way to kill a nightmare is to make the Lents do it. But I don’t know how to get inside his head without seeing him. I’ll have to go back and face him.
“Wait here,” I tell her.
“Why can’t I come with you?”
“Uhh…” I pause for a second, trying to come up with a valid reason. “Because, that cute guy wants to dance with you.” The pull in my head is getting stronger, but I manage to make a cute guy with blonde hair appear in front of her, and let the music change to a soft, slow song. I don’t even look back to see if she’s enjoying herself before walking back into the hallway. I can see him at the end, standing with his legs spread apart, and something hanging from his hand. I walk a bit closer and squint in the darkness to try and make out what it is, but it just looks like a baseball bat or something. Uh oh. I think it is a baseball bat. Why does he have a baseball bat?
“Having trouble killing my nightmare, there Becca?” He sneers at me and adjusts the bat in his hand, spinning it around a few times before tightening his fingers around it.
“No, I’m just getting started.” I hide the fear in my voice and try to ignore the big, wooden weapon dangling from his strong arm. I wish I could tell myself that this is just a dream.
“What are you waiting for?”
I’m about to say something but I see Chance getting up from the floor behind Zac and I can’t help but let my eyes wander over to him. He looks really hurt. Bad idea. The bat strikes me in the side of the head before I even see it coming. The walls spin around me and stars leak into my vision from the sides. I want to make him stop, like, with the mind control thing, but my mind feels broken. I try not to fall over, but the weight in my head is pulling me down and I can’t keep my balance anymore. The floor is coming level with my face and a pounding rings through my body as it hits the ground. I try to lift myself up but my arms are shaking and my head feels like it’s going to break into a million pieces. Zac steps on my back and pushes me back down, and I feel a whimper escape my lips. Trying to get into his head is breaking mine, so I let it rest and just hope that he isn’t going to hit me again. There’s a pounding in my ear so loud that it sounds like waves are rolling over in my head and I’m afraid it’s something bad. Something warm and sticky is pooling around my face and my first thought is that it’s blood. My second thought, which is more like a fear, is that it’s coming out of my ear. Zac presses his foot harder into my back and I try not to cry out, but it happens anyway. I’m so disoriented I almost can’t even process what’s happening to me. He finally releases his foot and bends down in front of me, pressing his cheek to the floor so that our eyes are level. Everything is blurry. And then everything is black.
My head is heavy and I can’t keep it up. It rolls back and my neck snaps a bit, but I can’t help it. I try to wipe my eyes but my hands are bound behind my back and my shoulder blades are digging into something hard. Am I tied to a chair? I try to open my eyes, but it’s so bright that it’s blinding me, piercing my eyes like needles.
A hand slaps me across the face and the sting brings me out of my haze a little bit. I am able to open my eyes now without the light being so painful. I can’t focus on anything, though; everything is a blur of white. There’s someone standing in front of me but I can’t make out who it is. A horrible feeling in my stomach tells me that it isn’t the person I’m hoping for.
“Wakey wakey,” he says, his voice like a song.
I groan and try to force my eyes to focus, but my head is pounding too much. It’s distracting me from everything.
Another slap across the face and my cheek is on fire.
“I said wake up!”
“Shut up,” I say, managing to add a nice little annoyed and controlling tone to it.
“What happened to you?”
I don’t understand the question. I squint at him, trying to make out the features in his face, even though I already know who it is.
He kicks me in the shin and I bite down a scream. “Answer me!”
“You happened to me.”
He laughs a little and pushes my chair back with his foot, sending me flying back. My head and arms take the blunt of the fall and I scream out when I hit the ground. My head smacks into the concrete and makes everything go black for a split second, and I swear everything in my arms is broken. My shoulders, my wrists, my elbows. They’re tucked behind the chair and smashed into the floor and I find it hard to catch a breath. Zac leans down over me and shakes his head, tksing at me, as if I just did something wrong.
“I’m going to untie you now, but only because I know you’re too broken to run,” he says.
He bends over me and grabs my shirt collar, bringing the chair back to the upright position. I gasp as the weight lifts off my breaking bones, trying my hardest not to cry. He steps in real close to me and breathes down my neck as he wraps his arms around my back, untying me in the most inconvenient way possible. He’s doing it on purpose, I know, because he’s a creep. When the ropes fall from my wrists, I wait for him to step back, but he doesn’t. Instead he leans further in and whispers in my good ear.
“Are you going to cooperate?”
I just swallow hard, trying to think of a way out of this.
“You’re making this very difficult for me, you know,” he says, stepping back and sitting in his own chair that I didn’t notice until now. He drags it across the floor with one hand as he squats over the seat of it, and sits down once it’s so close to me that our knees are touching. “I liked you at first. But now you’re just getting really annoying.”
“Why?” I ask. “Because I don’t want to join your little nightmare club?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Sorry, I’m sure you can find someone else who’s willing. Someone whose mind is easier to control.”
“But that’s the thing, Becca.” My vision is getting a lot clearer now and I can see the room around me slowly come into focus. He has a bruise on his cheekbone and I only hope that Chance gave that to him. He smirks and leans forward in the chair, forcing me to focus only on his face instead of the grey, concrete walls around us. “Your mind isn’t easy to control. You’re good at pushing people out.”
“Thanks,” I say, as smug as I can.
He snickers and rests a hand on his knee, his elbow bent. “With someone like you on our team, we could be unstoppable.” He shifts his hands across the space between us and rests them on my thighs. “We could be such a good team.”
“I don’t want to be on your team.”
His gentle grip on my legs turns into his fingers digging into me and I try to shake him off me but it’s no use. “Why are you fighting this? I thought you liked me?”
“Yeah, until you turned out to be a fucking psychopath.”
“That hurts, Becca.”
“So do I.”
He stands up and sighs. “I know. I’m sorry. I really didn’t want to do that, but there was no other way to get you here.” He wraps his arms around me and picks me up, but the pain shoots though my entire body and I try so hard not to cry, but I can’t help it. I scream out and Zac shushes me, which just pisses me off even more. Why is he being all gentle now? He can’t beat the shit out of me and then try and be all sweet to me. No. Not happening. I grab onto his shirt and tug on it, squeeze it between my fists to try and release the pain. He shushes me again and I just pull on his shirt more and bite down on my tongue. I wish I could jump out of his grasp and run away, but I know trying will just result in me getting even more hurt.
He takes me out of the concrete room and steps into a hallway lined with mirrors. I catch a glimpse of me that makes it look like I go on forever, and I shutter at my broken face. My hair is stuck to the left side of my face in a bloody mess, and it’s tangled on my head where the bat must have hit me, red and gooey. My eye is a dark blue and it creeps down onto my cheekbone. I don’t have a chance to see the rest of me, because he turns and heads down the hall, and all I can see over Zac’s shoulder is the door at the end of the corridor, getting smaller and smaller.
I wake up in a bed with black and red sheets and fluffy pillows. My head is still fuzzy and my ear is ringing so loudly that I think it’s something in the room. I look around to find Zac going through a dresser drawer on the other side of the room.
“You’re up,” he says, a cheeriness in his voice.
I try to sit up but everything hurts too much. Zac sees me struggling and rushes over to me, kneeling beside the bed and cupping a hand behind my head. I pull away from him and gasp, and he takes his hand back.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “It’s painful, eh?”
“You think?”
“You don’t have to be rude.”
“Oh I think I do.”
“Becca, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“No, you just want to hit me across the face with a baseball bat and then break my arms.”
“Relax, I didn’t break your arms; they’re just bruised.” He gently wraps a hand around my forearm, so I try to I shake him off. A quiet pain breaks out from my shoulder when I do it, but it’s mostly just achy.
“But you’re not denying the baseball bat,” I say.
He lets go of my arm, like he’s surprised by my response. “I didn’t mean to, I swear. I’m always a bit of a different person when I’m in a nightmare. The rush of it all sort of takes over and I can’t think clearly. I don’t really think like a human.”
I snort and sink back into the pillow.
“Does your head still hurt a lot?” he asks.
“I thought we went over this.”
“I thought I told you I was sorry.” He gently puts a hand on my forehead and brushes the greasy hair out of my eyes.
“Well I don’t forgive you.”
He bites his bottom lip and exhales through his nose. “You’re adorable when you’re being stubborn.”
“Why are you acting like we’re friends?”
“I thought we were…. I thought we were sort of more than friends.”
“No. We’re not. You’re a crazy psycho freak and I never want to be your friend.” Hmm… Maybe you shouldn’t tell a crazy psycho freak that they’re a crazy psycho freak.
His jaw tightens and he pulls back a bit. “I think you’re just still mad at me. It’s ok, I can be patient.”
I want to scream. I want to rip this incredibly comfortable bedding off me and kick him in the face. I want to run out of his room and get away from here. But the room is still spinning a little bit, and any time I try to get into his head, it feels like mine is going to explode.
“I’m going to go get you something to eat,” he says. He gets up and heads towards the door, and I look at him from across the dark room. Maybe I can try to get away after all. He smiles and slips out the door, softly closing it behind him. I throw the blankets off me, happy to feel my arms only protesting a little bit. I swing my legs off the bed, but once I’m sitting up straighter, my head aches and pounds. Every time I move so much as an inch, it feels closer and closer to blowing up, but I power through. I take a deep breath and stand up on shaking legs. I can do this.
As I start to cross the room I realize that I’m not even wearing shoes. My bloody shirt has been exchanged for an oversized t-shirt that hangs almost down to my knees, over a pair of loose track pants. They must be Zac’s clothes. I’m a little creeped out at the fact that he undressed me and put his shirt and pants on me, but I don’t have time to think about that right now. I have to get out of here. The room wobbles and I stumble to the door, but once I get that far I tell myself I can’t turn back. I turn the doorknob as quietly as I can, but the hinges creak a bit as the door opens. I stop and listen for anyone who might have heard, but when nothing happens, I step out into the hall. I don’t know where to go or how to get out, but I need to do something so I turn left down the dark hallway and start wandering. The walls look like they’re dripping water, leaking from the corner where the top of the wall meets the ceiling. My bare feet stick to the shiny floor and I can only imagine I’m leaving moist footprints behind me. I don’t even care. There are almost no other doors in this hall, it’s just wall that goes on forever on either side of me. Sometimes there is a white door but the spaces between them are so large, I must be walking five minutes at a time before I come across a new one. Does this hallway ever end? I stop and take a breath, trying to steady the hallway that is now spinning around me again. I raise my hands to my head to try and calm the spinning in my mind, but I must be making myself exert too much energy. I was really badly injured and now I’m practically out for a jog. I look back and see a light creeping out from under a doorway just a few feet away. That’s weird, I don’t remember passing that. I walk back to the room and gently press a hand to the partly open door. It creaks open and I gasp to see Zac’s room inside. I’ve been walking down this hallway forever, and I’m back where I started. How did that happen? The hall didn’t go in a circle, I know it didn’t. I fight back tears that I can feel stinging my eyes and I take in a shaky breath. How is this possible?
“I can see you standing out there.” Zac’s voice from inside the room startles me and I jump a little. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go back to him, but apparently this hallway doesn’t go anywhere, and trying to leave is just useless. I can’t move. I stand outside the door, looking into Zac’s room, not moving. I can’t do it. Zac comes into view and his face is covered in concern. Except that it’s fake concern, and he’s just trying to make me forgive him. He raises a hand to me but I just stare at him, tears threatening to fall down my face.
“Come here,” he says softly.
I shake my head and a tear falls out, landing on my foot.
“Come on.” He steps into me and wraps his arms around me, pressing me into his chest. He kisses the top of my head and then rests his cheek on it, like I’m upset from something that he didn’t do, and he’s the one who can fix it. I have no energy left in me to try to fight him off. He reaches down and scoops me up in his arms and carries me back to his bed. I try to not let out a sob but one escapes my lips and he shushes me again, making a rage inside me so hot that I can’t wait until I’m better so I can do what he did to me, only ten times worse. He pulls the covers over me and then gets under them himself, tucking himself next to me in the bed.
“I don’t want you to try and run away again,” he whispers. “Ok?”
I roll over, my body screaming at me as I adjust myself on the bed. I don’t want to look at him. I face the wall and pull the pillow into my body, trying to block him out. He puts a hand on my shoulder and I shiver at his touch, but I still don’t say anything to him.
“If we do this together,” he starts up again, “I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”
“Ha.”
“It’s ok.” I feel him turn away from me in the bed and I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m a patient guy. I can wait for you to come around. But just so you know, the faster you come around, the easier it’ll be for you. No one likes being cooped up in a place they don’t like, with someone they resent. But the faster you realize this is what’s best for you, for us, you’ll start to enjoy it. We can have fun together. I thought we made a good mix, didn’t you?”
I inch closer to the wall and away from Zac, but he just scoots closer.
“You should rest, you know. You’re not going to heal if you keep moving around like that.”
“I wouldn’t need to heal if you didn’t hit me with a baseball bat,” I snap.
“You really need to just get rid of all this negative energy you have towards me, Becca.”
“I wouldn’t have negative energy if you didn’t hit me with a baseball bat!”
He gets out of the bed then and leaps across the room. “Shit, Becca! I told you I was sorry! I told you! I’m not the same person in nightmares! You can see that, can’t you? I’m not the same guy! Nightmares just sort of have this hold on us, and bring out the dark parts of us that we normally keep hidden. I’m not a bad guy, I swear. I’m not.”
I pull the comforter over my head and let myself drown in the darkness. I can hear Zac’s feet shuffle across the room, but before I know it, the sounds are fading and I’m being pulled into sleep.