12
I wake up in a cold sweat, my entire body clammy. It’s the dream again. The same one. Jeremy. Always Jeremy. I hate him for what he did. He took his own pain away, but not before he upended my life first. A warm hand lands on my side, and Travis rolls in close, his breath warm on my cheek.
“You okay?” His voice is husky and sleepy, and it’s a comfort I didn’t know I needed.
“I’ll be fine,” I whisper. “It’s just a dream I have over and over again. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen often, and other times it feels like it never goes away.”
He doesn’t say anything at first, just watches me, his face just visible under the moonlight coming through the crack in the curtain. He’s warm beside me, solid and safe, but my skin still feels sticky. Finally, he lifts my hand and runs his thumb over the pulse at my wrist, like he can still feel the echo of it racing.
“Want to tell me what it’s about?”
“Are you sure you want the details?”
“Hit me,” he says. No hesitation.
“It’s weird, because it isn’t something I saw, but I just keep seeing him ending his life. Well, what I imagined that would look like.” My mouth goes dry. “It’s always the same, he just looks at me, dead in the eye and tells me it’s all my fault and then shoots himself. It’s horrible, I...”
My voice cuts off, scratchy and trembling.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t know it was affecting you like that.”
I swallow. “I have gotten help, and I understand why they’re happening, but it doesn’t seem to stop it. When I get stressed, or things are hard, they come back.”
“You’re stressed because of me,” he says, not a question but a statement.
“No,” I whisper. “Trav, I would do this with you all over again.”
“I get that, and I fucking love you for it, but seeing me withdraw wasn’t easy. I know it wasn’t.”
He’s right.
“You want me to take you somewhere today? Maybe clear your mind.”
“Nah,” I say. “But I would like to just lay here and listen to you sing dumb country songs to make me feel better...”
“You know I don’t do country, Mischief.”
“For me?”
He grins, the flash of his teeth making me all warm and fuzzy inside. “Yeah. Fuck. For you, I’d do anything.”
He starts singing a song I haven’t heard before, but I love it all the same. The way his voice dips and lowers, even when he’s not trying, he sounds incredible. After a minute I shuffle closer, tangle a leg around his, and press my face into the side of his neck. The nightmares can’t possibly stay too long when I am here, like this, with him.
We drift back to sleep and wake in the morning, tangled in each other, sunlight slicing stripes across the sheets. Travis moves first, pressing his lips to mine before getting up and pulling on jeans, then heading to the kitchen to start coffee. I peel myself out of bed, get changed, and go downstairs where Travis tells me we’re out of eggs.
“Ohh,” I pout. “I am desperate for pancakes.”
He grins. “Better run to the shop, baby. I’ll start the batter.”
I grin, grabbing my keys and heading outside.
My car waits in the drive, sitting right where I parked it last night. But as I get closer, something catches my eye on the hood. Spray paint. Red, the letters arched along the curve.BACK OFF, BITCH. I WILL ONLY TELL YOU ONCE.
I stop dead. My chest goes totally still, the world going silent except for one noisy bird up on the power line.
What the fuck is happening?
I back up, and it must be enough to get Travis concerned, because he’s suddenly there, by my side. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
