Page 39 of Psychotic Nightmares

“And yet, my heart still yearns for you.” I confess. “What you said earlier about your heart having different feelings for the same person. I feel like that with you,” I hear her take a shaky breath. “Only, I’m not the only one who has to make the decision, kitten. You have to make your choice too.”

Please choose me.

“Only you can call me that.”She half chuckles and half cries. “And I still don’t know why you call me that.”

Because the first time I called you it you gave me the biggest smile and called me random, so it stuck.

“Thank you. For telling me.” I take a sip of my coffee and exhale. I tried to tell her time and time again when we were together that she doesn’t have to thank me for every tiny little thing. But now I know about her past, now I know everything she went through as a child. I understand why she does.

And I swear, those bastards will pay for what they did to her.

“It’s okay. How are you feeling now?”

“Better now I have the locket back.” She whispers. “Julian had it this whole time.” I grind my teeth.He stole her locket?“He had the picture for a while too. When it appeared the same time he did I assumed he was the one there with me that day. I’m sorry.”He took her picture too. What an asshole.And I can’t evenspeak to him about it, not without him finding out about mine and Nats history. I need to tell him at some point though.

“Nothing to be sorry for Nat. In fact I should apologise to you. When I didn’t hear back from you after that night I assumed that you had ghosted me. I should have tried to look for you or something.”

“No, you shouldn’t be sorry. The timing was shit. The police tried to tell me I was with someone that night, but I couldn’t remember you. If I had only fought harder to remember I…”

“Amnesia is a tricky thing. Memories come back when they are ready.” I won’t let her beat herself up over something that wasn’t her fault. “Don’t worry about anything else but your health right now. You need to get yourself well again, we can have a proper talk after that okay?”

“Okay.” She exhales. We go quiet, none of us wanting to leave the call. I rip out some paper from my notebook and start tearing it into little pieces. She starts sniffling on the other end of the line, breaking my heart even more.

“Hey, wanna hear a cool joke I heard the other night?” I ask, breaking the silence. We used to spend hours on the phone, sometimes talking about everything and anything, sometimes we were just on the phone for the company while doing household chores, sometimes she would read aloud her favourite parts of whatever book she was reading, but every time we would struggle to cut the call. Just like now.

“Sure.” She giggles and sniffs again. I huff out a laugh at my heart racing hearing her giggle.

Fuck. I lay my head back against the cushion and close my eyes.Don’t go there, Dante. She’s your best friend's girlfriend.

“Do you know why eggs don’t tell jokes?” I manageto say.

“No I don’t.”

“Because they might crack up.” She laughs softly.

“That was a terrible yolk.”

“So was that.” I chuckle.

“I don’t want to leave the call, but I’m getting tired.” She admits.Same, gattina, same.“Dante.”

“Hmm.” I finish with the first piece of paper and start on another. I hear her walking around on the gravel. I’m surprised Julian let her out of his sight, butshe probably wanted privacy while making the call. With the amount of cameras in the warehouse she probably didn’t feel comfortable doing it there. “Are you dressed up warm?”

“I am.” She huffs. “Please don’t start going all dad mode on me.” I smile. “I remember everything.” She whispers. “I remembereverything.” She takes a shaky breath. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing my memories back.” A moment of silence passes again, I don’t know how to reply to her. “Goodnight, a...” I inhale quickly. “Goodnight Dante.”

“Goodnight,gattina.”

“Papa!” Nico jumps on the bed, waking me up. “Uncle Jules is on the phone.”

I open one eye, hold my hand out and he puts the phone in my waiting palm. “What?” I say into the receiver.

“We got another job, be here around lunchtime.” He cuts the call. Since we argued the night Natalie tried to take her life, there’s been a lot of tension. We have argued before, normally about the way he handles ‘taking care’ of people in the locked room. I hate the way he drags out their pain. Quick and easy is the way for me. A bullet between the eyes. I won’t kill unless I have too, I normally leave it to the other three. But seeing him last week trying to force Natalie to take Howard's life, I had to step in. I couldn’t let her live with that guilt. Not her, she has enough emotion to deal with. And adding guilt to that would have pushed her over the edge.

I look at my son, now sitting on the floor playing with his toy cars. Fuck, I have got to go to work, but I have no-one to leave him with. Unless Natalie can watch him for me. But can I trust her? She tried to kill herself a week ago and this will be the first time we will be leaving her alone. She may leave Nico by himself in that place. I hate taking him there at the best of times, let alone potentially leavinghim therealone.No, I can’t do it. I’ll have to let Julian know I can’t go. But then he might go crazy without me there to calm him down.Fuck.

Nico makes engine noises and starts racing his cars out of the room. I smile at him. My boy. My child.

“I called her Anya, but that was before she was ripped from my arms and taken away from me. Her other parents probably changed her name.”