Page 20 of In Somnis

Routine takes over, and I swing my legs out of bed, pull on my running clothes by muscle memory alone, lace my shoes tight enough to feel anchored, and grab my headlamp and headphones on the way out.

Outside, the air is cold enough that it stings your lungs enough to be a reality check on its own, but I still stop my hand in front of my eyes when I’m done clicking the headlamp on to check my watch twice.

4:58 a.m.

You’re fine, Paul. He can’t get to you here.

Dawn hasn’t fully arrived yet, only a thin, gray suggestion of it bleeding into the dark outside the stream of the headlamp. The street is empty. Predictable.

Good.

I start running the same route I take every morning, and movement shakes the excess out of my system, turns fear into exertion, and thoughts into breaths. Music fills my ears and sets my pace. It always helps, giving my mind a thing to rest against, and for a while, I manage to think of nothing at all.

I run for exactly one hour, and when I come to stand in front of the house again, breathing heavily with sweat cooling on my skin, it’s still standing there exactly as it always is—too big, too quiet, too full of rooms I don’t use but are always brightly lit.

The house was part of the deal, my client’s idea of making it easier for me to stay in this small town. Just like the Mercedes parked in the garage, and the more-than-ample pay she transfers every month, so I’ll work with her daughter for one hour a day.

One hour. That’s all.

Five years ago, my life collapsed into this nightmare, and I lost my best friend because of it. Ridge was also, disastrously, one of my patients. That alone speaks of how poorly my boundaries were holding at the time. Our friendship grew out of proximity, out of spending too much time together, heading toward the same goal.

When it all fell apart, I wanted to leave, pack up my life, take my work, and disappear far away from here. I even tried to imagine myself somewhere else, opening a new practice in a city where a psychologist specializing in dreamwork and lucid-dreaming trauma therapy would actually be useful, but it didn’t take me long to realize it wouldn’t matter. My nightmares would find me, no matter where I went.

So I stayed.

I made a choice.

Convenience is its own kind of cage, and I built this one with my eyes wide open.

On paper, it’s a good life. One hour of work a day, with the rest spent training my body, maintaining the house, doing research, and reinforcing routines that keep everything contained. Routines are hard for me to break, and I’ve stopped pretending that’s a flaw instead of a fact.

This house was always my dream house, even if it was run-down when they bought it for me. The first thing I did was paint the exterior.

Light blue.

I’ve never been superstitious. I have a doctorate, for fuck’s sake. I believe in data, research, neurochemistry, and patterns that can be mapped and understood, but standing here, heart still thudding from the run, I can’t quite ignore how this recurring dream has shaped my whole life.

I’m no longer convinced it’s only a dream. The idea that I will kill my soulmate doesn’t feel symbolic anymore. It feels… inevitable.

I stand there a moment longer than I should, letting the cold finish what the run started. Then I do what I always do when I catch myself looking for too long. I stop.

Doubt is just another thing that needs to be outlasted.

I go inside and walk up to my bedroom, where I peel off my damp clothes, take off my glasses, and turn on the water as hot as I can stand it. Steam fills the bathroom, sealing me in, and as I step inside, I close my eyes as the hot water hits my skin.

Another routine completed.

Another night survived.

Exactly ten minutes later, I’m out of the shower and drying off methodically, starting with my tightly curling hair, then my shoulders, and stomach. The foggy mirror across the bathroom blurs my reflection into something softer and easier to ignore, but I wipe it clear with the edge of the towel anyway and put my glasses back on.

There I am.

My hair is still dark, but silver has started threading its way in at the temples, echoed by the same gray streaks in my beard, which I keep trimmed short.

I’m forty now, whether I like it or not.

My eyes are darker than they used to be. Not the color—that’s always been the same brown—but the weight behind them. They look tired, and the slight hollow carved beneath them only accentuates the fatigue written all over my face.