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Twenty-Nine
-Lola-
I don’t realizeI’m dreaming until there are hands on my body, shaking me until I wake up.
“Lola, honey, wake up. You’re safe. You’re okay.” I move to sitting, part of me here, trying to figure out where “here” is.
The other part is still in a dream where Johnny Vitale has Lilah, holding her as compensation, forcing her to dance in one of the Carluccio clubs everyone knows are even seedier than they look.
Forcing her to do more than just dance.
I’ve heard the whispers.
It wasn’t a dream so much as a nightmare.
But then a light—small and bright—flashes and the room is illuminated.
Ben’s room.
Framed photos of drawings of tattoos.
Black bed sheets.
His tee on my body.
His face in mine.
His hands on my shoulders.
“Ben,” I breathe, and he breathes too, like he’s relieved that I’m back here in the land of the living.
Back here with him.
He sits on the bed, pulls me into his lap, and slowly starts rocking me back and forth. His hand comes up, removing the loose pony from my hair and putting his hand into the strands, rubbing my scalp.
Comfort.
Fear melts, vanishing from my body.
“Does this happen often?” he asks, breaking my silence. I don’t answer. My mind is still so muddled, half in a terrifying dream world that is too close to a potential reality and half here in an unfamiliar room but with familiar arms. “It happens often.” His arms tighten in frustration. “I know you don’t want to talk about it today, Lola, but fuck. It’s killing me, not knowing. My mind is running off to some shitty fucking places.”
I put a hand on his chest.
Warm.
Reassuring.
Comfort.
“The last person who held me after a nightmare died when I was fifteen,” I say, fingers tracing the lines of a wrench, then a screwdriver over his heart.
A logo, I think. But not his. Strange.
“Your mom,” he says. I don’t look at him.
“You’ve been searching me, haven’t you?”
“You’ve got a thick wall. But you have me tied up in knots. Can’t get past that wall without some kind of ammunition, some kind of knowledge.”
