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It comes to me at once—I was lying awake late at night, unable to sleep, watching reruns of some sitcom. I must’ve drifted off at some point. The nightmare felt so real, as though I’d been ripped away from the present and dropped into the past.
Forced to relive the one moment I wish I could forget.
It’s not until Salvatore’s stopped shaking me that I realize I’m trembling on my own. My body shakes and my clothes are damp. I’ve been sweating in my sleep. I lick at my dry lips and blink away the last remnants of the nightmare.
I’m awake now. It wasn’t real. Not in this moment. I was safely in bed. I was safely inSalvatore’sloft.
“Phi... you were screaming,” he says, his voice raspy. He smooths a hand along my shoulder. With his other he cups my cheek. His expression is lined with concern, his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed.
Sudden and inexplicable shame washes over me. It’s a reflexive, knee-jerk reaction to being caught screaming like a child afraid of monsters under her bed. I must’ve sounded ridiculous if I was loud and hysterical enough to wake Salvatore up in a spacious loft like his.
“I’m fine.” I shrug off his touch and turn my cheek. “It was just a bad dream.”
“About what?”
“I don’t remember. I never remember my dreams.”
Lies.
But what other choice do I have? Spill to my ex-boyfriend how I’m so haunted about my attack, I can barely sleep?
I’ve told him enough. I’ve been vulnerable enough. The trauma already feels humiliating on its own, including the fact I’m even forced to live with him. Now I have to tell him in agonizing detail what I was dreaming about?
I don’t want him to know—don’t wantanyoneto know.
“You’re lying,” he says bluntly after a pause. “I know you are, Phi. But if you don’t want to say what it was... I’ll drop it.”
“Excuse me.”
In need of a moment to collect myself, I leap out of bed and shoot for the bathroom. The second the door snicks shut, I exhale the breath I’ve been holding. At no fault of his own, Salvatore has only made me more anxious.
His concern is to be expected. He cares about me, and clearly I’m going through something. It should comfort me, but I can’t help that it only makes me feel that much weaker.
For twelve years, I’ve been fine without him. I moved on from our relationship and the heartbreak. Even, in my own way, began to resent him and how things ended between us. Within a few short weeks, he’s invaded every aspect of my life.
He’s become someone I’m forced to rely on. My feelings for him are so complicated, I don’t know how I feel about letting him in. No one knows about the ugly side of my life, the less than perfect parts of me.
Only Salvatore has ever seen them. This attack is the ugliest of them all.
“Calm down,” I whisper. My heart races and I still feel shaky. “You’re fine. You’re... you’re overreacting.”
His knuckles tap against the bathroom door. “Phi. Open up.”
“Just a second.”
I move to the sink and splash my face with cold water, jolting away the many conflicting feelings bottled up inside me. I roll my head along my shoulders and inhale several deep breaths before I face him.
Salvatore remains unconvinced. His composed yet skeptical expression, complete with a raised brow and his lips pressed into a tight line, reveals he’s not buying my act.
“What?”
“You tell me,” he says. “You’re still shaking. You alright?”
The moment drags on. I have no other choice but to stand in the doorway of the bathroom and stare up at him. His physical proximity becomes too much. I’m already swimming in a sea of foggy-brained confusion. I don’t need any more complications making it more difficult to think.
Yet something unbidden stirs inside me. My body responds to his without thought, drawn to his warmth and strength. I feel myself gravitating toward him, acutely aware of how close we are. We’re alone, steeped in the night’s silence and shadows. Two past lovers who find it impossible to stay away once we’re anywhere near each other.
I want him to go and stay at the same time. All while I simultaneously crave his touch but hate his concern. If he gets frustrated and gives up on me, I wouldn’t blame him. How can I when I’m a mess?
