AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The darkness is faded.
The dream is gone.
The aching throb deep in my core and the shivering fear it leaves teasing over my skin, however, remain.
I swallow again and close my eyes, shivering as my hands slide from my neck to push the fiery tangles back from my face. Sweat slicks across my skin, even in the cool of the air-conditioned bedroom.
Gradually, my racing heart slows. The slick across my skin begins to cool to goosebumps. My clenched throat opens, and the knot throbbing in my core begins to unravel.
In the ephemeral half-light of day creeping over the horizon, my eyes slide to the clock on my nightstand. Four minutes until five in the morning.
Fucking nightmares.
I exhale again, my arms circling as I hug myself. It isn’t the first time I’ve been chased through the woods in my dreams. Though, this is a newer direction than my usual nightmares.
Usually, they’re about the accident. Usually, I’m drowning in the water, helpless to stop it. The man, or creature, or devil, or whatever it is that hunts me like prey through the darkness is a recent development.
But, if I’m going to have nightmares almost nightly, at least my brain is keeping things fresh, I suppose.
My brow furrows. My alarm was set for seven this morning—almost two hours from now. But I know from experience that there’s no going back to sleep after a dream like the chase through the woods.
A dream that leaves me rattled.
And shivering.
And…otherphysical manifestations that frankly alarm me, considering the content of my nightmare.
The fear is rational.
The arousal is perverse.
I scoot back, leaning my shoulders against the headboard of the large queen-sized bed adorned with lacy frills and elegant details. My gaze sweeps the semi-dark room, slowly tracing over the equally frilly and entirely white aesthetic—like the whole bedroom suite is a white-washed showroom out of a Lillian August or Restoration Hardware catalog. Cold, sanitized, and completely depersonalized.
I have no idea who decided to redo my old bedroom in the two years I’ve been gone at college. Certainly not my father—interior design isslightlyoutside the purview of running a criminal empire. It could have been my stepmother, Jana—even if only to erase my own personal touches to the bedroom I left behind when I went off to Harvard. Because erasing my history seems to be a pastime of hers.
My musings move on to Senna, my father’s head housekeeper and chief of household staff. But then they swing back to Jana.
Painting over the dark blues and ripping down my old punk and indie rock posters was almost certainly Jana’s doing.
In the month I’ve been home, I’ve been tempted to make it look exactly like it did before, down to the smallest detail—the Sex Pistols and Nick Cave concert posters, the decoupage desk made from Rolling Stone magazine clippings; all of it.
But somehow, the last month has slipped by in a haze of uncertainty and mourning.
Coming back to your father’s mansion after he dies unexpectedly will do that, I guess.
We were never close. And I always,alwaysknew I came second to his work. I’m not sure he would’ve even bothered denying that if confronted with it. But still; losing a parent is still a process that takes time.
My gaze flits to the side table again, to the single piece of personalization I’ve brought back to this showroom of a bedroom. The framed photo of my parents was shot by me, age nine, while we were visiting Paris. In a rare,rareoccurrence of my father actually appearing in public, he and my mother are standing beside the big glass pyramid that sits in the courtyard of the Louvre. My father, Peter, is unsmiling and cold—nothing outside the usual there. But my mother’s smile lights up the photo for the both of them.
That’s a loss that still stings four years later.
My phone lights up, yanking my head out of the memories of death. I reach for it, smiling when I see the text from Lyra, my roommate back at Harvard.
Happy birthday, roomie! I hope you enjoy the day. I’m here if you ever need a chat!
My lips curl into a grin.
Well, that’s one person who’ll remember the occasion today.
