After the Rain

Chapter Three-Present Day, Three Years Later

    Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, it strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does.
    Even for Tommy.
    He rose out of bed, groggy and exhausted. Last night had been particularly brutal, and he had no desire to revisit the scene of the suffering. Even after the pain had subsided enough for him to sleep, it wasn't over.
    On top of insomnia, he always had nightmares, every night. Not nightmares, really, not in the plural sense, because it was always the same nightmare. You'd think he'd get bored after so many years, grow immune to it. But the dream never failed to horrify him, and only ended when he woke himself up with screaming. Natalie didn't come in to see what was wrong anymore, to make sure there was no intruder strangling him or something like that—she, like everyone else, was used to it now.
  His nightmare probably wouldn't even frighten someone else. Nothing jumped out and screamed, "Boo!" There were no zombies, no ghosts, no psychopaths; he was used to that, maybe even immune from the countless numbers of horror movies he'd watched over the years when kept up with insomnia. 
    There was nothing, really. Only nothing. Just endless moss-covered trees, so quiet the silence was an uncomfortable pressure against his eardrums. It was dark, like at dusk on a cloudy day, with only enough light to see that there was nothing to see. He would hurry through the gloom without a path, always searching, searching, searching, getting more frantic as time stretched on, trying to move faster, though the speed made him clumsy...
    Then there would be a point in his dream—and he could feel it coming now, but could never seem to wake himself up before it—when he couldn't remember what it was he was searching for. When Tommy realized that there was nothing to search for, and nothing to find. That there had never been anything more than just this empty, dreary wood, and there would never be anything more for him...
    That was usually about when the screaming started.
    Tommy wished he could feel numb again, but he couldn't remember how he'd managed it before. The nightmare was nagging at his mind and making him think about things that would cause him pain. Even as he shuddered away from the images, simply remembering had brought a lump to his throat. His eyes burned with unshed tears and he had to take a couple of deep breaths to keep from crying. He never let himself shed a tear since that awful night, and he hadn't failed to yet.
    Tommy and his pride, Terri would say. The words ran through his head, lacking the perfect clarity of her beautiful voice. They were just words, soundless, like print on a page. Just words, but they ripped the hole in his chest that had appeared three years ago wide open. He took one arm amd wrapped it around his torso to hold it in one piece.
    Tommy curled over, pressing his face against the cold glass of the window and tried to breathe without lungs.
    He wondered how long this could last. Maybe someday, years from now—if the pain would just decrease to the point where he could bear it—he would be able to look back on those few short years that would be the best of his life. And, if it were possible that the pain would soften enough to allow him to do that, he was sure he would feel grateful for as much time as she'd given him.
    But what if this home never got any better? If the raw edges never healed? If the damage was permanent and irreversible?
    Tommy held himself tightly together. He looked down at the windowsil, seeing a framed photo of Terri and himself. He had his arms around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. They were both smiling.
    Terri looked just as beautiful and dazzling as he remembered: her blonde hair long and shining, flowing over her shoulders, emerald eyes radiant, olive skin smooth and bright with life.
     But Tommy barely recognized the man in the picture as himself. He was changed, his insides alerted almost past the point of recognition. Even his outsides looked different—his face sallow, white except for the purple circles the nightmares had left under his eyes. His long blonde hair, dark brown at the roots, still remained in the same half-shaven, grown-out mohawk that hung down the right side of his face, yet it seemed more dull than it used to be, and it was unkempt now, unlike how he'd cared for it before. His chocolate brown eyes were dark enough against his placid skin so that he might even pass for a vampire.
    But he probably looked closer to a zombie now.
    Tommy thumped his head against the cold glass of the window, trying to distract himself from the sharper pain. He laughed in disgust at himself, still gasping for air. The dark humor distracted him, and the distraction eased the pain.
    His breath became easier, and Tommy was able to drop his hands from around his midsection. They fell limp at his sides, his right hand thumping softly onto the windowsil. Something soft and small was underneath his fingers. He looked down to see the small satin box encasing Terri's ring. It was cold to the touch, undisturbed for years since he'd set it there beside the picture after the funeral and blocked it from his thoughts.
    He stared out the window for a long moment, his thoughts moving sluggishly—he couldn't seem to make those thoughts go anywhere.
    Stepping away from the window, Tommy grabbed his jacket and went b outside into the drizzle. The cold rain dripped through his hair and then trickled across his cheeks line freshwater tears. It helped to clear his head. He blinked the water from his eyes, staring blankly across the road.
    He hunched over inside his old leather jacket as he dashed for his car. The rain hammering against the hood sound unusually loud, but soon the roar of the engine downed out everything else.
    As he drove among, heading for the highway that would take him to Los Angeles, the car's temperature dropped a good thirty degrees.
    Tommy's heart slammed against his ribs when he saw Terri standing in the middle of the road.
    Eyes wide, he stomped on the brake, the car screeching to a halting stop that flung him forward. Goosebumps rose on his flesh. His hands were trembling, grip tightening on the steering wheel, so tight that his knuckles were white. The memory of his nightmare, of seeing her did on that hospital gurney came hurtling back. His heart ached for her.
    Slowly, finger by finger, Tommy released his grip on the steering wheel then threw open the door. Without hesitation, he ran through the rain and stopped about a foot in front of Terri. The way she looked at him, the way she stood, was eerily familiar, giving him an odd sense of déjá vu.
    "Terri?" Tommy croaked softly, bewildered, and she smiled.
    "Hi, Tommy," Her angelic voice sent a wave of pleasure through him. Tears filed down his cheeks and he smiled. Her might green eyes, combined with her blonde hair, pulled him in. He studied her, taking in every inch of her beautiful body. Tommy grabbed her hands and held tight. He must have been hurting her with the pressure of his fingers digging into her hands.
    "Oh my god, Terri. I love you so much," he said.
    "I love you too, Tommy," Terri said, and for a split second, it was like she blurred. Too fast to be real. She blurred and Tommy could almost swear that she had smiled at him despite the sorrow in her eyes.
    "Terri?" He cried, scared she'd be gone if he dared to blink. "Don't leave me!"
    Tommy's hands squeezed onto... nothing. They fell limply to his sides. For a terribly long time, he didn't move or speak.
    His fingertips still remembered the feel of Terri's hands. He stared into the place that she had stood. Tommy reached out into the space she had occupied. Reaching for a face that was no longer there.
    Tommy felt sick. That couldn't have been real.
    Though it was cold, his forehead was damp with sweat. He was shaking, his heart racing. As he fell to his knees, the pavement cold and wet as it soaked through his jeans, dug into his skin, he felt the weight of of a crushing force clutch his chest.
    Gasping for air, Tommy wailed for his lost love, for his old life, in the street, the sound echoing through a thousand sharp, icy beads of rain striking his exposed skin.