Trying To Heal

Chapter Twenty-Nine

we got roughly 10-15 chapters till the end of the book.

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Derek

A serrated chime jostles me. My eyes squeezed shut, slightly frustrated, I gruffly answer without checking the sudden caller, "Yes?"

"Hey."

Immediately, the lethargy is razed at the timid mumble, jolting me upright in bed. My heart clobbering so painfully, I bang on the nightstand lamp, flinching Atlas off the bed. The dull brightness reads the clock as 2:22 AM. "What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt—?"

"I'm fine."

Silence.

I did not realise how heavily I am breathing, the trepidation was nauseating. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," she murmurs.

I pluck the sand off my eyes. Atlas pops his head over the sheets, glaring at me for startling him. I sheepishly smile, mouthing an apology. He huffs a curse, curling into a ball beside me, and Duke grunts in his sleep. Relinquishing on the lush pillows, I release a long, sore breath, discerning how benumbing the palpitations are. God, I thought she was injured. I thought someone harmed her. I thought that the worst of my paranoia has manifested, explaining why I should not desire my greatest desire.

"You do not sound sure."

She sounds scared.

My fingers thread Atlas's fur. The second circle of silence.

I read the time again. "What is wrong, April?"

Tanner and I are accommodating in the Base for two weeks. The guest room has marble-white encasements and minimalistic, snug furniture, overlapped in murkiness merged with the outside sphere, speckled with spherical lights of aircraft runways and moving tanks and the mellow chatter of the soldiers. The rushes of the Atlantic waves crash onto the hefty, diamond-black rocks on the shore.

"I ... I got a nightmare." I could envision her closing her eyes in shame. "I'm sorry I called you. I just wanted to hear your voice."

The last statement warms me. "You miss me that much, Meine Liebe?"

Her shy laugh is melodies to my ears. "I do miss you a bit."

"A bit?"

"A lot," she says after a while.

I did not feel the smile blossoming on my face. "I miss you, too. Call me any day, any time. I —" I halt, recognising the risks of the next choice. "I would do the same."

"How long are you gone for?"

"This Monday I will return."

"You tend to skip a lot of school days. Does the school not pester you for it?"

"Not really. I tend to finish the work on time. Plus I do good on my exams, so the teachers are not frankly concerned." Duke snuggles his head to my chest, and my hand automatically falls on his neck, stroking his fur. "You said you had a nightmare. What was it about?"

"Rhett. I remembered everything that happened, Derek. Sometimes I get these dreams of things that I cannot remember. At least, I think they were repressed memories."

I nod. "I understand. I get similar nightmares, too."

Isla started creeping into them. Her blood was on the food. The hole in her forehead, the brains I saw inside. The soldiers dragged out her corpse like a ragdoll to a coffin, for it to be delivered to her relatives. A vendetta was conducted in the style of the Matthews Family.