Die for You

Chapter 24

I felt her hand touch my arm as she moved to sit next to me on the edge of the bed, as if sensing that I'd surrendered. Oddly enough, her touch gave me a hint of courage, allowed me to face up to what I'd been denying. I hadn't been dealing with it, I'd been hiding from it, hoping it would just go away.

I sat there for a few moments, just breathing; in, out... in, out. Settling myself the way I'd been taught all those years ago; centering myself, finding the void. Finally calm, I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and began.

"It started after I got home, after I was forced to leave the army."

"The nightmares?"

"Yeah."

I swung my legs back onto the bed, tucking my feet under the duvet and leaning back against the headboard, wrapping my arms around my knees. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her sit up and match my pose, staring at me; waiting for me to continue.

"Is it always the same one, or is it different?" she asked, breaking the silence that had fallen between us.

"Pretty much the same every time, but from what I remember, last night's was a doozy."

"Sorry what do you mean a doozy?" she asked, face furrowed in confusion. I guess you don't pick up silly terms when you go to a posh school and a posh Uni.

"Doozy, Bec, you know, something extraordinary, extra special, beyond the norm?"

"I know what doozy means, Freenky, I'm not stupid," she replied laughing at herself. "I meant how was last night different?"

"It was more, I don't know... more powerful I guess, more intense; does that make sense?" She nodded, but didn't interrupt.

"Anyway, the guys actually tried to grab me this time, that's when I woke up. That's never happened before."

"You were calling out names, 'Whitey' was one. You mentioned him before, back at the office. You didn't want to talk about him, is this why?"

I shrugged, it was and it wasn't. It wasn't the nightmares that stopped me talking about what happened to Paul, it was what happened to Paul that caused the nightmares; at least in part anyway.

"How many times has this happened, Freenky? Is this a regular thing?"

I shook my head, "It didn't really kick in until I was couch-surfing, after I left the service. I was getting drunk and crashing at friends' houses, the nightmares started then."

I paused, running through the chain of events in my head hoping that a bit of clarity might emerge from the turbulence. Hoping for an insight into what was wrong with me and why, let me understand why I was broken.

"When I was on the streets, I didn't have them, well maybe once or twice. I didn't really sleep very well back then, it wasn't really safe to sleep too deeply; too many pricks thinking a woman alone is easy prey."

I opened my eyes as I felt something soft and warm touch me. Her right hand was resting on my knee, her fingers gently squeezing. She withdrew it the second she noticed me looking at it; again, I missed the touch, it was oddly comforting.

"It must have been tough on you, not having a home."

"I've not really had a home for a long time now, Bec. The army was a kind of home, I was at least happy there and I was with people I cared about; but it's not a 'home', home, you know? It's not really a family home. It was just a place to live."

I surprised myself with that little admission. I'd convinced myself for years that the army was my home, that my boys were my family. I think the memory of my real home yesterday reminded me of what I lost when Mum died.