Lethe Vita

Chapter 14

He didn't like to close his eyes. He didn't like to dream.

When he slept, when he dreamt, he dreamt of them.

The two women who had meant more in his life than he could ever adequately express, despite being a man of many words who enjoyed using them in whatever way possible.

He dreamt of Brenda, trapped on a train; only, in Brandon's dreams - or, rather, his nightmares - Brenda never got off. He would get the call, always the same gruff voice, informing him that Brenda's body was to be prepared by the coroner for burial and Brandon would be given the role of pallbearer.

In other nightmares, it was Kelly. Collapsed in a parking lot. Bleeding out, as Brenda had. The same fucking phone call. The same fucking preparation.

Only, he had been there when Kelly had been shot, when her pain had begun.

He hadn't been there for Brenda's.

He'd been across several oceans, reporting on playground politicians' quests for power in fucking Washington D.C., and his nightmares never let him forget it.

The nightmares always ceased when Brenda's screams began, but the memory of what had nearly been tortured Brandon as he went about his daily routine, as he had begun to hate the good days.

The good days meant the bad days were waiting to rear their grotesque heads. He had faced the brunt of those bad days, when he could barely get Brenda to leave the apartment, or when the fatigue in the early stages of her pregnancy had mingled horribly with her then-immensely unstable mindset.

Leaving Australia had helped, but what had helped the most, to Brandon's surprise, was Dylan.

Dylan had always possessed a softer side with Brenda that he had lacked with anyone else, except perhaps Antonia Marchette.

But, having seen Dylan's and Toni's relationship firsthand, Brandon could say that Dylan had never reached the exact level of tenderness and protection with Toni as he had with Brenda.

Seeing Dylan taking care of Brenda reminded Brandon of the way Dylan had been after surgery on Brenda's fibroadenoma, or after Brenda's stickup in the Peach Pit. Brandon didn't know how Dylan had been with Brenda in London before their disastrous split. Perhaps he had been the same. Perhaps it was his default attitude when it came to Brenda.

What Brandon did know was it was difficult to remain infuriated with the man who had become the person Brenda frequently reached towards when the train rolled by.

The man who awoke Brandon with his own screams from a trauma Dylan didn't want to speak of; screams that must have kicked off Valerie's screams, so that three people screamed in the night.

Brandon didn't know why Dylan screamed. He had assumed he knew the source of Val's nightmares, but it had been nothing more than an assumption that he had started to doubt. After rushing to Val's side several times to offer Val comfort from her own nightmares, Brandon realized that whatever Val screamed about went beyond her father's suicide.

Brandon found himself wanting to know about their screams.

He wondered if they heard him scream.

He wondered if he did scream.

Though Brandon's main priorities continued to be Brenda and Valerie, he had begun to lose the war when it came to guarding himself from Dylan.

Against his will, Brandon had started to take care of Dylan, too; perhaps to quiet Dylan's terrors.