Ill-Gotten Memories

22. Remember You

As the night lingered on, I was awake, unable to sleep in another man's bed. A man I hardly knew.... but shared a deep connection with. One uncontrollable, visceral, and maddening.

Funny, it felt like I was studying for a test; I couldn't stop myself from dwelling on it. Rehearsing the details.

Johnathan and I were together at last... and I had no idea he was the one I had been waiting for. The ties binding us together were sewn in me beyond the farthest recesses of my being. It was nothing physical and it was much more than sexual. Our connection was divine; something God Himself must have ordained and brought to fruition....

My handsome White Knight had drifted off to sleep. I was happily staring down at his dreamy-self, propping up my chin and sitting cross-legged. To be honest, I was starting to feel like a creep. It was certainly difficult to look away from him. The man was so gorgeous, I was convinced he could seduce a flag-pole. After all, he'd gotten to me, and I didn't know that was possible either.

Silly little urges were bubbling up within me. Maybe it was part of his charm being so... magnetic? I was tempted to play with one of the curls of hair hanging over his forehead, or to trail my fingers through his beard one more time. But he was sleeping well. It would've been rude to disturb him, so I didn't.

Rest brought back a certain youthfulness to his face. I tried to envision his younger self. But like before, I didn't recognize him. Couldn't place the man anywhere.

Truthfully though, it pained me to look back that far.

My freshman year of high school was turbulent, to say the least. Boyles had begun making frequent visits to our house to take me elsewhere, which was a change to our usual arrangement. Normally, it was during the Summer time that he came. But I was getting older... and he was becoming very possessive. Not to mention he was more violent than ever. There were times I thought he was going to kill me.

But it was also the year my father... "did away" with him for good. It was still a blur to me now, because as soon as he was out of my life, father sent me to the institution. I couldn't recall them being kind or even remotely professional at that place. Perhaps my stay there was more horrific than anything else. So if my brain was protecting me from certain images or events, all the better I suppose?

Dr. Jenkins called it "Dissociative Amnesia."

I longed so desperately to remember Johnathan. But I couldn't. Most of my memories as a young girl were centered on Boyles and the circumstances that surrounded him: places he took me... words he said... things he did. I had fragments of Pam and Cheryl in there somewhere. Some of my father from that period. Everything else was reduced to mere smithereens, like grains of dust swept up by the wind.

A lot had happened that year. Maybe digging any deeper would just reveal unwanted traumas?

... And maybe I was too afraid to remember?

Regardless, there was no denying the way Johnathan felt about me. Genuine love and affection wasn't something you could just fake, and this bond between us wasn't born overnight. No other man in my life had treated me so delicately. He took the time and care needed to make sure I was comfortable being with him. He made me feel safe. My anxiety, my fears, they were realized and considered before our lips ever touched.

And that made him utterly irresistible.

There were still things, however, that I had left unattended. Friday evening was one of them. Now knowing that we meant more to each other in a past life, it was obvious he had been seeking me out for a long time. I feared those implications... because if he had been made aware of the horrors my father put me through, somehow, would that cause him to react in some way?