Hard Habit to Break

Chapter 3

 The sound of voices roused Tori from the deepest sleep she'd had in weeks. Her dreams had been vivid but fractured. Sensations and images that were there one moment and gone the next. The feel of soft leather against her cheek, the burnt scent of a just lit Camel invading her nose, cool metal rings pressing into her skin, long hair tickling her cheeks as plush lips moved against her own. Thick fingers strumming a guitar, a smirk as his mouth curved up on one side, displaying that dimple in his cheek. Long, dark eyelashes resting against cheekbones as the music took over his entire body.

Groaning, she rolled to her stomach, shoving her face against her pillow. She battled it down, trying to force the memories back where they belonged, offended that they'd managed to break through her defenses and assault her all over again.

She'd worked so damn hard for so damn long to lock them down, trap them in a box, and bury them deep down into the darkest spaces of her mind. Conceal them where no one, not even herself, could ever find them again. And it worked. Kind of.

Tori hadn't dreamed about him in months. Why now? Why was he breaking through her defenses now? It didn't make any sense. She had firm rules to keep this from happening. No music television. No talk shows. Eye averted when she approached the check-out at the store so she couldn't glimpse the magazines. It wasn't perfect. It didn't always work but she tried. Maybe the rules were crazy, insane even, but they worked for her.

She'd thought she'd finally gotten past all of it. No, not past it. She'd never get past it, never get past him, but she'd at least gotten to a place where she could go for longer than a few hours without the very thought of him crippling her.

Blowing out a frustrated stream of air, she threw the blankets off herself forcefully and sat up, sliding her legs around until her feet hit the deep purple carpet she'd insisted on when they redid her room. It had been a garish orange, the walls puke yellow, when they moved in here right before her junior year. Her and her mom had spent hours in this room painting the walls a soft lavender. They'd hit up multiple thrift stores to find a dresser, bed frame, and funky decor for the walls. Over the course of a couple of months they had transformed the space into everything her sixteen year old self had wanted.

Her mom...shit! She needed to get up and make sure her mom got her meds before she tried to get her to eat something. Tori spun her head, glancing over at the clock. It was already ten! How had she slept in so late? Her mom was supposed to have her meds by eight. Tori leapt from the bed and at the same moment as she wondered why she was in her bed instead of on the couch, it hit her. It hit her like a freight train barreling down the tracks, colliding with enough force to obliterate her all over again.

Tori dropped back onto her bed, her head falling into her hands as tears shook her body. She had no reason to jump out of bed. Her mom was gone. Linda with the smile that was bright enough to power the entire world. Tori would never see that smile again. She would never hear that loud, belly laugh that used to embarrass her when she was younger, causing everyone to turn to see who was making that sound. She used to beg her mother to stop but now she'd give anything to hear it once more. She would never come home to loud music playing as her mom danced around the kitchen, baking or preparing dinner. It gutted her, slashed her insides to shreds, as if she'd just watched her take her last rattling breath all over again.

Silent tears cascaded down her cheeks, falling off of her chin. In reality, it had been a long time since she'd experienced any of those things with her mom. All the best parts of her mom had been stolen from her long ago. There hadn't been any dancing in the kitchen or belly laughing in months. Her battle with breast cancer had gone downhill fast over the past year. Linda had fought so hard. Years of surgeries, chemo, radiation, and sickness that ate away at her mother and their entire family, leaving holes that could never be patched, scars that would never fade no matter how much time had passed. Hope, held out like a teasing promise, to just be snatched away before they could enjoy it, leaving them even more devastated.