Trigger Warning

Six

Sometime after the invader had left, Jayden must've fallen asleep, because her eyes popped open to see the light of morning filtering in through the thick drapes over her windows.

Her limbs felt heavy and her determination was shot, yet somehow, she managed to drag her listless body from bed grudgingly. Lydia wouldn't ask her about the attack. Lydia would have to remember the attack to ask about it.

Jayden couldn't even decide how she felt about that. Good implied that what she'd done was right--digging herself deeper into her pit of lies. Bad would just leave more guilt for her. It would mean that what she'd done was completely wrong, but it wasn't. Jayden didn't want Lydia to remember that fear and panic as she thought her life was about to end. No one deserved to remember that.

She buried her face in her palms. "I can't do this," she muttered to herself, her fingers absently trailing over her side, just under her arm.

A picture popped into her mind. An image painted in blood.

She cringed and shook her head to get rid of the sickly red thought.

Jayden reminded herself that she was in her room, surrounded by her drawings. She stared at a charcoal image of a man with dark skin and long curled hair. He was in a chair, smiling fraudulently up at the person looking at the work. A jagged scar ran down the side of his face, uneven against his skin.

Before the memory could force itself out, Jayden rose and left her room.

She dragged herself into the bathroom and splashed water onto her face to avoid the memories she wished she didn't have.

"PTSD." a voice sent a chill down her spine. It didn't belong there.

Jayden's head shot towards the bathroom door, but no one was there. Her bedroom was empty. She looked at the rest of the bathroom. Nothing.

"I'm in front of you." he whispered.

Shaking, she turned her head to the front and there he was in the mirror, staring back at her. A mess of white blonde hair swept across his forehead. Devious green eyes studied her. The corner of his mouth was hitched up into the grin that seemed to be permanently carved into his face.

"This is tearing you apart. It's not healthy to feel the amount of guilt that you harbor. It's dangerous." he told her.

"You're not real." Jayden's voice quivered. Her fingers were trembling uncontrollably.

His grin turned into a smirk. "This is the form that your subconscious found you would be least likely to run from. Everyone else unsettles you greatly."

Jayden drew in a deep breath, her back bumping into the wall as she drew away from the boy she hadn't seen in years, her hand pressed to her chest. "Then why is my heart racing?"

He cocked his head at an inquisitive angle, eyes calculating. "Fascinating." he said, "This should not have happened. Your mind came to the conclusion from your own memories that this face would not frighten you, but your body is having an adverse reaction to it."

"What are you talking about?" she was sinking down towards the floor, her vision going blurry.

"We. I'm a hallucination brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder. You have been lingering recently on your dislike of yourself and so your mind was trying to help."

She was moving towards the door, away from the face in the mirror, but his eyes were following her. "You can't run from your own mind. It's impossible."

"I sure as hell can try," finally her feet felt usable again and she took off down the hall.

When her feet hit the pavement, she didn't care that she was still in her pajamas or that the sun was still down, she kept running. Maybe if she ran fast enough, she could escape her racing thoughts.

"It's six in the morning, why'd you go for a jog?" Lydia poured herself a bowl of cereal and yawned.

Jayden wasn't in the mood to describe her early morning mental breakdown to the girl that had started it. So, she simply smirked, "You don't think I get these sexy legs from sitting on my ass all day, do you?"

"I really had hoped," Lydia crammed a giant spoonful of cereal in her mouth, then, still chewing said, "So there's really no hope for mine, then?"

Jayden made herself laugh, "Sorry, I guess not."

"You opening at Helen's this morning?" Lydia asked, tossing a bagel at her. "Eat something, hon, you look skinnier than usual."

Balancing herself on the edge of the table, Jayden ripped a piece of the bagel off and munched on it. "Yeah, 12 o'clock sharp." Then she prodded her stomach with her fingers, "Damn, you're right. I need to start eating more skittles."

"Only if you share." Lydia winked.

"Only if you can get them from me." Jayden waggled her eyebrows suggestively and they both laughed.

"Anyway," Lydia stood from her seat and wrapped a jacket around her tiny shoulders. "I have to get to the hospital. My shift starts in an hour."

She waved goodbye and was gone, leaving Jayden alone again.

She looked at the apple, unhungry. More out of necessity than desire, she bit into it, tasting the sweetness of the fruit.

Jayden stood from her seat on the table and filled a cup with water before treading silently down the hall into the living room. She finished the apple and set it on the nearest counter, telling herself she'd throw it away later. Downing a few gulps of water, she pulled out an exercise mat from behind the sofa and laid it out.

She started with pushups. She usually did three sets of thirty-five during her workouts. It kept her arms lean and strong, ready for anything. Then Jayden switched over to crunches and leg lifts. She worked every muscle in her body until a thin layer of sweat coated her and she needed more water.

This was a usual routine for Jayden. It was how she woke herself up in the mornings: a jog followed by at least thirty minutes of floor exercises. If she was really worked up, however, she would go down to the gym in town to practice kickboxing.

Jayden's exercise routine ran longer than it should have, she kept going for two hours straight. Her body was straining under the pressure, but she couldn't take her mind off of what had happened that morning.

People like Jayden weren't normal. Their brains didn't function like a normal human being's. Most people like Jayden had an overactive subconscious, that when overly stressed out had been documented by doctors as dangerously active and capable of causing hallucinations. It was possible for portions of their minds to attempt to settle the issue themselves, causing their brains to attempt to communicate with themselves. But even though Jayden had known that it might happen one day, she wasn't prepared for those types of hallucinations.

Her jaw trembled at the thought and goose bumps crawled up her skin. She knew it was better not to think about it, but it was only 8 am and she didn't need to be at work for another four hours.

She concentrated on ways to distract herself. Jayden went into the front yard and clipped a few roses from the rose garden and carried them inside. She delicately tied them together with a purple ribbon and set them down on the side table in the living room. After setting up an easel and pouring shades of oil paint onto a tray, Jayden set to painting the image of the roses on the table. She spent a few hours capturing the contrast between the white petals and the oak table before she needed to wait for the paint to dry to continue.

Jayden cleaned up her tools for the day--Lydia always hated it when she just left them sitting out. She meticulously scrubbed every brush and hung them to dry properly. Then she burned her hands scrubbing out the paint from her tray. She was done with all of those colors anyway and didn't need to bother keeping them.

Then, reluctantly, she changed and left for work.