Night Terrors

Chapter 8

Sweat is dripping down my face and my body is aching, but I keep pushing myself. I zone everything out. The pressure in my left ankle, the popping movements in my shoulder blades, the grunts from my throat, the words coming from Rodney's mouth.

Suddenly he stops his movements and says something, but I'm still out of it that I don't hear his words.

"What?" I say breathless.

"I said, I think we should call it a day. We've been going for quite a while and I don't know about you, but I'm not as young as I used to be." He says just as out of breath as I am. I crack a crooked smile at his remark.

"Aw come on, you're merely 35." He scoffs at that.

"Don't remind me. That's still pretty old."

"You're an idiot, you know that." He gives me a breathy laugh. "You're not old at all. You need to go out there and get yourself a pretty lady." I smirk when I say that.

Rodney raises an eyebrow at me with a sly smile. "Speaking of going out there and dating, what's going on between you and Aries?"

I was caught off guard by his question, but answered it anyway. "We're dating."

"Isn't he a little too old for you?" He says with humor in his voice. The thought never crossed my mine. How old is Aries?

"How old is he?" This makes Rodney break out into a laugh.

"You're dating him and you don't know his age?" I roll my eyes at him.

"It's complicated. In all honestly, we haven't even gone on a date yet." I sit on the floor and rest my head on the ropes around the ring. Rodney joins me. "I really like him. It's weird, I've never felt this way about anyone. I just have this..I don't know, this pull I guess. Like I have to see him, be with him. Isn't that weird?" I turn my head to the left to face Rodney. He looks at me like he completely understands where I'm coming from.

He shakes his head. "No it's not weird. It's love." I look at him with wide eyes. What? Love? I don't love Aries. Do I?

"I- I don't lo-I don-" I can't even get the sentence out of my mouth.

"Yes you do and that's okay. I'm sure he feels the same way." I furrow my eyebrows.

"How? If we barely know anything about each other." I look at him with confused eyes, but his are calm.

"Sometimes love comes when you least expect it and it seems to me you guys had love at first sight."

"I doubt that, I was kind of a bitch to him when I first met him."

"Yeah, but I'm sure you got over it quite quickly did you not?" He smirks at me because he knows the truth. I was nice towards Aries after I snapped at him at our first session. I felt bad for doing it , even though my outburst didn't faze him.

I roll my eyes because I realized he's right.

I start to think about how I treated Aries before I came here. He looked so sad and confused, which means something because his eyes are so stern and emotionless.

"I made a mistake." Rodney looks over at me confused. I look over at him as well. "I got overwhelmed with all the theories Aries was telling me about my night terrors and I took it out on him. He didn't do anything other than his job and I got upset because what he said was true. He didn't judge me or anything. He just simply gave me facts and let me tell you Rod, the truth fucking hurts."

He gives me a small smile and nods his head. "So what are you going to do about it."

I let out long breath before replying. "I'm going to apologize and tell him the truth."