Remmington's School for Troubled Teens

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

I could feel his hot breath on my skin and rope burn forming around my wrists and feet. Restricted, scared, dirty, violated. Inching ever so close to my face, I could see the hate in his eyes. But this time, they weren't the stormy gray color they usually were. And his hair was dark and not blonde. This time I felt betrayed and stupid. I felt even more terrified than usually. And this time, when he looked up at me, right before he was about to insert me, it wasn't my dad.

It was Luke.

Luke's POV

The time read 8:13 the next morning, when I shot awake hearing Scarlett screaming and sobbing. But she was begging someone to get off of her and screaming for help.

I immediately took her into my arms and put her on my lap rocking her back and forth. But she wasn't calming down.

"Baby, I'm right here. Sshh. Ssh." I cooed her, tying her hair up because it was sticking to her face, due to her tears, and making her hot.

"I-I can't! He-you!!" She couldn't finish what she was saying and she was speaking incoherently. Every once in a while she would calm down for a few minutes before beginning to sob loudly again.

"Luke! Luke!" Scarlett called out to me, holding tightly onto my arms and burying her face in my chest, still screaming.

"The bed but-but g-green!" She continued ramblingly random words and crying for about fifteen more minutes. I felt terrible as I sat there with her in my arms, she usually calmed down right away when I had her in my arms, when I reassured her that I was there. But today, something was different. Her dream had changed. And even though I didn't know entirely what it was about before, I knew that she wasn't having the same nightmare she usually had.

So I lightly scratched the nape of her neck, where her hair was and continued rocking her back and forth, reassuring her that I was there. And after a while she woke up.

Scarlett drew in a long breath and shot up. Catching her breath like she had run a marathon, she wiped her eyes and then turn around. But when she saw me, she screamed and then covered her mouth. Closing her eyes again, tears streamed down her face.

"Come here, doll." I said gently, motioning her to sit in my lap. She crawled back over to me and began to cry lightly as I talked to her. She was shaking violently in my arms.

"I love you, baby girl. Are you okay?" I asked her as I moved us back under the covers, her legs entangled with mine and our arms tightly around each other.

"I'm-I'm sorry...I just-" Then she started crying again, hugging me tighter and continuing to shake.

"You don't have to be sorry. Everything's going to be fine." I kissed the top of her head and felt her stiffen, before she relaxed once again. She then cried herself to sleep.

***

Scarlett's doctor came in a few minutes after she fell back asleep, asking what had happened.

I explained to him that she often had nightmares and would occasionally wake up screaming and crying. I told him that I didn't know what they were about, but I thought that they were about her dad, because she often screamed for someone to "get off of her."

He asked me if she had PTSD and I told him that I didn't know. Then he said that nightmares like that were often the victim reliving a traumatic memory or something they feared could happen to them, because of something that did happen to them.

Dr. Levare then told me that he would look through the file that the school sent over, to see if there was any record of her being diagnosed with PTSD. And when he came back to tell me that she was, in fact, diagnosed with it, he wrote her a prescription for medication that was supposed to help with nightmares in patience with PTSD. Then he left after writing something on her chart and I fell back asleep.