Life Is A Nightmare

Chapter Sixteen: Tell Me About Your Past

(Jayden)

"I thought we could talk about your childhood today,"  she says as I sit across from her knowing even before this session started she would bring this up again.

Suddenly I'm not in the room anymore I'm in the house. I can see it clearly and the image isn't fading away. I remember being five years old. I remember him screaming for help I knew wasn't going to come.

The room begins to close in on me the longer I sit unable to leave. I can't take off, can't bolt off the couch and leave the room while my mind is being held captive by childhood memories I tried my best to bury.

"I already told you I discussed everything with Dr. Chamberlain." I answer trying to swallow back what wants to forge its way up and leave an unsettling feeling of dread.

Those are just nightmares, just dreams.

Except I know that's not true because they're too real. Too vivid sucking me back in. Panic rising up inside me and I don't want to remember. I want to forget before I start to head down this dwindling path of shame and tainted disturbing scenes of my life I can't escape play in my head on repeat in my head. I can escape my childhood and what I did or didn't do that Halloween night eighteen years ago. I can't be free when the past as always been here following me, waiting for a time I will fall apart just like my dad. I'll become more lost, more troubled, by what I blocked out resurfacing.

"Like I told you I would like to hear from you firsthand what brought you here." she replies implying how I was raised is what led to what happened.

"Well, it wasn't my childhood." I retort trying to lead her away from this again.  "I'm not here for what happened when I was younger. I'm here for what I did.

"You only told Dr. Chamberlain a little about living in the house until you were six. Why is that?" she keeps pressing unwilling to let this go and I understand she's not the person I spent all these years talking to about my life but she knows enough. I'm sure my file and everyone else here has detailed notes she can look through. She doesn't need to go in this direction but what else direction would she go when I closed myself off?

Since Gavin's last visit and Dr. Chamberlain leaving I've been drifting off inside myself. Wandering back to the night Vivian died and questioning my dreams. Pleading with myself to shut my imagination off and go back to accepting I'm this monster everyone thought I would become. I'm a bad person and I belong here but it's not that simple. It's a struggle when everything that took place in the house begins to tangle into my thoughts. Vivian becomes the last thing on my mind as I remember what happened when I was five.

"I don't remember much." Now I'm just sounding like I did at sixteen when I was accused of killing my sister I would do anything to protect.  "I don't want to talk about her."

"I wasn't asking about her." She's right she wasnt it's my mind that went to her. Her trust in me, her belief I would never let her know what took place before she was born. I would carry the burden and live with it buried in my subconscious but that's what Dr. Chamberlain said caused me to snap.

"You always wanted to protect her, didn't you? You didn't want her to know about the past?" her eyes are burning into my skin as I turn away. I feel an overwhelming feeling she knows more than Dr Chamberlain did, she knows I have secrets I still won't discuss.

"She didn't need to know." I answer.

Why did I say that? Why am I giving into talking to her about the past? Why did I ever say a word the minute I took a seat? Because it felt good to get it off my chest and have someone know some truth?

"And you kept it from her didn't you? You made sure she didn't have to experience what you did as a child. You didn't want her to hurt like you did." I bet without a doubt she knows all about the way Jared treated me, treated my dad. I don't see why she wouldn't. Yeah, necessary it wouldn't be everything that happened but what my dad said.