After the Party

Chapter Seven

I wake up the next morning in a haze. It takes me a few minutes to recall what happened last night. I sit up from the bed, Jameson is sleeping as close to me as possible. After I rub the sleep from my eyes that's when the memories from the night before flooding my mind. I start to breath heavy as panic sets in. the memories make me feel like I'm re-living the moment over and my body shuts down. I curl up in a ball and start to cry. After a few seconds I feel Jameson's hand on my shoulder.

"Love, what is it? What's wrong?" the worry in his voice pulls part of me out of myself and I look up at him, tears welling over and falling onto my knees like rain. I can't speak, the words won't come out. I just stare at him. Finally, the fear in my eyes tells him everything. He grabs me. I let my emotions fall on him and he takes them away from me.

After a few minutes of holding and crying he pulls away slightly,

"Its ok. You are safe. We are far away from that man. Don't be scared." His voice makes my heart slow down, but things are still numb. A numbness I haven't ever had to feel. That man is all I see. In my dreams, he's around every corner. I wake up and for a split second he's there.

It scares me how easily people can affect other people. He took away emotions. He stole them. And for what? We are blind to things like emotions sometimes. Its hard to see how impactful they are until they are gone. I don't understand why our minds let us be so vulnerable to things, so easily changed.

Jameson and I had a long talk about what to do next. He kept asking if I wanted to go home. I told him I want to keep going. I want to see more, do more but he's concerned that I'm not ok. I'm not great but I am ok. I can't tell if I'm broken completely or just cracked. But if we stop then that thing, that man won. He'll have took away my sense of life and I'm not going to let that happen.

I told him that we keep going and if I feel like I can't or I want to go home I'll tell him and we go back. He's being very protective. Constantly asking if I'm ok and if I need to stop. Its sweet but it makes me feel like he will always see me as damaged.

We are heading to LA. It's the next place on our list. It's about three hours give or take from Santa Cruz. I want to stay longer in LA then Jameson does. He wants to go the beaches where its calm and he thinks it will be better for me to not be around a lot of people. I feel the exact opposite. People can make me forget but if I'm alone on a beach maybe it will send me spiraling down and down a hole that I don't know if I can make it out of. I do love big cities though. I always loved going to Seattle. The constant go of things in a city is distracting in a good way.

We found a parking garage in down town LA. It took forever, between the traffic, hunger, and Jameson asking if I was ready to walk around in public I don't know how I'm surviving. We are walking on the stars. There are people everywhere.  A lot of tourists and people in iconic character costumes taking pictures with people and guys handing out mixtapes. It was over whelming at first but then all at once I felt strangely at home.

The heat of the day beat down on us and it smelled like pee and weed but it was alive. This was the birth place of so may dreams and we were standing in the middle of it all. It was beautiful and sad. Jameson seems to feel the same. He's stopped asking me if I'm ok and is bubbly like a child. Watching him makes me feel like there is hope of happiness somehow.

The heat is becoming a bit of a problem. We decided to stop and eat lunch at a small corner store. Jameson is destroying his hot dog like it might run away. I'm not too hungry but I know Jameson will make a big deal about it, so I got a turkey sandwich and a soda. The sandwich isn't bad, but my stomach doesn't seem to want food. Jameson is looking at me now with a questioning look.