Home is not a Place

24• Just Like Angelina Jolie

VANESSA

I'm slipping and slipping deeper into the abyss. I've never known the ocean to be so dark, but as I'm drowning, the sunlight leaves me as well as its warmth. I hold my breath, but I need to take one soon or else I'm going to drown.

My body trembles in the cold water. The sea is silent, not a splash or a bubble sound appearing in this part of the ocean. I know it's a long ways up, but my hope is still strong. If I can just reach the surface, I can breathe again. I can feel warm again...

But my body doesn't budge. My mind doesn't work. In fact, I am paralyzed as I remain cold and still in the murky waters.

Panic arises in my throat as my chest starts convulsing, black dots scattering my already dark vision. I reach out for anything, anyone, my eyes rolling into the back of my head.

I can't breathe. I'm... I'm drowning.

"Vanessa." Someone says, turning my head to the left.

The water is too dark. I can't see anyone. There's no hope.

My lungs burn, my throat is scalding, and my whole body shudders at the weight of the water on my body. And then, all at once, I open my mouth and water shoots up my nose and through my throat, cutting off my air.

I reach out and gasp, knowing it's the end. I scream, but silence is my worst enemy in the depths of my fear.

"Vanessa!" Someone yells at me, surging me awake.

I jolt to a sitting position, gasping and sweating up a monsoon. My wild eyes dart around the room, landing on a worried Ethan.

I was dreaming. It was just a dream.

I swallow my pride as I stare into Ethan's serious gray eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I move my legs to the side of the bed. "I was just dreaming. I'm going to go to the bathroom..."

I go to move, but a hand gently grasps my arm and turns me. I am forced to glance into Ethan's eyes as he asks me, "Were you having a nightmare?"

I shrug and turn once more, but he says, "Stop moving away. Come lay back down."

I don't turn to face him. There is a tear spilling over my cheek, and I don't want him to see. Quietly, I sniffle and wipe the sneaky drop away.

It felt so real. I thought it was real.

I'd much rather go into the bathroom and cry on the floor in a ball, but the tone Ethan ordered me around with makes me think that I don't have an option but to lie back down on the bed with him.

I do exactly that, facing him as my head rests on the pillow.

He lies down next to me, and no words are spoken for a long time. He watches me with curious gray eyes for what seems like eternity, yet I'm not uncomfortable. The way he looks at me is like he knows what I'm going through, and his words prove it as they escape his lips finally. "I have nightmares, too."

As this information soaks in, my fingers fidget with the top of the blanket. "I always dream that I'm drowning."

"Like when you were waterboarded?" Ethan asks, not in a prying tone, but more of an interested one.

I nod. "I feel it over and over again, but it's never the same. One night I'm drowning in a lake and the next I am stuck under ice, unable to break the solid surface."

He goes silent for a minute. Then, he shifts in the bed so that he is lying on his back with his hands tucked under the his head. He slowly replies. "For me, it's fire."