REM - H.S.

Chapter 4

AN:

Hi friends!  I'm going to start including a song(s) in each update that I feel kind of goes with the vibe of that chapter, that might be lyrically speaking, literally just the way the song sounds, or just what I was listening to when I was writing. It might match up well, it might not, just thought it would be fun to include. In future updates there will be songs that I strongly encourage playing while reading, but in this case it's just a song that I found myself listening to a lot when I was writing.

Anyways, enjoy!

Three Hours Ahead - Adam Melchor

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10 days.

10 fucking days.

10 restless nights I have woken up to my own screams with my body drenched in a cold sweat and my labored breaths desperately clawing their way in and out of my lungs.

10 nightmares, all of them beginning with the same torturous scene and ending with the same inevitable outcome.

10 days, over a week she has been gone.

She vanished without warning, without preparation, without notice. Not a single goodbye, not a single sign signaling her departure. She was just gone, and when she left she took everything with her, everything except the nightmares.

Up until a week ago, she had been coming to me every other night for the past 6 months or so. It was a dependable rotation, a steady schedule, and the most I have ever consistently seen her.

One night would be warm sudsy bubble baths filled with intentional touches and unintentional fits of laughter, and the next would be filled with useless cries of desperation and stiff limbs.

Fort-making in her cozy living room to dislocated ceiling fixtures on the cold hardwood.

Her endearing grins to locked jaws.

Rosy flushed cheeks to pale and lifeless expressions.

Warm to cold.

Light to dark.

Heaven to hell.

She, her presence and her comfort, to him, broken promises, and irreversible repercussions.

Dream to nightmare.

Back and forth and back and forth.

That was a schedule that I could live with, if that's what I was doing.

Living.

But after 10 consecutive nightmares, I can't remember how I ever survived them before she came. I can't even remember the last time that I have gone this long without seeing her, it must have been months ago. September maybe?

I wasn't used to depending on anyone for anything, let alone depending on some illusory fantasy with an infectious smile and a contagious laugh to match to take away my nightmares and simultaneously stitch-up and reopen my old wounds.

Where did you go?

Are you coming back?

When the nightmares first began, before she came, I would stay up for days at a time to avoid them, and when my body eventually gave in and caved to the exhaustion, I set alarms for every 30 minutes so I could wake up before they had the chance to start. I would keep every single light in my apartment switched on when I was home, not only to make it harder for my body to betray me by falling asleep, but also to make it easier when I inevitably woke up to my own screams. Point is, I would have done anything to stop them, delay them, prevent them, as tiring and draining as it was.