So I stay on the couch, wrapped in the blanket, staring at the television until exhaustion drags me under.
***
THE DREAM IS ALWAYSthe same.
I'm in our apartment.The one we shared on base at Fort Bragg.I'm holding my car keys.My go-bag is packed and sitting by the door.I've been planning this for weeks, waiting for him to leave for a training exercise so I could get out clean.
But he came back early.
"Where do you think you're going, babe?"
He's standing in the doorway.Blocking the exit.His voice is calm.Reasonable.The voice he uses when he wants me to think I'm being irrational.
"I'm leaving," I say.My voice is steadier in the dream than it was in real life.
He smiles.That smile.The one that used to make me feel special.Now it just makes my skin crawl.
"No.You're not."
He moves toward me, and I back up, but there's nowhere to go.The apartment is small.Fourteen hundred square feet.I measured it once, pacing, trying to calculate how many steps it would take to get from the bedroom to the door if I needed to run.
Thirty-two steps.
I never made it past fifteen.
My back hits the wall.He's still smiling.
"We talked about this, Carla.You don't get to leave me.You belong to me."
His hand comes up.I flinch.I always flinch.
And then his hand is on my throat, squeezing, and I can't breathe, and I'm clawing at his wrist but he's so much stronger, and I'm going to die here, I'm going to die and no one will care because everyone thinks he's such a good guy, such a decorated soldier, and who's going to believe me over him—
I jerk awake with a gasp.
The living room.I'm in the living room.Safe.Alone.
My hands are shaking.There are tears on my face, and I don't remember starting to cry.
"Damn it," I whisper.
I push off the couch and start pacing.Twelve steps to the window.Twelve steps back.Movement helps.It reminds my body that I'm here, now, not there, not with him.
But tonight, it's not working.
Tonight, the fear is clinging to me like a second skin, and I can't shake it off.
I'm still pacing when the knock comes.
I freeze, every muscle locking up.
It's three in the morning.No one knocks at three in the morning.
Unless they found me.
I cross to the side table and grab the Glock 19 from the drawer.I keep it loaded now.Another rule I broke.You're supposed to store the gun and ammunition separately, but that doesn't help when someone's kicking down your door.
The knock comes again.Softer this time.
