Now I’m running through the hall, and I desperately want to go to a different room, any other room except for the one with the pregnant woman who died, along with her unborn baby, because I was stupid enough to lead a psychopathic gunman straight to them… But I’m drawn to it like a magnet, no matter how much I struggle, no matter how much I try to force my feet to go a different direction or reach for a different door handle, because you can’t change the past. You can’t cheat cruel fate, and I am doomed to relive this over and over as punishment for the lives I destroyed. And trying to escape that, any path to self-forgiveness, is disloyal to them, something to be ashamed of wanting.
Another flash of pink hair.
Who IS that?
There’s a woman with long pink hair, and her back is to me, and she’s walking away just beyond the burning exit. She’s safely outside, in the sunshine, even though Prom happened at night.
This is not right. She wasn’t there, whoever she was, and it’s an image that does not and will never belong in the scene. Why is this nightmare taking a detour after all these years? It’s never happened before, and I feel like I’m going to lose my shit.
Pain rips through my arm as a bullet grazes through my flesh, and I remember what the scar looks like, and it burns in that exact shape like a brand, it burns, and I want my mom…
I jolt awake, trying to shout out all my terror, but, as always, there’s only silence. Just an ache of effort in my throat. I wonder if the instinct to scream will ever leave me, if my brain will ever get the message that it’s futile to try.
Thank fuck it ended before I got to thereallyfucking terrible part.
Minutes later, I’m still pouring with sweat and shuddering. My heart jumps with extra beats in a way that makes me breathless. My eyes roll with terror. I’m going to be stuck like this for a while, and then I might throw up. I don’t always, but the way my stomach is roiling at the moment, I’d give myself a fifty fifty shot.
It takes what feels like forever, but eventually my body settles down again. I’m a lead weight sinking into my sweat drenched sheets, but I feel like I might get away without puking this time, which is something.
Damnit. Normally I avoid falling asleep for as long as possible, until the early notes of dawn if I can manage it, so the nightmares don’t have long enough to play out all the way. I must have been really exhausted to have lost focus and slipped up like this.
I turn my head to check my clock. Just past one a.m.
Shit. I was hoping it was at least four.
I’m still having palpitations, and I can’t stand lying here any longer. I get up and pull all the sheets off my bed so I can change them, even though I’m damn sure not going anywhere near my bed again tonight. I can’t tolerate even being in this room, where the nightmares sit and wait to pounce on me every single night unless I can stay alert and dodge them.
Grabbing yesterday’s clothes and pulling them on, I find myself pacing up and down, wearing out the carpet in my living room, creaking the floorboards in the kitchen with my feet, and then back again. I don’t remember coming out here, but here I am. I don’t know what to do with myself. My hands are shaking. This immense feeling of rage and frustration is like a boulder in my chest, crushing me until I can hardly breathe. I’m escalating, fast.
Got to stop it.
Can’t.
I could Skype my mom, she’ll still be awake in Louisiana.
No.
She’ll want to know what triggered me this time, and I can’t…I’m not up for…
Fuuuuuuuuuck, my mind is racing. I shake my head hard, trying to clear it. Not happening.
Cell phone.Distraction.Anything.
Facebook message request.
From Mercury Time Productions.
No no no NO. FUCK.
I throw my phone as far as I can, and it lands on the sofa and bounces to the floor. I hear a crack noise, but I don’t care. I don’t care. My vision is blurring at the edges. Why can’t sleazy misery mining shitheads like Mercury Whatever Productions leave me alone and stop asking me to take part in their horrible documentaries to entertain the masses with the finer details of my trauma, the worst thing that ever happened to me?FUCK OFF. I pull the hair at my temples. How many more of them do I have to block? They’re like a goddamn hydra. Or a hail of bullets, always more and more…
Mrs Oberman wailing, and then…
I’m dimly aware of my ass smacking on the floor, and wrapping my arms around my knees, and smacking the back ofmy head against the wall, again, and again, and again…Knock everything out of my head. All of it. Please. It hurts, but I don’t give a fuck.
There’s a key in the lock noise. A door opening. Steps. Someone sitting next to me on the floor, gently placing a hand between my head and the wall to stop me doing it anymore.
Eli.
