“It’s for my peace of mind, Koda. He’ll just pop in, make sure you’re resting and then leave you alone. He has to work later today, so he won’t stay long.”
I huffed, knowing I didn’t have the energy to talk her out of it. Because I would be fine. Ididn’t need a sitter, or someone to come check on me.
Most likely, I’d be asleep or pretending to be when Jasper came to check on me. As long as he didn’t touch me, I’d deal with it.
“I’ll be back shortly after one, with some chicken noodle soup.” Dawn touched my forehead, wrinkling her own at how warm I was to the touch. “Text me if you need anything though. Actually, when I get back downstairs, I’ll send you Jasper’s number, since he’s closer right now.”
I wouldn’t text either of them. But I blinked at Dawn to let her know I was at least listening to her. Kinda.
After a few more dragged-out minutes, Dawn finally left, leaving the bedroom door open in her wake.
I wasn’t sure why she was so worried. I would be fine. It wasn’t the first time, nor the last, to have a fever or sore throat. Or anything else, for that matter.
I really had been lucky through everything that I wasn’t sicker than I was. I was usually the one of the few that didn’t catch whatever germ that was going around.
It took too much work to reach for the tea, so I laid down in bed, finding a position that had my head propped up enough to hopefully get my running nose to stop leaking.
I blinked, each time my eyes fighting to reopen. Soon, my eyelids stayed closed and sleep clung to the brink of a cliff. My body slowly relaxed as much as I could through the shivers that wracked my form.
But as sleep pulled me under, the dreams of things I wanted to never remember made a reappearance. It all felt as real as it had the first time I lived through it.
The slashing pain against my back.
The stabbing pain from inside as things were shoved in a place I didn’t want.
The forced vomiting as fingers reached my gag reflex.
The forced haircuts and cold showers.
The starving moments where hunger literally crawled from my insides, eating me from within.
The words that were shouted at me just because I didn’t talk.
The hits because I couldn’t stop crying.
Everything crashed into my mind on a repeating loop of the worst moments of everything. The things I thought were buried deep in my brain, to never return.
I didn’t want that life, and I never would.
I never wanted hands to touch me in such ways again.
If it did happen, I wouldn’t survive it a second time.
“Koda?”
I jerked, a small yelp passing my lips as I scrambled to sit on the bed, sweating and shivering and crying all at once.
My breath was hard to catch, each pass of air burning my throat as I wheezed.
The tears rolling down my cheeks made it impossible to see a single thing as I fought for something. I wasn’t sure what I was fighting for anymore, not as the past kept coming at me. Over and over. Even as my heart threatened to explode in my chest. Even as my brain felt like there was a jackhammer. And even as my stomach rolled as panic ran me over like a freight train.
I coughed, cried, and prayed all at once.
I wasn’t a praying type of person, but I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t.
“Shit.”
The voice wasn’t helpful. It wasn’t Dawn, and that alone was causing more fear to curse through my veins.
