Be quiet? Was heinsane? I screamed even louder, fighting for my life. Fists flew and legs kicked and my attacker let go.
He. Let. Go.
What the fuck?
From my periphery, I saw a flash of red and gasped when a big man jumped between us—all I could see clearly was his red baseball cap. A cap that shadowed his face as he kept the gunman from touching me again. When strong hands wrapped around my biceps, I wanted to sink into the comfort…until I was shaken.
“Evelyn. You’re dreaming. Wake up.” He snapped the words at me from arm’s length, and his voice seemed…different. Familiar.
I blinked once. Then twice.
“Andrew?” I croaked his name, my throat tight and raw from screaming.Oh shit.
“Yeah, it’s me. Are you awake now? You were having a nightmare and—” I cut off his explanation by launching myself at him. Not to punch him again, like apparently I’d just done, but to hug him.
I wasn’t fully in control of my actions, and I sure asfuckwasn’tthinking things through. I was just so fucking scared and at the same time so fucking relieved that it was only a dream. Except it wasn’t just a dream—part of it was a memory. Most of that had happened…except it’d ended in me being shot and left for dead.
“Uh, there, there,” Andrew said, awkwardly patting my back as I sobbed into his shirt. All the adrenaline my body had created in response to my dream imploded, and I couldn’t hold back my tears. I couldn’t even get words out as my throat seized up, making the most pathetic whine as I cried.
Andrew was awful at comforting, but I’d take it. He was physical and here, and I was alive. That was what mattered. I was alive, and I was safe, and Ireallyneeded a tissue because my nose was streaming just as badly as my eyes.
I sniffed hard, to try and rein it in, but Andrew shifted away at the same time and somehow I ended up wiping my snotty nose all down the front of his T-shirt. Whoops.
“Is that—?” he started to ask, withdrawing even farther until the point where he fell backward off the couch. He tumbled to the ground, then sat there staring in abject horror at the mess I’d made of his shirt.
Sniffing and wiping my eyes with my blanket, I tried to get a grip on myself. “S-sorry,” I said in a shaking voice. “I d-didn’t mean to… I j-just…”
His gaze jerked up from his shirt to my face, and his disgust quickly shifted to cool concern. “It’s fine, Evelyn. Really. I just wasn’t anticipating…this. Uh, I might just go and change, if you’re alright now?”
His discomfort was so extreme, I imagined he was physically shrinking away from the wet fabric of his T-shirt. “Yes, sorry, I’m fine. It was just a nightmare. Sorry I screamed.” Then I realized his left eye was a little puffy and red. “And sorry for hitting you.”
He stood up carefully, brushing a shaking hand over hispants, then adjusting his somewhat disheveled hair. “No apology necessary, Evelyn. If you’re sure you’re okay…”
I mustered up a smile and nodded, since he was already backing away from the couch. The moment he saw me nod, he all but ran from the room and a moment later I heard the downstairs shower turn on.
Holy shit. It was just a little snot on his shirt. I didn’t vomit in his lap or anything. Talk about an overreaction.
But still, my face burned with embarrassment nonetheless. How mortifying. I bet he’d tell the rest of the house all about it in the morning, as well. Maybe I was better off trying to sleep in my chemical-fume-y room after all.
Though, there was very little chance of any actual sleep again tonight, so with that in mind, I grabbed the TV remote and lowered the volume all the way, putting the subtitles on so I could watch without disturbing anyone else. Not that I imagined they’d all slept through my screams.
After aimlessly flicking through dozens of channels, while letting my pulse and heart rate calm, I finally settled on a true crime docuseries. Maybe not the best idea after living my own true crime story, but hey, all the better to see if someone else’s misery could trump my own.
Snuggling under the blankets, I focused on the screen, hoping that my thoughts wouldn’t slip back to that day. My therapist had said that I kept going back there with such clarity not just because of the trauma but because I had unanswered questions. My mind wouldn’t rest or move past what happened when there was still so much unknown.
Who was the man who targeted me? Why was I targeted? What had I done to make that crazy asshole follow me for at least a week before the event?CCTV footage from around the school had picked him up tailing me between classes, amongst other creepy shit—he’d gone through my trash and been in my dormroom at least once before the day he tried to take me and half the college out.
The police and FBI had surmised that I must have unknowingly rejected him at some point through my two years at the school, giving him a hyper-fixation on me that escalated until that day—an event I had no recollection of but it was plausible. It wasn’t that I never went out and there’d been a few occasions I even drank enough that my night was a touch hazy. So, yes, it was possible I brushed him off unintentionally, and in his unbalanced mind, he’d obsessed over my supposed rejection.
I couldn’t believe they’d never found him; it had been a long and intense state-wide manhunt.
Until he was behind bars, I’d probably never sleep soundly again.
I’d missed a lot of the docuseries in my musing and was about to turn the TV off and just sit in the darkness when a shadowy figure entered the room. Haze moved with grace and stealth, and if I hadn’t been staring directly at the doorway as he walked through, I wouldn’t have heard or noticed him at all.
He didn’t say a word, taking a seat on the farthest end of the couch from where I was sprawled out, his gaze on the TV. The reporter was talking about how the two girls had been well-known in the neighborhood and their disappearances had stunned their area.
We sat in silence, and I expected it to feel uncomfortable, but it was actually the opposite.
