“There’s nothing wrong with my apartment,” Knox grumbles.
I tilt my head slightly. “Yourapartment, exactly.”
“Wait, you want us to… like… move in with each other?” Dimitri asks.
I shrug. “How do you think this will ever work? That she moves every night so we can all share her? And you think I’m the dumb one,” I scoff.
“I never think you’re… just…”
“Special,” Knox finishes with a smirk on his lips and Dimitri chuckles.
I shake my head and get up. “Well, thisspecialguy is going to lie next to our girl, again, while you two can rub each other off here in the living room.”
Assholes.
“Wake us when it gets too bad,” Knox says but I know they both hear it, that neither of us sleep well. Not when she screams out our names, not when she cries out in agony.
Sometimes I wonder who fucked her up more.
Her dad, or us.
“When you hear me scream, then come help,” I say before leaving my beer on the coffee table and head towards Knox’s bedroom.
“Goodnight,” Dimitri adds and I almost scoff.
My last good night’s sleep was before Hope was taken.
“Yeah,” I whisper as I twist the knob and step inside the dark, cold room.
I shut the door behind me and toe off my boots, shuck my shirt, and slide out of my jeans before I crawl in behind her, slow and careful. She flinches at the dip in the mattress. Then I just watch for a minute. Watch her chest shake with little gasps, the way she keeps swallowing in her sleep like her throat’s closing. Her hands won’t let go of the pillow.
I twine my fingers through hers, gentle at first, then firmer, as I try to unpeel her clamped fists one knuckle at a time.
For a second, her eyes slit open and there’s nothing in them but pure panic, but I whisper, “It’s just me, Hope. I’m here, okay?”
She looks at my hands, then up to my face, and her whole body sags. “You’re cold,” she murmurs, voice sticky with sleep.
I pull her closer, wedge my thigh between hers, and wrap my arms so tight around her it’s like I’m the only thing stopping her from folding into herself. Her skin is damp, the back of her neck slick, and the scent of her sweat is sour and scared.
I want to kill every ghost in her head. I want to make it so she never has to be afraid again, but I know I’m part of the problem. I’m part of the architecture of her fear.
“Let go,” I say, not sure if I mean her grip on the pillow or the way her whole body is locked in a constant flinch. “Let go, sweetheart. I got you.”
She doesn’t, not right away. But then her fingers loosen and the pillow falls. Her arms snake around my ribs instead, holding on for dear life. I tuck my chin over her crown and smell her scalp, the cheap shampoo, the faint trace of blood from where she scratched herself raw three nights ago. Her breath settles. I can feel every rib in her, the way her pulse judders under her skin.
“You don’t have to stay,” she whispers, and I press her harder against me.
“Not leaving.”
She’s quiet for a long time. I think she’s drifted back under, but then she says, “You want to know what I dream about?” I know better than to answer. She’ll tell me if she needs to.
She takes a shuddering breath. “It’s never just the same thing. Sometimes it’s him, sometimes it’s… you. Sometimes it’s me but I’m not me, I’m like watching myself from the ceiling. Like a camera.” She laughs, a low, bitter sound. “Sometimes you’re all standing over me and I can’t move, I can’t even scream, and you just keep saying good girl, good girl, and it’s like my ears are bleeding.” I bite my tongue until I taste metal as my eyes sting with tears.
“Want me to stop?” I rasp, voice thick.
“No.” It’s a whimper, but the most honest sound I’ve ever heard from her.
“Is it always that bad?” I whisper, my throat tight.
