“That’s a story,” she says gently. “That sharing your reality is a burden. Miguel has chosen to be in this with you. Let’s at least give him the opportunity to decide what’s ‘too much’ instead of deciding for him.”
I grimace. “It’s scary how annoyingly right you are sometimes.”
“It’s in my job description,” she smirks.
By the time I leave, I feel less peeled and more… raw but wrapped. Like gauze over the grape. My brain is back down to a five again.
Not great, but also not catastrophic.
I can live with five.
Sleep,though.
Sleep stops cooperating almost immediately.
It starts small. One night, I dream I’m back in the old apartment. The one that always smelled like cigarettes and spilled beer and something sour under the sink. Mom’s boyfriend is sitting at the table, chain-smoking, ashtray overflowing. I’m four, standing in the kitchen doorway.
He tells me dinner’s on the stove.
I look.
The pot is empty.
I wake up with my teeth sunk into the inside of my cheek.
The next night, I dream I’m in the gym, shooting free throws. Every time the ball leaves my hands, it turns into a pill bottle midair and shatters against the rim. Little white tablets scatter across the floor. Nobody notices but me.
I wake up with my hand clenched in Miguel’s T-shirt, nails digging into his chest. He murmurs something in his sleep and pulls me closer. I lie there, eyes open in the dark, counting his breaths until the sun starts bleeding through the blinds.
It’s fine.
A lot of people have weird dreams during finals.
Then comes the vivid one.
I’m back in that shitty apartment where they found her. I’ve seen the photos in case files I wasn’t supposed to see—Dad forgot to lock a drawer when I was thirteen, and curiosity is a bitch.
In the dream, it’s all there. The screaming orange bedspread. The faded floral curtains. The empty pill bottles on the nightstand. The gun.
Blood on the carpet and the wall.
Mom’s lying on the bed.
She’s not dead yet.
That’s the new part.
She looks at me.
“Anything to get away from you,” she says, voice thick and slurred. “Worthless.”
I’m twenty-two and eight at the same time, standing in the doorway in socks that don’t fit, stomach hollow.
“You could’ve just loved me,” I say. “You could’ve… not done this.”
She smiles, slow and crooked. “You know better,” she says. “You know what happens when you stay for too long in a life that hurts.”
She holds out a hand.
