Seven
SEVEN
VANESSA
It’s another nightmare. Just a figment of my traumatized mind . A product of a whole damn weekend spent doing fuck all—a perfect breeding ground for anxious thoughts and catastrophizing.
I lie frozen beneath the blanket, every inch of my exposed skin crawling against the touch of the cool night air. I’d read until my eyes drooped as always, eager to reach the absolute exhaustion that promised quick sleep. And it had worked. For a short while, at least, until I woke with a start, unsure what had disturbed me but hyper-aware something was most definitely, fucking, off.
What the hell was that?
I ache to call Murphy’s name. To encourage him onto the bed to appease my fears by proving it was just his fat ass making the floorboards creak. Yet terror holds my throat in a vise, my breaths carefully measured so as not to make too much noise. It was a nightmare. I keep telling myself the lie, believing the molly-coddling bullshit less and less each time I repeat it. It was just a fucking nightmare.
It fucking wasn’t.
My mouth is dry, joints aching with the tension I hold them under so as not to move.
Not that playing dead ever helped me.
I slip my hand toward the side of the mattress, yet I’m too far into the middle of the bed to reach the bat I keep under the edge of the frame. Fuck. Sleeping with a switchblade beneath my pillow doesn’t seem so unreasonable anymore. Rip the Band-Aid off, Ness. All I have to do is roll over and confront whoever the fuck has enough audacity to break into my house. Did he send them? Why fuck around with the letter, then?
Deep breath. You can fucking do this.
I pull air into my lungs and then roll to my back while launching into a seated position in one frantic rush, ready to confront whoever thought it would be a great idea to pick on a woman who’s all out of fucks to give about life.
The doorway is empty. Moonlight casts an ethereal glow across the floorboards to paint the foot of the bed in gray hues. My gasping breaths echo in the haunting space as I search the room for signs of intrusion. Everything sits as it should be, nothing moving but the flutter of my curtain against the partially open window.
I swallow the rising nausea and slide my legs from beneath the covers, bare feet hitting the smooth floorboards with a quiet tap. Hands gripping the edge of the mattress, I sit for a while to gather my shit and keen my ears for sounds of disturbance from anywhere else in the house. The faint tick of the clock in the kitchen is the only proof I’m not caught in some suspended state of animation, mid-nightmare.
“Fuck.” I set my elbows to my knees and bury my face in my hands, fingertips massaging my scalp.
One fucked up night of sleep I can ignore. Two are an inconvenience but not a deal breaker. I’m going on a whole week of inadequate rest, and it’s starting to show—I’m fucking hallucinating shit.
I drop my hands with a sigh and push off the bed, padding across to the window to double-check the locks on the sashes. The metal pins are secure in their housing, removing any risk that someone could push the windows open further than the two inches they are to get inside. The fucking irony is how goddamn beautiful the cottage garden is in the moonlight. Small wins. Yet, as always, the short-lived joy dissipates when reality sinks in.
Nature’s beauty is merely a mollifying mask for the ugly truth.
No matter how breathtaking nature is in her simplistic form, it doesn’t dissuade from the evils that go on beneath her sky in the name of faith. Love. Honor and trust.
Pick a virtue, and I can show you a man who singlehandedly ruined its definition.
My shoulders drop on a deep exhale. I’m up now; I may as well run the full gamut so I can fucking have a chance at sleep before the sun comes up. I turn for the door and freeze.
My heart skips a beat then breaks into a sprint, yet I can’t place what the fuck spooked me. There’s just something not right about my bedroom. A crawling feeling that has my leg muscles primed and ready to bolt through to the living room and out of danger.
To the kitchen for a knife.
I search the four walls, gaze scouring the moonlit areas and the shadows, yet nothing registers. I blink. Squint my eyes shut as hard as I can, then blink several more times to clear any sleep still blurring my vision. Nothing. Fuck. You’re goddamn losing your mind, Ness. It’s finally happened—the stress has fucked with my brain chemistry to the point that I’m losing it.
Call the institution and have them set aside a room because I’ll be there within the month at this rate.
Shit.
I take three deep, circular breaths, with one hand on my chest and the other on my stomach.
The focused intake of air calms my anxiety somewhat, but it does nothing to appease the lingering self-loathing. If I’d known how long it would take to cultivate a quiet mind once I got free, I’m not sure I would have tried to escape that hell. A part of me was naive to the damage trauma can do to your body as well as your mind. Like a scorching hot sun burning at your skin, I foolishly believed all I had to do was step out of his reach, and I’d be fine.
That the relief would be imminent.
I’ve simply cycled through the seven circles of hell in the decade I’ve been free.
Am I free at all? Don’t go there, Vanessa. Don’t take away the fucking reason to persist.
My throat closes, eyes burning. I won’t do this. I won’t go there. Fuck. I’m already there.
I entered freefall the minute I picked up that envelope and saw the return address. I’ve just denied that’s what was happening until now.
Shit, shit, shit. Panic triples, washing over me in a hot rush as I stumble through to the bathroom and slam the cold tap on. I thrust my wrists beneath, desperate to shock my nervous system out of this doom spiral. I don’t want to be back here. But you are, you dumbass, so deal with it. Deal with it and fucking get to the end of this bullshit and win. Otherwise, everything I’ve done up until now is a fucking waste of time. Why put myself through all this shit if I never intended to make it to the reward, huh? Fuck.
I lean forward, head slamming against the mirror as I curl over the basin and add hot tears to the flow of cold water cascading over my pulse points.
It’ll pass. It already is. Make a plan. I’ll call Doctor Phillips in the morning and schedule a phone consult. Maybe ask for a renewal of Xanax, just in case. Message Marianna and give her the heads-up that I need a distraction. Carve out some time to take a long walk along the river.
Yeah. I can do this.
The water shuts off with a squeal from the pipes, my fingers lingering on the tap as I lift my gaze to my close-up reflection. My eyes appear black in the dark, my irises a murky pit. Relevant. Fuck it—the thought makes me smile as I pull away from the mirror. A giggle bubbles up from my chest at the ridiculous pivot. How my goddamn mood can go from let’s grab a shovel and dig myself a hole, to finding the whole damn situation a joke in five minutes flat, I don’t know.
Again—trauma. It’s a ride, y’all.
The dry fabric of the towel scratches across my face. A sensory treat that further helps to bring me into the present.
I am safe. I am okay.
I am alive.
Barely.
I sigh and turn for the door to find my way back to the bedroom. My feet scuff across the floor, further adding to the sensations that keep me in the now and save me from indulging in utter despair. One day at a time, baby girl.
First—find out if my mother is still alive.
Second—write an email to the lawyer with a request for context; what the fuck does he want from me?
Third—gather the evidence to destroy his ass once and for all.
What else does the fucker expect when he takes everything from me, other than for me to behave as though I have nothing left to lose? Perhaps that’s why he fears me most—I don’t have anything I’d jeopardize by going after him.
Perhaps that was where my danger lay all along? In my irrelevance.
I slide into bed with a faint smile twitching my lips and release a sigh as I tug the blanket over my shoulder. I’m broken, but that’s where my strength lies: in the sharp edges left behind when he tore my spirit to pieces. When he broke every bright-eyed dream I ever had as a child.
He taught us that our words are our greatest weapon.
I never realized until now how my pain can shape those words. How my suffering can give weight to my voice.
How the things he did to destroy me will, ultimately, be the things that undo him.