9. Evie
Evie
Google Search:
How do I stop memories from resurfacing?
Answer:
The body stores suppressed trauma and releases it when the mind has perceived it to be “safe.” Sometimes, when memories begin to resurface, it’s the brain’s way of asking you to process the emotions that occurred during a traumatic or stressful event.
Some survivors find that once this barrier is broken, they struggle to stop it or block it out anymore.
Would you like some grounding techniques to stop painful memories from taking over?
THEN - AGE FOUR
Tears stream down my face. I try not to cry, I really do, but I can’t help it.
“It burns, Mommy!”
Mommy bends in front of me on the toilet. I can tell she’s getting annoyed with how much I keep asking to go to the toilet. She sighs when she’s annoyed or tired and she’s been sighing at me a lot.
She frowns at me. “Again, Evie?” Mommy sounds so tired.
“I’m sorry,” I cry.
“Oh love, it’s nothing to be sorry about. You can’t control it.”
Helping me off the toilet, Mommy pulls up my pants. The second they’re on, I wrap my arms around her shoulders, burying my face in her neck. “You’re not mad?”
“No love, of course not.” Her voice lowers. “I just have no idea why you get so many bladder infections.”
“Is it because I’m bad?”
“No, you’re far from bad.” She strokes my hair so softly it makes my chest stop hurting.
“I promise I don’t do it on purpose.” A hiccup makes my chest shake. “I don’t want it to burn, Mommy.”
“I know, my love, I know. I’ll book another appointment with Dr. Richards, okay?”
That bad, panicky feeling in my chest fades. Dr. Richards will make the burn go away again. “Okay.”
“I love you, my love.”
A giggle bubbles up my throat. “Is that why you call me that?”
“Yes, because you are my heart. I love you so much, Evie. Never forget that.”
Ijolt awake in bed, screaming.
With my throat raw as if I’ve swallowed a handful of razor blades, I scramble up and out of bed, my skin feeling like it’s crawling with a thousand fire ants. A wave of heat overcomes my body, a burning fire followed by a rush of bile.
I barely make it to the toilet before the contents of my dinner come up.
Kneeling in front of the toilet, with bile rushing up my throat and down my nose, horror strikes my heart. I can recall every detail of my nightmare.
I never usually remember them. I just wake up in the morning covered in sweat, like tonight. But this one…I can remember it because it wasn’t a dream at all. To my utter disgust, it was a memory. Now they’re hounding my sleep too?
But that’s the thing about memories. Once they want to make their presence known, they’re relentless. All of a sudden, the smells that gave you bad feelings make sense why. The certain sights and sounds that always made your skin crawl, you instantly understand every uncomfortable reason.
I know why now.
Everything that never made sense before suddenly does with horrific clarity.
I remember everything.
I just don’t know what to do with the information.
My mind can’t comprehend what my brain has shown me, and I guess I’ve been pushing it away in my waking life for so long that it’s now trying to be processed during sleep. It’s going to force me to face what happened, whether I like it or not.
“Fucking great,” I mutter to myself.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
In my haste to make it here in time, I didn’t shut the door. Peering over my shoulder, I spot Matteo in the doorway. He takes one glance at me before snapping into action.
He snatches the hand towel off the railing, wetting it under the tap before lifting my hair in one fluid motion. He gently places the wet towel along my neck, making a sigh escape me before I can stop it.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
Mortification has my cheeks flaming. “Please, I’m okay. You don’t need to see this.”
Ignoring me, he lays his palm on my back. The touch I didn’t see coming has me tensing until he begins rubbing soothing circles, his telltale sandalwood scent enveloping me in the process. “Was it the chicken I cooked?”
I shake my head, bringing me back to the present and away from the nightmare. “No, I ate too much candy after bed,” I lie.
His hand pauses. “That the story you’re going with? Sure you don’t want to claim food poisoning?”
“Nope, just sugar overload.”
Matteo hums behind me, not buying my bullshit for a moment. “Want me to text everyone and cancel today?”
Once I’m positive my stomach isn’t going to roil again, I pull back, wiping my mouth with toilet paper. “No, don’t cancel. I’ll be fine. It will be nice to get out of the apartment.”
Matteo frowns and, leaning forward, he places the back of his hand on my forehead. “Now I know you’re sick. You’re burning up. Has your body been hijacked? Who is this and what have you done with Evie?”
“Ha, ha, very funny.” I swat his hand away, but immediately regret it when he’s no longer touching me.
I must be misunderstanding my feelings. I haven’t wanted to be touched in months since that night.
Shaking my head, I clear my throat. “The hike did me some good. Seeing Cindy, a woman who isn’t a lying, backstabbing bitch, will be even better.”
Matteo bites the inside of his cheek, a brow rising.
“Do you have a problem with my cursing now, Valenti?”
“The opposite. It’s nice to hear your colorful vocabulary again.”
“Excited to trade places?”
He clutches his chest. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Doesn’t your throat get sore talking so much? Mine’s getting a workout.”
I shove Matteo as I stand, but quickly snatch my hand back as an electric shock jolts my arm. Doesn’t matter that the sensation happens every time we touch, it’s always jarring. I try to push away the flutter in my stomach, but the more I try to get rid of it, the more sick I feel with myself.
Why couldn’t I feel this way with someone else? Literally anyone else? Why does my body only feel comfortable around Matteo?
“Dove?”
“I’m going for a run,” I blurt before I know what I’m saying.
A run?
As if hearing my own thoughts, Matteo cocks his head. “A run?”
And yet, the longer it sits in the air, the more right it feels. I should go, run out all this uncertainty and try to clear my thoughts. Everything feels so muddled internally, like I’m constantly escaping quicksand and then just falling into another trap.
Nodding, I carefully step around Matteo, making sure our skin doesn’t come into contact again. “Yep, a run.”
“You just puked and it’s barely light outside.”
“It’ll be sunrise by the time I stretch. It’s fine.”
“Can I come with you? Make sure you’re okay?”
“No, I’m fine. I promise.”
“Do you even have shoes?”
Spinning on my heel, my eyes narrow on Matteo standing in the doorway looking…worried? “Why are you fretting like you’re my mother?”
Matteo slides his hands into the pockets of his gray sweatpants.
Gray fucking sweatpants.
Why does this man have to be so fucking handsome? It’s borderline a crime.
Don’t ogle the man, Evie. I repeat, do not ogle the hot, six-foot-five muscle god staring you down.
Leaning against the doorframe, Matteo arches an incredulous brow at me. “You were just sick two minutes ago and now want to run at night through downtown Denver. Can’t blame a man for having a few safety concerns.”
“I’m fine,” I say through clenched teeth.
Don’t look at his bulging biceps, Evie.
Fuck, I looked.
I need to start using reverse psychology on myself.
Matteo just cocks his head. “Clearly not.”
Huffing, I cross my arms over my chest, cocking my hip. “Sometimes women don’t want the obvious pointed out to them, Valenti. Did you ever think of that?”
“No.”
“Of course you didn’t. You’re as direct as a fucking train.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
I jut out an accusatory finger at him. “Point proven.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Just let me run behind you. You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Have you seen yourself? You’re like a walking skyscraper. For fuck’s sake, you have to lean sideways to walk through doorways.”
His lips twitch and suddenly the tension between us explodes from a small ember into a full-blown bush fire.
“I promise I’ll keep my distance. It’s purely for safety purposes. There’s a lot of creeps in the city.”
Rolling my eyes, I turn my back on him just to give myself a moment to breathe without those knowing eyes piercing mine. Matteo sees far too much and my heart likes it a little more than I’d ever care to admit out loud.
“Fine, you could use the exercise anyway,” I tease, trying to get back to our normal friendly banter. Although, now that I think about it, maybe we’ve always danced the line of flirting instead of good-natured teasing.
There’s a snort behind me before Matteo’s deep drawl snakes down my spine. “Give me five minutes.”
I think I need more than five minutes to stop picturing Matteo Valenti smirking at me in the bedroom doorway in nothing but gray sweatpants.
Did I forget to mention that I had to spend the whole time trying not to look at his bare chest?
My lungs are burning, sweat is dripping down my temple, my legs are shaking, and I stopped feeling my toes two miles ago.
There’s no doubt in my mind I look like a baby giraffe finding their footing and yet…
I feel like I’m flying. The wind flows through my sweat-slicked hair, the crisp morning air is kissing my skin, and there’s a high rushing through my bloodstream making me feel alive for the first time in months.
Any time a memory or an image pops into my mind, I push myself to run faster and it’s left behind me like garbage waiting to be collected on trash day.
True to his word, I haven’t seen Matteo since I took off from his apartment. For all I know, he isn’t even running behind me, but I know he is. That invisible string tethering me to him pulls, tugging, urging us to remain close.
Matteo and I have always moved languidly around each other. Like a river flowing in harmony. Even it weren’t for this feeling, I’d know he’s behind me just by the eyes I feel burning into my skin.
It’s the only gaze that hasn’t made my skin crawl in the past eleven months, the only eyes that I don’t feel uncomfortable looking into, the only ones that I find wanting to see me…to see everything.
At first, I thought it was the familiarity of growing up with Matteo, of knowing him as well as I know myself, but it’s different this time around. The energy between us is more charged but I can’t put my finger on why.
Everything between us is normal, despite the situation. Matteo still presses my buttons, loving to get a reaction out of me, and I love running my mouth off to him, even though right now it’s a little less than usual.
And yet, I can feel it. There’s an undercurrent, one that has always been there, one that I’ve had to shove aside, because if I ever jumped in headfirst, I’d get swept away and drown in its intensity.
Except this time, it’s beckoning me, the pull so strong I don’t think I can continue to ignore it.
But I have to.
Because it’s what we’ve always done.
And besides, even if I didn’t want to ignore it, something tells me losing Matteo would be the one thing that would destroy me. Not what I remembered eleven months ago, not losing my best friend, not my job, not my ex-boyfriend…Matteo.
Losing him would feel like losing a part of myself, and I don’t have a lot to give as is. If I lost him, I’d be left with nothing and float away into the depthless pit of the universe, waiting aimlessly for him to find me.