Nightmares That Scare Me

Chapter 1

Erica lit the last candle and stepped back to inspect the table.

The white linen was pressed so clean and taut it looked steamrolled flat.

Place cards in her neat, deliberate handwriting rested at the center of each dinner plate, aligned to the millimeter.

The eucalyptus and baby’s breath centerpiece sat low and tasteful, arranged so no one would have to crane their neck to see one another.

The condo smelled like rosemary and garlic, thanks to the roast slow-cooking in the oven. Dessert chilled in the fridge. The salad was dressed but not soggy. Maple-roasted carrots warmed on the stove, their edges caramelized just enough to feel intentional rather than forgotten.

Erica had planned this night down to the minute—not because she enjoyed hosting but because plans made the world behave. When things followed a schedule, they didn’t spiral, they didn’t swerve, and they didn’t die.

She told herself this was just a birthday dinner.

Thirty was a milestone. People expected normality: candles, wine, and laughter that landed in the right places.

But the truth lived just beneath the surface, humming quietly.

She needed proof that a night could begin and end without something being taken from her.

She reached to straighten a fork that didn’t need straightening when Chad’s phone buzzed on the buffet. He grabbed it too fast, like he’d been waiting for it, expecting it.

Erica didn’t turn around right away. She counted to three—a habit she didn’t remember learning—then asked, “Who was that?”

Chad silenced the phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Work.”

She finally looked at him. Chad was tall and effortlessly put together with dirty-blond hair cut short and a smooth, strong jawline.

He was already smiling, that easy, charming grin that had worked on her for years.

Commercial real estate had trained him to sell confidence like it was a physical thing he could hand people.

“On a Friday night?”

“Deals don’t know what day it is, babe.”

She nodded, accepting the answer because it fit. This was not the night to poke at things that didn’t need poking. Erica turned off the overhead lights, letting the room settle into a warmer glow. In candlelight, edges blurred and flaws receded. It made everything feel kinder.

“Don’t worry,” Chad said, stepping closer. “I won’t let anything interrupt your thirtieth birthday dinner.”

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder in a way that felt practiced.

The gesture loosened something in her chest before she could stop it.

He smelled clean—soap, aftershave, and the faint trace of something sharper she couldn’t place. It was gone as soon as she noticed it.

“We should’ve just stayed in bed all night,” he said. “Skipped the whole thing.”

“I thought an intimate dinner with friends would be fun.”

“Or . . .” His lips brushed her ear. “How about just . . . intimate.”

She laughed because that was the rhythm they knew. Laughter filled the spaces where questions lived. It was easier than examining why intimacy always felt like something they had to pencil in.

“Help me with the wine,” she said, slipping out of his arms and pushing through the swinging door into the kitchen. “And don’t touch the candles.”

“Why would I touch the candles?”

“Because you always do.”

“I do not.”

“You absolutely do,” she said, already reaching for the corkscrew. “You move them an inch, drip wax everywhere, and I’m the one scraping it off the table later.”

“That’s not true,” he said, hovering near the counter.

She slid a glass toward him. “Then prove me wrong. Open the wine.”

She heard him scoff, the sound easy and expected. Erica reached for an extra wineglass and stopped, fingers floating near the stem. For a moment, she couldn’t remember who it was for. The realization came late, and her heart ticked up a notch. She slid the glass back into the cabinet.

She hated that it still happened, hated that some losses stayed muscle deep.

Milwaukee traffic hummed outside their condo, muffled by thick windows and height.

They’d chosen this place because it looked good in photos.

It had clean lines, exposed brick, and a dining room big enough to host without feeling cavernous.

Erica had told herself it was practical. Chad had called it an investment.

She set two uncorked bottles of wine on the table, labels facing out without thinking. It was muscle memory at this point.

Chad leaned against the doorway, watching her. “Who plans their own birthday dinner?”

“I do.”

“You know people pay you to do this, right?”

“I know,” she said. “Which is why it’s best that I do it.”

Erica co-owned an event-planning company with her friend Liv. It was doing well, actually better than well. She spent her days orchestrating other people’s joy and anticipating disasters before they happened. It made her great at pretending that nothing ever surprised her.

She checked the oven again, basted the roast, adjusted the temperature by a degree that probably didn’t matter. But to her, it did.

“You should have had it catered,” Chad said.

“I didn’t want it catered.”

“Well, you could’ve hired someone to help you out.”

“I am someone,” she said. “And I like cooking.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She liked control, and cooking just happened to provide it.

“You should relax,” Chad said.

The word sat strangely between them. He was always telling her to relax, as if tension were a personal failure instead of a warning system.

“This is relaxing,” she said, closing the oven door. “For me.”

He smirked. “If you say so.”

“I just don’t want anything to go wrong.”

He crossed the room and kissed her cheek. “Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

Erica smiled, because that was what you did when someone said the right thing in the right tone.

They returned to the dining room, Chad trailing behind her. She scanned the table, while he scanned her. One of the place cards had shifted, angled slightly away from its plate. She was certain she’d aligned them perfectly.

There was a knock at the door. The sound cut through the condo sharper than it should have, and Erica startled. Her heart jumped, then settled, annoyed at its own reaction.

Thirty, she reminded herself. She’d made it past the age her sister reached. Past the number that had once felt like a finish line instead of a beginning. This dinner wasn’t just a celebration. It was proof of time, of survival, of the fact that she was still here when someone she loved wasn’t.

“I’ll get it,” Chad said.

“No! I will.” The words came out more intense than she intended.

It was her party, her carefully prepared proof. She wiped her hands on a towel and smoothed her dress.

The knocking came again, longer this time.

Behind her, one of the candles guttered hard enough to spit wax onto the tablecloth, the flame bending sideways as if it had felt a draft that didn’t exist.

Erica didn’t notice. She was already moving toward the door.