Epilogue 2
Sometimes I was fine. Sometimes there was nothing wrong with me at all.
Other times, the fears intruded on my dreams, turning them into pure terrifying nightmares, filled with dark spaces, and no air, and I was dying.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see where I was.
There was nobody around. No sounds. Just my panic as I slowly died in this horrible place.
When I awoke in the dark, and the dank air filled my nostrils, I knew I was back there.
Back in that place. I was trapped again, left alone to die in the dark and cold.
Surrounded by solid concrete, and the air was dissipating.
It wouldn’t last. I’d suffocate in this place.
I lurched up from the ground, my arms flailing in the dark for something, anything to save me, and that’s when my fingers scraped against thick material, and found something down the centre.
A zip. My fingers traced the length of it, panic making them tremble, and fumble the runner when I found it.
I finally dragged the fabric open, and stumbled out onto my knees on hard, scratchy ground, my chest heaving as my breaths rasped against lungs that couldn’t quite contain the air, or process it.
I was going to die anyway. I fell onto my hands, coughing as the air slowly shifted, and became breathable at last. I could breathe.
I wasn’t about to die. I wasn’t suffocating. Not this time.
“Wow, you must have dropped a real stinker in there. It’s all this fast food, that’s what I keep saying to people.”
My head shot up at the soft voice, filled with humour, and the first thing I spotted was her.
She was young, about my age, early twenties maybe, and sitting on the cool grass that I now realised I was feeling beneath my fingers.
Jesus, it was colder than I’d realised, and now I was shivering for a whole new reason.
I dropped back to sit on my heels, wiping my damp, grassy hands against my shorts-clad legs.
My chest was bare, and why the fuck was I half naked in a cold field filled with tents?
“Huh?” I belatedly reacted to her words, even as I took in her overall appearance; rich brown hair flowing down her back, tethered with a single tie at the base of her skull, slight build, and a light jacket draped around her, held tight with her arms wrapped around her middle.
“I was assuming you just gassed yourself with a hideous fart, the way you were gasping for air like that.”
Her lips were twitching as she watched me absorb her words, and then out of nowhere, a laugh escaped my throat and the humour lifted a little of the daze.
“Oh. Jesus, yeah it wasn’t that. I swear it wasn’t.”
She giggled lightly and tugged her jacket tighter around her. Fuck me, why was it so cold here?
“You want to borrow another layer to keep you warm? Why the fuck are you out here like this? Where’s your tent?”
She grimaced, a delicate gesture that wrinkled her nose in the cutest way.
“I wasn’t really on board with watching a threesome, so I figured I’d leave my friend Aggie to her two men, and hide out here. Kinda wish I’d brought my sleeping bag though.”
Yikes. I found myself scanning the field of tents, like I expected to see one wriggling and ‘rocking’ as three people fucked in there.
She giggled and pointed to a dark green tent about two away from us.
“I didn’t want to be able to hear them either,” she explained, shuddering to herself as she hunched smaller at a gust of wind that turned my nipples into fucking bullets. Fuck.
“Why don’t you come and sit inside my tent, it’ll protect you from the elements if nothing else.”
She grimaced again, eyeing the dark blue canvas I’d just escaped from like Ace Ventura bursting from a Rhino’s ass.
“Are you sure it’s not full of farts?”
I laughed, holding out a hand to waver it from side to side.
“No promises.”
She hesitated, and who the hell could blame her? She doesn’t know me from Adam, and I could easily be some kind of psycho predator, and nobody would know she’s with me. There were no witnesses here.
“It’s okay to say no. I won’t be offended. I’m Tommy, and I promise you’d be safe, but you don’t know me, so you don’t know to trust me.”
She shrugged a shoulder, chewing her lip as she stared at me.
“I’m Leah. I want to trust you, I mean, you have trustworthy eyes. It’s just… a tent is really close proximity, and that feels a bit intimate for two people who just met, doesn’t it?”
I nodded. “I get it. Why don’t I grab you something more substantial to wrap around you. I think I have a spare hoody in here. I packed pretty light, because of course I assumed the weather wouldn’t suck as much ass as this.”
Why was I being so crude with her? She giggled though, like my brash wording was no big deal, like she was used to it. What if she had a boyfriend though, and I was trying to coax her into my tent?
“How come your friend ended up with two guys by the way? Was one supposed to be for you?” I was edging to the side on my knees, preparing to grab that hoody for her as I spoke.
“Ew, I don’t pick up random men at music festivals!” Noted. I’m random to her, so I guess that put me in my place.
“Gotcha. You want that hoody? It’s pretty thick, thicker than that jacket anyway.”
She opened her mouth to speak, and the reason for that damp air suddenly made itself known as the heavens opened, and icy cold rain poured down onto us.
Leah screamed, and I did the only thing that occurred to me in that moment. I lunged to my feet, dragged her to hers, and pulled her into my tent.