Page 23 of The Nightmare King

I closed my eyes, and instead of immediately greeting sleep, I allowed the hole in my heart to open. Allowed it to spill out in tears on my cheeks as I remembered. Feeling Mare’s gaze on me as I did so, I let it all back in, I went back to that night. The cavern in my soul imploded with pain. Sorrow threatened to swallow me whole as I allowed myself to feel it, to let the pain, loss, and regret shatter through me. It was a horrific nightmare made of everything in real life. Instead of fighting it, pushing it down, distracting myself with sleep or television or fantasy worlds, I opened my soul’s door, and the phantom knives of anguish swept in like an ocean’s wave. Letting myself drown, weep, and mourn— I remembered. I remembered it all.

HALLOWEEN 3 MONTHS AGO

My platform, lace-up boots were not fit for running through a pumpkin maze. I knew he was here, felt his presence as if he were hiding and about to?—

“Boo!” I screamed and punched his chest wildly as he picked me up and spun me around. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing out here all alone on Halloween?”

Laughing, I wiggled into a nice snuggle against his broad chest. “Picking you up early, idiot.”

He held a hand to his chest. “Here I am, volunteering my time to help set up this maze for the young children and community to enjoy and my own girlfriend calls me an idiot? I’m hurt.”

“Yeah, right,” I kissed his cheek. “We also have to pick up my dad from the airport and take him home before we stupidly go to not one, but two of your parties.”

“About that…” He rubbed the back of his neck, his black hair tousling in the cool October breeze. “More like six parties.”

“Six Halloween parties! God, how do you have so many friends?”

He shrugged. “Look at me, charm and good looks, I’m popular.”

I punched him in the arm, and he yelped before tickling me and throwing me over his shoulder, marching us to my car. He pulled a backpack from the bed of his truck before unzipping it on my hood. Holding a ghost-face mask to his face he said in a low tone. “Trick or Treat?”

Crossing my arms I rolled my eyes and tried not to smile. “Is that your costume?”

“One of them.”

“A dress change for each party?” I giggled. “You are such a drama king.”

He pulled out a cape and wrapped it around his broad shoulders, doing a twirl. “You know I’ve always had a thing for costumes and theatrics.”

That he did. We met in high school a few years prior. He was somehow a star soccer player and star actor in theater. Really, that made him sound like he must be a jerk, but he wasn’t. My boyfriend was the kindest, most charming, most beautiful soul you’d ever meet. The whole school loved him, hell, the whole town loved him. He graduated a year before me, and instead of moving away to attend any number of the Ivy League universities he’d been accepted into, he stayed put and went to community college to wait for me to graduate and figure out what I wanted to do. I never asked him to. I never deserved his watchful eye and loving attention; he gave it freely. Everyone in town must have been perplexed as to why he chose me and not a popular cheerleader, or just any girl that smiled and talked more. But for some reason, Mare King seemed smitten by me, and I was hopelessly in love with him, too. I was twenty, he was twenty-two, and we had our whole lives to figure everything out. To learn each other.

He stopped his fanfare and grabbed my wrist, pulling it up for his inspection. “This is new.”

I tried to pull my arm away in embarrassment. “It’s nothing.”

Jiggling my arm, he smiled that devastatingly handsome smirk. “Not nothing, it’s beautiful.” With his other hand, he thumbed each charm on my bracelet. “Bottlecaps… a bottle cap charm bracelet? This is brilliant, Lilac.”

I loved his nickname for me. Somehow, he took Lucy and made it sparkle.

I shrugged, but the compliment sent my heart soaring. Making jewelry out of found things like bottle caps, clothespins, and paperclips had been a hobby of mine for a few years. He always noticed when I tried wearing one of my new creations and awed over it, even if my jump rings were flimsy and my placements uneven. Mare was my biggest fan. I was just an average bottle cap, but he saw something special in me.

He cocked his head before planting a soft kiss on my lips, and the red maple leaves fluttered around us in the hay of the pumpkin patch parking lot. “You’ve been drinking,” I chided.

“Just a little pumpkin juice pre-game. You’re my chauffeur tonight, my queen.” He bowed and opened my door. “Shall we? A night of mischief and horror awaits on this All Hallow’s Eve.”

“Drama. King.” I repeated, but my cheeks hurt from smiling. He always made my cheeks hurt from smiling. I’d never won prom queen, or homecoming queen, even though to match his last name, he was crowned king every year. But he still called me his queen. Queen of what? I always wondered but never asked.

He got in behind me and started rifling through his bag of costumes, pulling out a hockey mask and trying it on.

“Why are you in the back?” I checked the time, we weren’t late for once, and traffic was clear.

Mare pulled out a pirate hat, making me laugh again. “Your dad has a bad back, let him sit up front. Plus, I need to accessorize.” He opened a hand mirror and put a finger over his eye before meeting my gaze in the rearview. “Like my contacts? They’re purple.”

A grin warmed my face. “Very mysterious.”

We made it to the airport with time to spare. My dad gave my temple a kiss and shook Mare’s hand from the passenger seat. He still smelt of bait and saltwater from his Florida fishing trip. A long cry from the twisting backroads of our New Hampshire hometown.

“It sure did get pretty up here while I was away. I love the Florida heat, but nothing compares to the foliage here in the fall,” my dad marveled. “Thank you two again for delaying your Halloween party plans to give me a ride.”

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