Page 102 of Dare To Live

Hopefully with no dreams. No thoughts. Just solid nothing.

Which suits me. Because I don’t want to fucking think.

All I’ve done since getting on the plane and coming back is think. About the letter. About the school. About Arabella. About Kellan. About the whole fucking mess that was my senior year.

So thinking is not something I want to do any time soon. Because thinking will lead to me analyzing everything that happened. And that will lead to dreams.

I’ve had a handle on my dreams for the past year or so. Nightmares have become irregular. I don’t want to go back to the sleepless nights … or the waking up screaming … or the fucking panic attacks when I wake up disoriented and scared that I’m too late to save Ari from suffocating inside Churchill Bradley’s coffin.

I cut off that train of thought. If I trap myself in that thought cycle, I’ll never sleep. I throw my arm over my face and close my eyes.

Think happy thoughts.

A wry snort echoes through my head.

“Shut the fuck up.” I say the words out loud.

Or what? You’ll stop speaking to me? Another snort. Never gonna happen.

“Seriously, I don’t want to do this right now.”

You realize you’re talking to yourself, don’t you? I’m not really haunting the inside of your head.

“I’m aware.”

It’s because you’re out here, alone. Did you notice how little you spoke to me when you were in New York? You didn’t need me there.

“Please shut up.”

You should go to the reunion.

I groan and roll onto my side. “I said no.”

You can change your mind. I bet Elena didn’t throw the letter away. She probably picked it up after you left.

“I have no interest in going back there.”

Not even to see me?

“You’re not there.”

Most of your memories of me are, though. Eli, it could be good to face it.

I shake my head. “Just let me sleep, Kell.”

***

The ringtone on my cell drags me out of a fitful sleep and I throw out a hand to grope around the nightstand until I find it and hit connect.

“What?” My voice is a sleep-thickened rasp.

There’s a beat of silence and then a vaguely familiar voice speaks down the line. “Hello? Eli?”

“Who is this?”

“Ivan, Miles’ fiancé.”

That explains how he got my number.

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