Page 11 of Unmasking You

The sound of my broken voice saying words makes my stomach revolt, trying to expel something lodged inside me, but it never quite achieves the goal.

Sweat drips from my hair into my eyes, and only the sting makes me aware that my eyes are open. I can’t see anything, still standing between the nightmare and reality. My body is wet, like I’d jumped into the water, but instead of sliding down my body, it’s clinging to me, as though the fear has impregnated my entire being.

My chest is pounding as if I’ve been running for my life—which I did, so hard and so desperately, but I was still caught.

The sound of my heart echoing in the room is matched by my uncontrollable breathing. For a moment, I lie there, unable to tell if the pain in every part of my body is real or part of the dream.

The walls around me don’t look familiar; they seem to move with the rhythm of my breathing, getting closer the more I reach consciousness. The shadows are becoming enemies from the past, those who are never far from my mind.

My body is slow as my mind is still caught in the torment, a reminder of the reality of the past. I move slowly because it’s like thousands of knives are piercing my skin, but they’re nothing compared to the pain in my heart. A pain that never goes away; it’s lodged there like a thorn, impossible to remove.

My body feels as heavy as if a thousand-pound rock is sitting on me. My breathing becomes even shallower because I can’t move. I try harder to reach for the bedside lamp. I’m sure I’ll be safe when it’s on. I try steadying my breath, hoping it will help my brain to function normally, but the rising panic is making it impossible.

I shoot my hand out, reaching for safety, and knock over the glass of water I always have sitting next to me just in case I wake up thirsty. The dripping of the water on the floor brings me backwards into the nightmare instead of pulling me out.

The wet, muffled sounds created by shoes hitting a small amount of water fill the room, and while I realise I’m not there any longer, I want to curl in on myself again before I’m pulled back into the torment I’m fighting so hard to dispel.

I sit up, hoping the remnants of my bad dream will disappear, even just for now, but it seems my mind is still clouded by it. The shouts, now subdued by reality, of those voices I want to forget are still so very present, and those faces are what nightmares are made of.

Once the light is on, I welcome the soft light like it was the sun illuminating the room. I right the glass with trembling fingers—I’ll think about cleaning the floor later—and look around the space, seeing my room but unable to shake the feeling that I’m in a foreign place.

The sound of my phone buzzing pulls my attention back to the bedside table. My unsteady fingers cause me to drop it a few times before I’m able to pick it up. The cold sensation of the phone anchors me to the reality I so want to be a part of and makes me feel like I’m a step closer to safety.

My head is still buzzing from the chaotic events of my sleep, and I’m still struggling to believe I’m in a different time, a different reality, and that nothing they do can harm me any longer.

I take deep breaths to calm myself and to shake the remains of the nightmare away. Holding them for a three count and exhaling for three, to allow my mind and body to pull themselves back from the high of rushing adrenaline.

What I can’t shake is the taste of the words I hate the most. It still lingers on my tongue. “Please, Shane… please… save me.”

I was saved, but I was long gone when it finally happened.

Chapter 6

Shane

I tap my fingers on the steering wheel while I look across the road, hoping to spot Jamie coming out of his apartment.

This is the fifth Saturday I’ve been here, just outside his apartment, watching for him to be out doing his own thing. He has a very precise schedule, and knowing him as I once did, I should have expected it. He’s as anal now as he was when we were in school. I used to poke fun at him over it, but not maliciously. I loved teasing him and watching his cheeks go all red, and then he would push me away, and just that touch made everything worth it.

Why am I here? God only knows because I don’t. I’ve thought of him over the last ten years, mostly with regret, but seeing him at the charity event has brought long-dormant feelings back to life.

Not all these feelings are positive.

I can’t forget the long-ago past—and the more recent past—we’d shared. They both haunt me. The first because of the choices I made, and the second because of how good kissing him was.

At the charity ball, he’d made himself very clear that meeting me again, a decade later, wasnota pleasure. If he’d hit me, I wouldn’t have complained because I deserved it then—and I still deserve it now. But even then, given the opportunity, he was still a better person than me. He never compromised his values and beliefs.

However, my fear of him being broken by what happened when we were in school has been soothed by how far he’s gone in life.

He’s not the scrawny boy he once was. He’s fit, knows how to dress, knows how to behave, and he fits the part of a billionaire perfectly.

I still can’t believe he’s a billionaire. He was always clever, smarter than most of us, and he’s more than proved to everyone who looked down on him that he could make it.

Jamie should be the one looking down on us. We’ve done nothing other than use the money our families have amassed, having everything handed to us. But Jamie, he worked his arse off to rise to the top.

When he passes by my car, I’m glad no one can see past my black-tinted windows, and I watch him heading to the park for a walk with his dog.

A fluffy white thing that looks adorable with a red ribbon on her head. They both look adorable. Jamie’s wearing loose trousers, skater shoes, and an adorable hoodie with a cartoon-like dragon on the front that saysDragon’s Hugs, and there’s a small chubby dragon with enormous eyes, rolled up on itself, just below the phrase.

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