Page 49 of Two Chambered Heart

“Shhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she repeated soothingly, brushing his sweaty, matted hair away from his face. “It was just a nightmare.”

He looked around at his surroundings with eyes like saucers, trembling slightly and breathing heavily. She rubbed his back in soothing circles.

Finally, Jason seemed to realize who he was holding on to, because he dropped her arm and pushed himself away from her. His elbows landed on his knees, his forehead in his hands as he tried to stabilize his breathing.

Corey wanted to go back to him, to keep rubbing his back, to keep comforting him a little more, but she didn’t know if physical touch would set him off. She didn’t even know what she was trying to comfort him from. She could imagine with the lifestyle they had, the scar he bore, there must be some kind of effect on the psyche.

“I get nightmares sometimes, too.” Corey tried, giving up a truth in another attempt to bridge the gap between them.

“It wasn’t a nightmare.” Jason said through his teeth.

Corey rolled her eyes. She really didn’t want to have to babysit his ego. “Well, unless you were screaming over nothing, it sure sounded like one to me.”

“Nightmares are something your brain creates, some mutation of your imagination by your mind.”

“I’m well aware of what a nightmare is, Jason. I just said I have them too.”

Jason just looked at her, an indecipherable expression on his face. She noticed again how tired he looked. Deep purple bloomed under his wide green eyes.

“What are yours about?” he finally asked her.

More truths, she decided, and let out a big breath.

“Burning alive, my ex killing me or leaving me for dead somewhere, being physically assaulted, being raped—all kinds of warped shit from my past.” She listed off the usual suspects of her nightmares.

“Those are nightmares. They didn’t happen to you. Your brain is just playingwhat if.” Jason stood up, taking the half-empty glass of whiskey from the table and drinking it down in one slug. “Mine are memories.”

With that, he stalked off, like hismemorieswere somehow more superior and disturbing than her foster father trying to rape her when she was fourteen years old, no one believing her when she told them that’s why she’d left him with a black eye and bloody claw marks down his face.

Like a carelessly flicked cigarette in the woods, the embers jumping for purchase on dried pine needles, Corey let the familiar anger burn through her, spreading slowly before spreading wildly, until her fingers trembled with the effort to suppress the images. She reached for the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table, hands shaking as she poured herself a stiff glass and drank it down. Then she poured another, drinking that too. The silky smoothness of the expensive liquor distracted her enough that she let out a long, fiery breath and put the glass back on the table.

She shivered, not from cold but from the narrowly escaped flashback, and wrapped herself up in the throw blanket, the weight giving her little comfort. Walking back to her bedroom, Corey concentrated on the hallway and her footsteps, focusing on where she was and not on where she’d been.

When Corey woke up for the second time, she knew it was going to be a bad day.

She hadn’t had a bad day in a long time, but a trip down memory lane while trying to comfort Jason in the middle of the night had left her rubbed raw. An oppressive weight hung over her, pressing into her and dampening her vitality.

The corners of her mouth felt heavy, a frown pulling at her lips.

Worse was the grey haze out the window that mimicked her dull mood. She couldn’t see a stitch of the beautiful sunlight that had been warming her for however long she’d been here.

Corey pulled the covers over her head and tried not to let the darkness consume her, tried not to let her mind conjure up images of her abusers. But it was useless. After she had expended all her mental fortitude last night, she couldn’t fight off the traumatic flashback—leathered hands grabbing her tiny wrists, holding her down, her pants around her ankles and the man, who had just that morning asked her to call himdaddy, his pants were pulled down too—just barely, but just enough.

The last few days had been too good, pumped her too full of dopamine and serotonin. Now she was paying the price, like crashing from a high. Her happiness felt like self-destruction. Depleted of those feel-good hormones that had her floating on air, the dam on her trauma had ruptured.

She heard the younger version of herself screaming and screaming, her throat cracking, his gruff voice calling her a cunt, telling her to shut the fuck up, to stop moving or he’d knock her out. She felt the tears tracking down her face, her muscles straining against the pure weight of him as she thrashed, felt him finally release her wrists to hold down her hips, felt the wetness on her fingertips as she’d scratched his face over and over, the cracking of her knuckles when her fist collided with his face, the ache in her little hand.

Corey pulled the blanket off her face and kept her eyes trained on the ceiling, letting the memory rip through her and hollow her out.

When her mind finally released her from the flashback, she waited for the tremors to stop before dragging herself out of bed and getting herself to the bathroom. Her reflection in the mirror was not kind—she looked haunted. Turning her back on herself, she stepped into the shower and turned it on, letting the icy water crash over her body, doing little to pull her back into it.

She stood under the frigid shower until her teeth started chattering and her lips turned blue. Then she towelled off and threw on one of the guys’ sweatshirts and her own sweatpants. She wasn’t even sure which sweatshirt belonged to which twin anymore. She left the hood on, hiding under her wet hair and the heavy material like she could disappear into it.

Her legs felt like lead as she dragged herself to the kitchen to get coffee.

To her chagrin, both of them were already in the kitchen, talking over their coffee.

Corey made her way to the espresso machine. Standing in front of it, she realized she had no idea how to use it. Since her first day here, one of the twins, probably Kayden, had always left out a coffee for her.

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