Page 6 of Married to the Mahr
“Earth to Addison!” He snapped his fingers so close to her nose that the action sprayed her with whatever smelly fish fluids coated his thumb and forefinger. He had yet again foregone the plastic gloves he forced them all to wear. “Get your shit together or call someone to come cover for you!”
He stomped away, cursing under his breath.
Addison dug deep and gathered all the scruples she could muster. When she finally made it to her driveway eons later, she stared at her hands on the wheel with the icky blue house blurred in the background.
What is going on with me?
She jumped as the startling sound of her ringtone blared out of her purse in the passenger seat.
“Hello?” she answered in the same tone she used for everyone, even though Dr. Ellis’s name had shown up on the screen.
“Hey, Addy, I got your voicemail. How are you doing?”
The woven fabric of the seat covers felt coarse under her fingertips as she used the texture to stay grounded. She disclosed the summarized version of her recent nightmares and the accompanying sleep paralysis, along with any details of her life as of late that may factor in to her symptoms.
“So, yeah. I don’t know. Something’s wrong with me.” She spoke the last part in jest, but she knew Dr. Ellis was aware of her morbid sense of humor in times like these.
“It’s totally natural to feel symptoms of depression and even flashbacks of trauma during times of heightened stress. And no wonder you’re stressed with all the bills suddenly your responsibility. Have you been writing in your journal lately?”
Always with the damn journal.She could lie and say she had been, but that would negate the effectiveness of having a therapist. Besides, she knew that journaling and writing things down to process themdidhelp her quite a bit. She wasn’t sure why it was like pulling teeth to actuallydosometimes.
“No. I will.”
“Journaling was a great help for you last time you went through a depression. How’s your support system? Marissa?”
“I haven’t called her in a while. I think I’m feeling too guilty about not having her cover done yet, so I’m scared to talk to her.”
“She’s been a good friend for you to fall back on in the past. Maybe she could provide some excitement for your eventual move back home. You guys could make a mood board for the new place to bring some joy into your day-to-day.”
Addison nodded. She absentmindedly brought her index finger to her mouth and chewed on its fingernail.
“You’ll get through this, Addy. You’re a strong person. Look how far you’ve come since we last spoke. I’m confident you will get through this, too.”
Tears welled in her eyes and she nodded again, knowing Dr. Ellis couldn’t see her agreement.
“Let’s schedule a session for next week, okay? If anything comes up before then, just give me a call.”
Once they settled on a date and she wrote it in the calendar on her phone, they said their goodbyes and hung up. Addison remained in her vehicle and distantly listened to the sound of the motor as she stared at a blank message to Marissa. She wasn’t the type of person to call someone out of the blue—that’s just rude—so she tried to write a message that conveyed what she needed from her friend.
She was also not the type of person to ask for help, so the words tangled on each other in her mind and never found their way onto the screen.
Preferring to stamp down the emotions her conversation with Dr. Ellis dredged up for later inspection, Addison decided to ditch the sour mood. She blasted her throwback playlist and belted the lyrics to the soundtrack of her angsty teenage years at the top of her lungs, dancing in the shower like she was the star of a hit 2000’s music video. She decided this perk of living alone rivaled the ability to toss clothes right into the wash and walk around butt-ass-naked.
When the intrusive thoughts were mostly drowned out and she was out of breath, she pulled up the illustration and zoned out on the details for hours. The streetlight outside her window flickered on sometime during all of this, but she continued to space out on the computer until she couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer.
Please let my dreams be better tonight.
Chapter 6
Traeyr
Iwill not visit her again.
Traeyr recited the pledge repeatedly as the sky turned a dull pink and the moon rose early with its milky white glow. He hunted the surrounding neighborhoods and ignored the reasons why he didn’t take his hunt farther away, though brief truths perforated his stubborn wall of denial. The dreamer was vulnerable to evil forces and ill-equipped to handle them; one of those dark forces being her own dreams.
If he were truthful with himself, he would already know he was destined to return to her side this night.
His power stores were replete. Faraway travels were possible with all the nightmarish energy he had saved up, but he found himself wondering what it would be like to use his stored power for something else. Something new. The thoughts had him staring at his hands again, watching as they plucked a leaf from a red maple tree and twirled the stem between his thumb and forefinger. The natural world yielded to him, but the amount of sensation that reached his awareness was a faint, insensate version of what could be felt with arealbody. The only way he could truly feel the dreamer’s touch in all its splendor would be with his mortal form, which could only be conjured by the first half of the binding ritual, the ritual that would trap him in the confines of her bedroom.
