Page 26 of Truth Be Told
I sit up. “What are you doing here?”
There’s no answer from her.
I throw off the covers and walk over to her. I look her over. Her feet are dirty, encrusted with some kind of dried mud. I turn my attention to the door – it’s still closed, and there’s no trace of mud anywhere on the floor. “How did you get in here?”
She still doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even move.
I lower my head to look into her face. She doesn’t try to meet my eyes. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was trying to avoid them. “Are you okay?”
She looks at me. At least that’s a start.
“Can you hear me?”
She nods.
“If you can hear, then answer me.”
She lifts her hand and sticks it toward the open window. “Wave,” she says.
I clench my fists. I’m close to losing it. I hate that repetitive bullshit. She needs to use words that mean something, words that I can actually do something with. I’m desperate for those kinds of words.
As soon as the word left her mouth, I hear a roar similar to the sound of a train rumbling down the tracks. It comes closer and closer. It’s loud, only slightly muffled by the house we’re in.
“What do you want from me?”
She smiles widely, pausing for a second to take me in, unaware that she’s already taken a good part of me. The best part.
When she’s done, she shakes her head and says, “Wave.”
A flood of ice cold water rushes in through the open window, filling my room. The woman’s eyes grow wide as the cold overcomes her.
I’m immediately swept off my feet. “Hold on to me,” I yell.
I reach out for her through the rushing water, but it’s coming in so fast and with such power that I can barely see. It whips her thin body like a ragdoll. Then, with another gust, it whips her right into me. Her body hits my chest, knocking the wind out of me.
She frantically spins around, clutching for anything she can. She finds me and takes hold of my neck, wrapping her arms around me.
“Stop struggling,” I try to say through the rushing water. The words come out broken and sputtering. “Just stop.”
When the room is almost full, she locks eyes with mine. Our breaths fall into synch. Her eyes are as wide as a helpless deer, that horrendous, familiar look that is engrained in my memory rearing its ugly head again.
The water around us slows.
“Cohen,” she whispers, because a whisper is all she can manage, “please help me.” Then the water picks up again, stronger than before, and with a mighty force pulls her out of my arms.
The water carries her swiftly out the window, her arms outstretched and that look of panic never leaving her face.
“No… stop!”
When she’s gone, the water recedes, and I’m left alone. I’m soaking wet, like everything around me. I grab the side of the dresser to help myself up. My footsteps make a squishing sound as I walk back to bed. I crawl under the covers and pull them up to my head, wanting nothing more than to hide from all of this. What just happened doesn’t really register; what does is the fact that I want out.
I drift again and then start to shiver. My pants are still wet and they’re now sticking to my legs, making me cold. I need to get them off.
Someone shakes me. I hear a voice – a woman’s voice.
These nightmares are getting out of hand. First, she never came to me.
Then she did.
