Page 93 of Plight
“I was triggering her nightmares again.”
“What?” The trowel wobbled and he caught it.
“That first night, after we made love, she had a nightmare. It was horrible. Then she had another the following night. She couldn’t remember them, and she was adamant she hadn’t had one for years.” I turned my back to him and looked out the window, spotting her showing a young boy the carrots and tomatoes she’d grown. “It was me. I was triggering her memories of the storm and causing the nightmares to return. How could I stay so close knowing I was at fault? That’s selfish.”
The clatter of the trowel being placed back down on the bench sounded behind me. “It’s not you. She has nightmares every now and again but doesn’t wake. You don’t trigger them, and neither does memories of the storm.”
“If it’s not me then what does?” I asked, feeling absolutely helpless.
“The notion that you could leave her.”
I turned around. “What?”
“Her fear lies with abandonment.”
Chris had all of sudden turned into a fully qualified psychologist. It was making my head hurt even more. I rubbed it, as if it were a gene’s lamp. “How do you know all of this?”
“Because I’m her friend, her roommate, and I might have gone to the doctors with her a few times.” He shrugged. “She was fucking waking me up and nearly making me crap my pants, all right? It was scary shit. So it was either sort it out or kick her out. I like Dani, and I’m not an A-grade arsehole, so we opted to sort that shit out.”
“Hang on a minute, so what you’re saying is that her doctor said the nightmares are triggered by her fear of being abandoned?”
“Yep. Because you, you fuck, keep abandoning her.”
I glared at him but felt the pit of my stomach drop past my balls. “Fuck! So it is my fault?”
“Partly, yes, so fix it. I don’t want to wake up in my own excrement, nor do I want to be making Chris’ Magic Milo every few hours because she’s moping around like a sad little puppy dog. Even Pugly is over it.” Chris opened the door to leave but paused. “She loves you. You love her. So for fuck’s sake, geek boy, fix this shit.”
The sun burst through the open door and slammed into my face. I squinted and shielded my eyes, trying to process everything he’d said. She loves me. I’m not triggering the nightmares, but then I am triggering them because she’s scared I’ll leave her. She likes to drink a lot of Milo. Chris shits himself. Geek boy?
One thing was for certain; I wasn’t going to abandon her. Ever.
I planned to do the opposite.
I planned to make our engagement official.
