Page 24 of Loving Bad
"Sin and I wanted to build a better future than our parents had. We grew up living next door to each other," he answered.
I glanced at him for a moment. I didn't have to read people well to see there was a lot more behind that sentence than met the eye. His answer made me want to share more with him.
"I wanted to come to college to experience all the things I never had," I added. He glanced at me.
"I've led a very sheltered life and I always felt I was missing out on those little life experiences kids my own age took for granted," I explained further.
"Sin and I had the opposite. There isn't much we haven't done," he replied. I didn't miss the sad and hard look in his face. I remembered Sin telling me that they weren't good guys, but bad guys didn't watch over a girl they didn't know because she was so out of it, and bad guys didn't walk girls home to keep them safe.
I wanted to ask him more about his childhood, but I knew if he shared more I would have to as well and I wasn't ready. When people found out about my childhood and the horror I'd faced, they treated me differently. I wanted to be treated like a normal college student, not someone who had seen the worst side of humanity and lived through it. We were silent for the rest of the short walk. Outside the dorm building, we turned to face each other.
"Thanks for walking me," I said. It didn't matter that I hadn't wanted him to.
"You're welcome," he replied. "See you around, Tay."
No one but my brother had ever called me that. I smiled at him as he turned to leave. I entered the dorm building and opened the door to the staircase. I was really beginning to get annoyed that the elevators hadn't been fixed yet.
Halfway up the stairs, I heard someone else's footsteps besides my own. I thought it was a little strange so early in the morning. Maybe someone else was also doing the 'walk of shame.' I stopped for a moment and so did the other footsteps. I hesitated for a moment, hoping to hear the footsteps again. Silence.
Strange.
I felt a slither of fear up my spine, and I hastened my steps up the stairs even though I knew I was probably blowing it out of proportion. It could be anyone. The sound of the footsteps again made me climb the stairs faster than before as I began to panic. When I got to my floor, I pushed the door open and hurried down the hallway to my room.
It was only when I got to the door of my room that I turned to look down the hallway. There was no one. I shook my head and let out a deep breath. I was doing it again. I was allowing what happened to me as a child affect me. Feeling angry with myself for reacting the way I had, I opened the door and walked into the dark room.
I kicked my shoes off and climbed into bed, hoping to get a few more hours sleep before Jordan was awake and wanting all the details from my one night with Sin. It took me a while to calm myself down enough to fall asleep. The brief scare in the stairwell had opened the lid to the dark memories I'd buried deep inside of me. And as much as I'd tried to brush it off as an overactive imagination, it had really spooked me.
My dreams turned into nightmares, and I woke up breathing hard, tangled in my sheets, with a concerned Jordan peering over me.
"It was just a dream," she soothed as she hugged my trembling body to hers. She tried to calm me with words, but it didn't work. She didn't know that they weren't just dreams—they were the real life events that I relived in my dreams. It wasn't just a nightmare that would be forgotten about. What had happened had changed my life forever. It didn't matter how much I ran or how deep I buried the memories, they had marked me forever and there was no escaping them.
Jordan peered at me over her coffee with concern as she took a sip. We were sitting in a coffee shop having something to drink. After my nightmare, I'd been trying to avoid talking about it, but she wasn't letting it go. I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear while I stirred my sugar into my coffee.
"So are you going to tell me what your nightmare was about?" she asked as she set her coffee cup down on the table. I knew that she thought she was helping by pushing the subject, but she wasn't. I'd been through this with enough shrinks to know that some things could be 'fixed,' but some things were scarred into your soul and there was no fixing that. You just had to learn how to live with it, and I had. Most days I was fine.
People dealt with stressful events differently. What should have crushed me made me stronger, and I promised to make sure every day counted. I'd turned it around and used it to drive me to live life to the fullest. But that didn't mean that I liked to think or talk about the event that had changed my life.
"I don't want to talk about it," I replied firmly as I wrapped my hands around my cup.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push it," she said. "It's just that you're my friend, and I don't want you to hurt."
I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"I know that. I'm okay," I reassured her. "Most of the time I'm okay, it's just that something yesterday seemed to trigger it again."
"What happened?" she asked as she took another sip of her coffee. I bit my lip for a moment.
"Nothing, forget about it," I said, deciding that it was my overactive imagination working overtime. Her forehead creased slightly as she frowned.
"You sure?" she asked. I nodded my head at her.
"I'm surprised you haven't been at me for details of my night with Sin," I said, effectively changing the subject.
"I hadn't forgotten about that. I want details," she said, happily changing the subject.
