Page 54 of The Devil's Tattoo
“Fallingapart.”
“Life wasn’t meant to beeasy,Zo.”
“Iknow.”
“You have to talktohim.”
“I will.Tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he said. “Well, I’m just in the next bed if you needme,okay?”
He slid into his own bed, and in true Dee fashion, he was asleep in minutes. But for me, sleep didn’t come easy. When I finally managed to drift off, it was headfirst into a dream. You know the in between bit where you still feel wide-awake, but you’re in a weird place, and you know it isn’t real? It was there I found myself, and I couldn’t do anythingaboutit.
The apartment I used to live in was brown brick, and the stairs leading up to our floor were concrete. I’d run up and down those stairs a million times carrying boxes and groceries. For two years, I’d gone out and come home without a care in the world. That was until the day I had run to get away. My eyes stung with unshed tears and my face throbbed with the promise of a black bruise swelling up against mypaleskin.
“Get away from me!” I heard myselfshriek.
A strong hand grasped my upper arm, fingers biting into my flesh—another bruise added to the list. I had been happy. So happy I’d been blind to what was happening behindmyback.
“Don’t fuckingtouchme.”
They let go of me, and I wanted to run down those stairs, the stairs I had walked up and down a thousand million times. I didn’t need to run. I didn’t need to walk. There was a hand on my back that would help me get to the bottom faster than I could have ever let my legscarryme.
The ground came rushing up toward my face, and I let out a scream, like the sound of my own terror would stop my forwardmomentum.
“Zoe.” The voiced sounded small like it came from a faraway place, and it took a long minute for it to register that it wasn’t part of my nightmare. My eyes snapped open, and I gasped for air, my skin hot and sticky withsweat.
“Zoe,fucking hell.” A hand was on my shoulder and another came down on myforehead.
“Dee?” I said with a gratingvoice.
“It was just a dream,” he said, his voice full ofpanic.
“Adream?”
“You let out an awful scream,” he said, pulling my hair from mywetface.
“I’m sorry.” I gasped as I sat up and rubbed my hands over my face, trying to calm down. My heart was still thumping a million miles an hour, the image of the ground rushing up to meet me still crystal clear in mymind’seye.
“What was itabout?”
I pointed to my arm, and he knew. Collapsing back onto the bed, I couldn’t help it when the tears started to flow. The dream had been so vivid it was like an action replay. Dee slid into bed behind me and circled his arm around my waist as sob after sob burst outofme.
“What happened?” he whispered intomyhair.
“He called me… My arm,” I said between heavybreaths.
“Did he hurt you?” Dee asked quietly, knowing I was talking about Will. “Ifheeven…”
“He didn’thurtme.”
He held me for a long time, waiting for me tocalmdown.
Finally, he asked, “Whathappened?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. I couldn’tsayit.
“Something must’ve,” he said. “It’s you and me, Zo. Just youandme.”
