Chapter Twenty-two

Eva

Someone is knocking.

It sounds urgent.

I turn over as I sift through the sleepy cobwebs, trying to wake up all the way.

Lord, what time is it? The sun is high, shining brightly through my blinds. It’s definitely way later than I usually sleep. Feeling around my phone I look at the time to see an email from McMillan.

Delete.

I’ve banished that night from last week to the back of my mind and I intend to keep it there. I don’t care how many side glances I get from Lisa or long  curious gazes from Jamie because he never quite believed my story about school work.

I’m not dealing with it.  

I turn over and hit a body.

My eyes snap open and find Jamie sleeping soundly beside me. 

Waking up beside him isn’t new but waking up first sure is.

It’s strange for as much time as we spend together I’ve never seen him sleep. He’s facing away from me and I take a moment to study the huge tattoo that stretches along the back of his shoulders and down his spine. I’ve never seen it up close like this and it’s truly stunning. 

My brows pinch together as a chill runs up my back.

He’s said repeatedly that most of his ink doesn’t have any sentimental meaning, but the scene playing across the roped muscles of his back seems too haunting to not be personal.  It’s a Phoenix with its talons tangled on burnt branches as it struggles to rise above the flames that created it. 

There's a look of despair in the beast’s eyes… like it knows it’s already defeated.

Another booming knock on the door yanks me from my reverie.

I no sooner get my hand on the doorknob before Luke is pushing past me into my living room. “Is Jamie here?”

I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “He’s asleep. I’ll go get him—“

“Whoah, wait—what?,” Luke reaches out and catches my arm before I can fetch his friend. He looks relieved and stunned at the same time. “He’s actually asleep?”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “I know he’s such an insomniac. I was pretty surprised to see him out.”

“Eves,” Luke whispers, giving my arm a gentle squeeze, like what he’s about to say really important. “He’s not an insomniac.”

“You sure? Because he always seems to be up—"

A blood curdling roar rips through my apartment.

I lock eyes with Luke who seems not at all surprised to hear it and strangely resigned to the sound. 

I spin around and fly through my apartment finding Jamie tangled in my sheets as he shouts and thrashes in his sleep.

“Like I said, he’s not an insomniac.” Luke speaks quietly behind me. “It’s once he falls asleep he has problems.”

“MOM WAKE UP!” He screams with so much force his voice cracks. “PLEASE! PLEASE MOM WAKE UP!”

“My mom loved this song...”

Oh my god.

I pull my hand up against my forehead as my heart cracks open and silent tears roll down my face. This isn’t just a nightmare. 

It’s a memory.

Luke is still behind me. He winds an arm around my shoulders as we watch Jamie continue to thrash and cry.

“He hasn’t had one in a while. He’s been due.” He explains quietly. “I know he avoids sleeping when he’s with you so when I stopped in this morning and I saw he hadn’t come home yet, I got worried.”

“How long does this go on?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as heart wrenching as watching Jamie relive his mother’s death. 

No wonder he pushes everyone away. 

“Depends.” He sighs, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Eventually he wakes himself up.”

I allow myself a few more seconds to freak out before I attempt to pull it together enough to make a game plan. 

He needs me to be strong right now more than I need to cry for him.

I push Luke back, “Okay, the last thing he’s going to want is to wake up to an audience.” I’m still watching a tormented Jamie. “Go home and do whatever it is you usually do when he has a nightmare.”

“No, I can stay.”

I give him a firm push. “The chances of him wanting to hang around when he wakes up are fucking slim Luke. Just go.” I need him to be a solid plan B if Jamie bolts when he wakes.

Once I manage to shove a reluctant Luke out the door, I peel into my kitchen grabbing ice water, his cigarettes and lighter then charging back into the room and placing everything just out of his reach. 

“Mom…”

“Wake up.” I pirch on the edge of the bed and lay a soft hand against his back. The despair in the phoenix’s eyes cuts me a thousand ways. “Wake up, Jamie. You’re having a nightmare.”

He tosses back and forth, still trapped in his past. With my heart in my throat, I catch his hand, threading his fingers through mine. I do it more for me than him. I need to hold him and know he’s physically here in the present.

 “Wake up, Jamie. Come back to me.”

His eyes snap open on a strangled gasp. 

Looking around the room like a cornered animal, he scrambles to sit up. His chest is heaving erratically and he sounds like he’s choking as he struggles to pull in air.

“You’re okay,” I whisper in a voice that’s way too thin for my liking. His head jerks towards my general direction but his eyes remain unfocused. “You’re alright. You had a nightmare.”

I can do this. I can be strong for him.

I slowly reach out and run my hand down his arm. “Tell me three things you see.”

“Huh?” He looks disoriented, and so deeply sad as he struggles with shallow breaths. I have to fight back the tear. 

“Three things you see.” I repeat, adopting Miss Ally’s tone when she would calm me down as a child. Her voice was always so soft, so steady. It would fill the dark room, providing me with a comforting line to grab onto while I’d come to. I try my best to channel that sound now.

“Uh, window, floor...” he looks around coughs, still struggling to breathe. “Bed.”

“Good, good. Now tell me three things you hear.” 

“Uhh...me...”

I deliberately kick the bed with my heel a couple times making a soft thumping noise.

“That.”

A car horn blares outside. “The horn.”

I hand him the water, as his eyes begin to focus. “Now three things you feel.”

“The sheets, the cup,” he lifts those lost sea blues to mine, finally focusing on me and I take it as an invitation to curl into his lap, threading my hands through his damp hair. “You.”

He leans his head into me as he releases a ragged breath and he buries his face in the curve of my neck. 

“Perfect. Now inhale through your nose, as deep as you possibly can.” His does as I say pulling in shattered air. “Good. Exhale slowly through your mouth. We’ll do this again and count to twenty as we breathe okay?”

He nods his head against my neck and counts with me.

We cycle through the count. Each number brings some blessed distance between the nightmare and us.

“You seemed mighty prepared.” Jamie says when we finally get to twenty. His breathing has evened out but his voice is raw and he’s still trembling.

My own hands are fisted together to keep from shaking.

Be strong.

“I used to have night terrors as a kid. My parents weren’t really… about the idea of having to deal with a scared child every night so they put me in therapy for it. This was the exercise she had me do whenever I woke up.”

“What...” he tugs in another choppy breath. “What, uh… were they about?”

That’s right, focus on me.

“King Kong,” I run the tips of my fingers along his spine, using every sensory trick I can think of to bring him fully back to the present. “I would have these crazy half-conscious dreams that he was chasing me and I’d wake up thinking he was in the room and going to get me. You know, to this day I’m irrationally terrified of gorillas. Please don’t take me to the zoo. I will embarrass the hell out of you.” 

We stay quiet for a while. I run my hand along his damp back and concentrate on not showing how devastated I really am for him.

“Tell me something stupid,” he says, breaking the quiet with a voice that sounds close to tears. I shut my eyes tightly, pushing my own back as hard as I can. 

I wrack my brain for some mindless observation I can make but come up empty. I seem to be mentally stuck in the moment I ran into this room and found him trapped in hell. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the image of my formidable Jamie Delahunt tangled up in the bed sheets as he screams and begs for his mother to wake up. Comforting him is so much easier when I’m not an emotional shit show myself. 

I’ll need to add growing some lady balls to my list—

The List.

“I’m up to forty-nine items on The List.” I force a smile I don’t quite feel, but let out a brittle laugh remembering our rather eventful shift last night, “Actually make that an even fifty. I have to cross out something special when I get a chance.”

“What is it?”

“Get busy in an inappropriate place.” I snort. 

Jamie makes a rough noise that I hope to be a laugh. “You actually used the term ‘get busy’?”

It was a laugh.

I take heart from his teasing and lean into it, praying I can bring him back with banter. “Sure did. I didn’t want to limit myself to sex proper.” I shrug. “Any kind of friskiness would do.”

He pulls his head back looking up at me with cloudy eyes but there is a small smile playing across his mouth. “You are so fucking weird.”

“That I am,” I whisper, running the tip of my finger along the indent of his faint dimple. I lean down and kiss him. More for my own sake than his. “But you like me anyway.”

I move to get up. I don’t want to get in the way of whatever he feels he needs to do next. 

“Wait—fuck.... just...” Jamie’s arms tighten around my waist like a steel band, holding me on his lap. He drops his forehead to my chest. “Stay with me.”

“Of course,” I settle in, kissing the crown of his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And I’m really not. 

I’d gladly rake myself over hot coals if he asked me. Because those three small words he just uttered to me in my quiet room cemented the truth I’ve probably known for a while but wasn’t able to admit to myself.

I love him.

*******

We’ve spent the day in bed.

  We haven’t eaten, we’ve barely spoken. Jamie has only left for a couple quick smoke breaks and I haven’t had a single sip of coffee since last night. There’s no time. I’ve spent the past several hours with my body bent and twisted into an insane series of contorted potions I didn’t realize I was capable of achieving. Sex with Jamie is always intense but today feels like a fucking exorcism. Each thrust seems to function as a purge.

“Jam--Jamie........” I whisper, as he drives into me for what feels like our thousands round of the day. “I duh… I d-don’t know how… much more I can t-taaaaake....” 

Apparently, there is such a thing as too many orgasms. Who knew? 

I might be the one on top, but he’s the one doing the fucking as he pushes as deep into me as possible. He holds my hips tight in his inked hands, his fingers wrapping around my flesh in a vice like grip as he lifts, then pulls my body down dragging me against him with the most exquisite ferocity. He sits up, rocking further into me and tugs my head back by my hair while licking the front of my throat.

“You tapping out on me baby?” He growls as he drives in to the hilt.

“I  didn’t say that.” I roll on him, meeting his thrusts with a tired but euphoric whimper as I take everything he’s throwing at me. I know he’ll immediately stop if I say so, But I don’t actually want that. I might be exhausted beyond measure at this point but he needs this and I need to be there any way I can. 

Besides, death by orgasm isn’t a bad way to go. 

Jamie must sense that we’re officially flirting with my limit, because he suddenly flips us, pulling my legs around his waist and picks up the pace. Fucking me hard and fast as he mercilessly pummels us toward the edge. Each thrust feels divine, violent, and broken. 

Just like him.

We come as one. Holding on to each other as we ride wave after excruciating wave of ecstasy. We stay joined together as we catch our breath, finally allowing our bodies to settle.

And the dreaded overture of silence begins all over again. 

This is what instigates every round of physical escape. Like if he fucks me hard enough what comes next will just go away. But when the deed is done and we’re spent, the room fills with a thick mocking quiet that grows louder with each passing second as we brace ourselves for the inevitable conversation looming on the other side of that total absence of sound. 

“I need a smoke,” he finally rumbles into my hair. Pushing himself up. He stands with surprising grace and ease considering the positions he’s spent his day in and pulls on his pants. Without another word he climbs out my window and sparks up.

I stare at my ceiling for a moment, feeling like a stressed out, over cooked noodle before rolling off the bed to hobble to the bathroom and clean myself up. I’m struggling to hold onto the pressing issues of the day while I repeatedly get side tracked by disjointed pointless thoughts. 

It’s time. We can’t keep putting his past on the back burner…

Shit, Should I take some ibuprofen now? I’m going to be so sore....

He’s not okay…

I need more toothpaste....

Jamie needs to talk to someone....

Should I order food…

I’ll come right out and ask how she died…

I need to put on a pot of coffee…

I’m so caught up in my gnarled web of thoughts that it’s several minutes before I realize I’m sitting in my living room with my hands wrapped around a hot mug of coffee.

And Jamie hasn’t come back yet.

I close my eyes and count to twenty, envisioning the numbers being pulled on a rope as I time my breathing with each count. Once I hit twenty, I feel a bit more grounded and ready to seek out the reticent man who may or may not have broken himself today. 

I can do this.

I can fix him.

Climbing out my window, I find him still smoking on my fire escape. Eyes lost; a deep scowl marring his handsome face. I wait, allowing him the opportunity to begin if he wishes. But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t acknowledge me at all.

“What happened?” I finally ask quietly.

He doesn’t respond in any capacity to my question. It’s like I’m not even there.

“Jamie,” I try again, moving closer. I kneel between his legs. “Please talk to me.” I reach out to touch him but he jerks away looking everywhere but at me.

“I uh… I have to get ready for work.” He whispers in a hollow tone. He stands, flicking his cigarette into the pot as the smoke from his final drag billows through his nostrils in a single stream. Without another word, he turns his back and climbs the steps. His foot falls only make tiny muffled rattles as he ascends to his window.

Somewhere on the outskirts of my mind I register the sound of his window slamming shut. I’m desperate to chase after him but I stay planted in my spot. I know deep in my heart, that I can’t go after him right now. Maybe it’s a sixth sense that holds me back, maybe fear of losing him. But all I can see as I stay frozen with my bare knees digging into the frigid grate, is those painfully beautiful sea blues before he turned away. His eyes were more than just empty when he left. 

They were defeated.