Even if we were together for a while, she’d find out pretty quick what an asshole I really was because the first fucking thing I was going to do was to get drunk off my ass. She’d go back to school and end up with a study partner who was a guy, and I’d have to fucking kill him. Just the thought of her being close to another guy was enough to get me worked up and wanting to punch something.
Raine took my hand, and we walked to the shelter together as the sun began to set. She was going on about something, but I wasn’t really listening to her. I just nodded and grunted every once in a while as I banked the fire for the night and Raine shook sand out of the mats. She said something about her friend Lindsay, the shopoholic, and her escapades at a mall in Cleveland as we settled down on the mattress to sleep. My thoughts were far too internalized to understand any of the details of her monologue.
There was no way being back in polite society with Raine would work. Here was perfect. Here I could be everything she needed because her needs weren’t complicated in this place. Back in the normal world, I was nothing but a social misfit, just like the fucking Christmas toys in the Rudolph cartoon. Raine had friends to take her shopping and people who cared about her. She had potential, she had intelligence, she had money, and she had looks. She wouldn’t need me for anything.
It was probably that thought that brought back the nightmares with a vengeance.
“You like that? Huh? You gonna scream for me again?” He holds her hair with one hand, pinning her head to the ground. The other hand twists the knife he has lodged in her side…
My jaw tightened, and it actually felt like I might bite through my own teeth for a moment. The palm-frond ceiling of the new shelter was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I must have rolled off of Raine after I fell asleep because the nightmare was pretty fucking awful and I hadn’t had one like that for a while. Well, a few days, anyway. The scene was the same – they had her down on the beach and I couldn’t get to her in time – but the faces, the faces were all different.
My stomach cramped, and I wrapped my arms around my middle for a moment, swallowing hard and telling myself not to be such a *. It was a dream, for fuck’s sake. I forced my body to relax a little while I stared at Raine’s peaceful, sleeping form. I tried to make myself focus on her face so I wouldn’t see anything else in my mind, but it wasn’t working. I lay my fingers over the top of hers, thinking maybe the physical touch would help, but it didn’t make any difference. I kept seeing his face – that bastard motherfucker who took what shambles of a life I had and fucking destroyed it. Gunter Darke. This time, his face had replaced Dreadlocks’ in my dream. Franks held Raine down while Gunter’s body violated her and his knife tore into her flesh.
I couldn’t hold it back any longer, stumbled outside the shelter, and dropped to my hands and knees to get sick. When I was done, I thought about going down to the water to wash off my face, but I didn’t want to be that far from her – definitely not now.
“She’s safe.”
I said it out loud, though under my breath, so I wouldn’t wake Raine.
“He never fucking touched her.”
Memories of her father’s face, not so unlike hers, as Gunter ripped into him flooded my brain.
“You like that? Huh? You like that, pig? You gonna scream for me again?”
“Did you have another nightmare?” Her soft voice came to me from the night breeze. I swallowed hard before nodding once. Raine was next to me a moment later, one of her small hands resting on top of my shoulder, the other offering me a cup of water. I washed out my mouth, drank a little, and then put it off to one side in the sand. I reached over and pulled Raine closer to me, kneeling in front of her and pushing the side of my face into her stomach. I breathed in her scent and tried to stop the shaking in my hands.
“I want a fucking drink,” I cried into her skin.
“I can’t give you that,” Raine said as her hands wrapped up in my hair. “I can only give you me.”
“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t help him. I should have…if I had known you then, I would have fucking died to save him for you.”
Raine’s breath caught in her throat, and I felt her knees buckle a little.
“Will you tell me now?” I could barely hear her.