That I’m going to blackmail him.
“I came…” I lick my lips and his jaw clenches. “I came because I had a nightmare.”
What?
A nightmare?
Where did that come from?
Except maybe it was self-preservation. It was an attempt to save myself from his wrath, and so I said the first thing, the very first thing, I could think of. Or rather, I said it before I could even think of it.
And somehow, it works.
It fucking works.
Because at my lie, his anger breaks.
It leaches out of his tight features and something else takes its place.
Something that I’ve never seen from him before and so I can’t say what it is.
I can’t say what it means when his chocolate chip eyes go from being harsh to slightly liquid, and his clenched jaw loosens up and he says, “A nightmare.”
“Yes.”
A few seconds pass in silence.
Then, he says, “Been a long time.”
My heart clenches, and I can barely get the words out. “Yeah.”
“Years.”
“Yes.”
He studies my face, his eyes roving in quick but thorough circles over my features, and I swallow. Then he takes a deep breath and takes his hand off the wall.
He steps back too.
While I stay there, glued to my spot still.
Because even though I lied to save myself from his anger, I didn’t think that he would buy it.
I didn’t think that he would… look like this.
Concerned.
Oh my God, he’s concerned.
This is concern.
I can’t believe it.
In those initial months when I came to live with him, I used to have nightmares. Which I think was obvious. My mother had just died. I’d moved to this new town to live in this new house, among strangers. And one of those strangers had a history with my mom that caused him to hate me.
So much so that he wouldn’t let me go.
Of course I had nightmares.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say that he didn’t even know about them. Because it’s not as if I told him, or even wanted to tell him. He was the reason for them, wasn’t he?
But he knew.
Even though it was Mo who always came into my room after I’d wake up screaming and crying, I know he knew.
“Was tonight the first time?” he asks, breaking my thoughts.
“What?”
“That you had your nightmare.”
“I… Yeah.”
“I’m calling Dr. Rover in the morning and making —”
“What, no,” I cut him off.
He breathes out sharply. “You need to go see him.”
“No, I don’t. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You had a nightmare.”
No, I didn’t.
At least, not tonight.
I did have one last week though. When summer school started and I was super depressed at being left behind and all alone. It was before I got to know Echo and Jupiter. Since then I’ve been in much better spirits.
“Yes,” I say, nodding, deciding to tell him a version of the truth so we can move on from this. “I did have a nightmare. And that’s because I’m stuck here, all alone. Without any friends. When for the past three years, ever since you so generously sent me here, I had plans to graduate with them. Which means that I’m in a stressful situation. So it’s not really a surprise that I had a nightmare, is it? I don’t need Dr. Rover to check me out. Not again.”
The reason I know that he knew about my nightmares is because after Mo had to come into my room to calm me down a few times, she told me that Mr. Marshall had made an appointment for me.
With a doctor.
A psychiatrist.
Of course I refused to go. I wasn’t going to see a psychiatrist; my head was fine. It was him — my new devil guardian — who was the problem, not me. But when I kept refusing, the doctor came to see me. So there was no escape.
Although I have to admit that it did help.
He recommended medication and outpatient therapy with one of his colleagues. Which I also refused in the beginning, but then the therapist grew on me and my nightmares did recede after a while. All of that being said though, I have no desire to repeat that experience.
“I want you to tell me.”
His voice brings me out of my thoughts and I focus on him.
Still standing in front of me, he appears even more stiff than before. Even more statue-like and still than when Cynthia said those things.
“Tell you what?”
Somehow he unclenches his jaw to say, in a rough voice, “The next time you have a nightmare.”
“W-what?”
“I want you to come find me,” he says in the same voice.
Maybe in an even lower voice.
Which hits me in my belly. But not more than his words.
His words not only hit my body but bruise me too. The meaning behind them.
“You want me to come find you when I have a nightmare,” I say, both because I want to make sure that I heard him right and because I don’t really know what to say to that.