Beautiful Villain

I’m running.

I don’t know how long I’ve been running or how fast, but the world seems to speed by me in a colorful blur as my legs carry me deeper and deeper into the woods.

“Don’t go,” a voice calls, but I ignore it and keep going. I need to. I have to find answers. I have to find out what happened. I have to find Kevin.

No matter how far I run, I can never seem to reach the point that I need to. I can never seem to get exactly where I need to go. Kevin is lost, and he’s in trouble, and I need to find him before the bad man does.

But my legs just can’t carry me quickly enough.

I run, faster and faster. The woods are thick, and branches scratch me as I move through the underbrush, but I ignore the cuts and the pain as I move.

“Kevin!” I scream, but I already know that I’m too late. Once again, I’ve failed to reach him in time. Once again, the sound of a gunshot fires, and the screams start.

“Neil!”

I’m so close to him. I need to keep moving. Maybe if I get there soon enough, I can stop the bleeding.

“Neil!”

A pressure starts to mount on my shoulders. The weight of the world, maybe? I don’t know. I keep moving, but then it comes again. This time, I open my eyes.

“Neil!”

It’s Finley.

She’s straddling me, shaking my shoulders, looking at me with a horrified expression on her face. It’s now that I realize I was dreaming again. The nightmare that has plagued me for five years has resurfaced: this time with a vengeance.

“Sorry,” I mutter, and I try to push her off of me, but she’s tougher than she looks, and stronger. She doesn’t budge.

“You had a nightmare.”

“I’m fine. Thanks for waking me up.”

“You are so far from fine that you don’t even know what fine is,” she tells me.

“Finley, leave it alone,” I say. I shouldn’t be abrupt with her. After all, she’s giving me a place to stay. She’s keeping me safe when nobody else could. I owe her for that, but I’m still irritated that I had a nightmare.

The dream used to come every day. Every roommate I ever had in prison fucking hated my guts for them. They hated that I’d wake up screaming or crying like a little bitch. Soon I learned to suck that shit down and bury it deep. If I could wear myself out during the day – pushups, sit-ups, running – then I wouldn’t dream. I’d be too tired to dream.

For years, that’s been my method of coping.

Nobody wants to be a little bitch in prison. Crying in your sleep? That’s a fast way to get your ass kicked. I stopped that shit real fast, but apparently, I’ve let my guard down around Finley. Either that, or being back in this town is fucking with my head.

Neither one of these is a good sign.

“I’m fine,” I say again, looking up at her. Somehow, I really believe that if I just say this enough, she’ll believe it. She’ll agree with me and then she’ll let this go because I really, really want her to le

t this go.

She just looks at me, waiting for me to say something else. I don’t know what to say, though. I didn’t expect to have a nightmare here and I definitely don’t want ot talk about it.

“You were dreaming about that night,” she says. “Does this happen to you a lot?”

She’s not judging me. I don’t know how she managed to guess what the dream was about – maybe she’s just smarter than I give her credit for – and I definitely don’t know how she’s looking at me with curiosity and compassion: not disgust.

I realize that I could lie to her and push her away, but I don’t really want to. For the first time, really, I suddenly want to actually talk to her about this. I want to tell her exactly what’s happening. Maybe she’ll be able to offer me some advice or maybe she won’t, but either way, I want to reach out to her all of a sudden.

“Not a lot,” I finally say.