Behind Closed Curtains (Desires of the Forbidden)

Chapter 35

Kaleb's P.O.V

"So, how's she holding up?"

Tossing the bar towel over my shoulder, I sighed at Carrie's question and rested my hands against the bar.

"Honestly... not too good. She's pretty messed up over it. She's had nightmares every night since it happened. She wakes up screaming and crying and... it's bad. It's really bad, Carr."

I shook my head and leaned my weight against the bar as I recalled back to just last night's episode.

Her, screaming. Me, trying to hold her and soothe her back to sleep as she lashed out and wept uncontrollably once she came out of her mind consuming nightmare and was thrown violently back into reality.

She was miserable and I was at a loss as how to help her.

"She eating at least?" Carrie asked before lifting her beer to her lips and taking a swig.

"Not eating, not sleeping, nothing. She's just quiet a lot or she cries. She won't talk to me really and... I don't know what to do anymore. The most I've gotten out of her is when she first wakes up from her night terrors and she sobs about how sorry she is. I think she thinks she's talking to Zach in those moments but... I don't know."

"Kid," Carrie's voice beckoned me, tearing my gaze from the patterns in the bar wood and fixing my stare on my sisters certain, blue eyes that reminded me so much of my mothers.

"It's gonna get better. I promise you. It's only been a week. A week since she put a bullet in someone, someone she loved for three years. She's gonna be fucked up for a while over it and you've gotta suck it up and get used to it because she needs you. Even if she's not talking to you, she needs you there just so she knows she has you. She may have gotten out of that relationship alive but she's gonna be scarred for life and that's something you're both gonna have to live with if you really wanna make it work."

"You know I want it to work and it's going to for us, I would never give up on her it's just... getting harder I guess," I mumbled out, dropping my head into my hands dejectedly.

Grabbing the bottle of beer between her fingers, Carrie shook her head with a knowing smile and bitter eyes lighting up her face.

"Welcome to the real world, kid. It sucks."

My shift ended about an hour after Carrie left. It was my first day shift back at the bar since everything happened with Zach and to be really fucking honest... I didn't want to go.

I'd been with Leah every step of the way, every second of the day since that night. She's been so delicate and's been bursting into tears or a panic attack without a moment's notice lately. It could be a door closing too loudly or even just a memory as it flashes through her mind, unbeknownst to the rest of us around her and then she's suddenly gone from the room and all we can hear is her severe hyperventilating and sobbing from the other room.

It seems the only good I can really do as of late is to calm her from her attacks. Thankfully, I still have the soothing effect over her that I always seemed to have and even though it's terrible to say, I almost get a bit of joy whenever she does go into a panic attack. It's the only time and way I seem to be able to help her... and fuck all I wanted to do was help her right now.

What if she never recovers...?

"Fuck," I cursed out under my breath and shook the morbid thought from my head as quickly as it entered. I forced my attention to steady on the road ahead of me as I drove back to the apartment instead of the daunting thoughts that had slipped through the blocks in my mind over the last couple days.