Falling Into Sunday

9- I Am Desperate

I lay down to sleep at eleven but I’m still up at one. It’s pitch black in my room and I’m physically exhausted but I’m mentally wide awake. Every time I close my eyes, I see him. Sam.

I see him on top of me. I feel his hands all over me. I hear his voice. I smell his scent. My heart starts to beat faster and then I open my eyes again to convince myself that it’s all in my head. He’s not actually there in my room. It’s over. He’s gone. Go to sleep.

I yawn and plead for my mind to relax and just go to sleep.

I try to close my eyes again, but there he is, taunting the back of my eyelids. He laughs at how helpless I am because he’s holding both of my wrists in one of his oversized hands and I can’t fight him.

I open my eyes again and I feel like even though my eyes are open, I can still feel his presence in my room. In a panic, I get out of my bed and hurry towards the wall where the light switch is. Flipping it on, I spin around to face the room and see that I’m the only one in there. It’s all in my head.

I check inside of my closet and I look under my bed but there’s nobody. Nothing. It’s all in my head.

There’s no way that I’ll be able to go to sleep tonight without screaming my head off even more so than I already do. I know this because it’s happened before, these super intense nights full of paranoia and flashbacks of that night. However, when they happened before, I’d go to Mr. Erickson and he’d take the pain away. We lived in the same huge apartment-thing but after the first few months of our relationship, we decided that we actually hated each other but I was good in bed and he had a lot of money and put a roof over my head. As a result, I moved into the guest bedroom unless one of us wanted sex or something of that nature. Sometimes I’d cook too. Anyway, when I got like this when I was there in Billings with him, I’d just go into his room and he’d fuck me until I had no choice but to sleep and that’s how I got through the hard nights like these.

But Mr. Erickson is three and a half hours away and I’m alone.

I’m sure there’s another way to get rid of the nightmares that doesn’t involve sex, but I don’t know of them and I don’t have time to figure them out. I just want to sleep and that’s the only way that I know how to get it.

I get dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a hoodie with lingerie underneath it and some Uggs (I haven’t worn them since I returned to Great Falls but they still fit and they’re cozy). It’s snowing outside so I don’t feel like wearing heels, especially if it’s just to drive to where I’m going. I’m not going to go all the way to Billings, obviously, but I do know somebody else that might be helpful.

I grab my purse and throw my hair into a pony tail because I feel like I’m sweating up a storm even though it’s freaking snowing outside. With everything ready, I leave my bedroom and head for the stairs but before I get there, I hear a door open and then somebody says something.

“Vi?”

I turn around and see Emmett’s tired head poking out of his bedroom door. He looks tired and confused, even in the terribly lit hallway.

“What’re you doing?”

“Just going out,” I reply shakily. I feel like I’m about to combust with all of these paralyzing flashbacks swimming around inside of my head and I just need to get out of this house as quickly as possible. I need to get out. “Just for the night.”

“Where?” He wonders.

I silently wonder if he’s worried that I’m leaving like I did last time- if he’s worried that I won’t come back for seven more months instead of returning in the morning like I really am going to do. “Just out,” I say vaguely. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Em.”