Petal [h.s.]

Chapter 64

It had been like that all week. I had honestly hardly seen her since getting out of the hospital. She seemed to always be curled up in the bed, on the far right side as I slid under the covers on the left side.

When I tried to cuddle her, she'd say she didn't want to hurt my shoulder or break the closed wounds on her back. Or it was too hot or the position was too uncomfortable. Or that I ended up kicking her at night which she wanted to avoid. It was always something.

She woke up from nightmares more frequently now, usually around three times a night. I didn't blame her for being tired, even though I had suggested she took more time off from the RSP. She insisted on going back to work merely two days after we got out of the basement, meaning she was gone for half the time.

I had suggested we took a little vacation, just the two of us. Get away for a while, even if it was just the weekend. We had never done that, just a few days of uninterrupted time with one another, besides that one week at her apartment. That didn't count since I was a zombie for most of that.

She had said no.

The nightmares were violent and consisted of her screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night, thrashing around in the sheets before she shot up with a gasp and cried for a bit, wobbling towards the bathroom to calm down in there.

She insisted on doing it alone, one time even snapping at me for attempting to comfort her. Violet during her nightmares was a league of her own, completely unpredictable and so extremely on edge. She sometimes spent hours in the bathroom after having a nightmare, preventing me from coming in. I usually eventually fell back asleep after a while, and I never noticed her coming back into the bed.

She told me she dreamed about the fire more these days, but I had a feeling that horrible nightmare had been accompanied by another. Something definitely happened in that basement. The lines on her back and stomach had faded for the most part, just a few little scratches on her back that were well on their way to heal completely.

When she went to work I'd then get a text in the afternoon, informing me she was going to hang out with Abby. She'd only return late at night and go straight to bed then, hardly speaking three words to me.

Violet had been driving herself to work these days, yearning for some of her freedom back after the impromptu gang attacked her. I trusted no one at this point, so it was either her driving herself or me driving her, which she protested against. 

I had a tracker on both the car and her new phone, but refrained from using it after she had begged me not to. She deserved privacy after feeling that violated for so long.

Once in the shower, I let my mind drift back to the week we'd had. The hospital bed was uncomfortable enough for me to give it up after one night, yearning for my own mattress and sheets, and most of all yearning for Violet's presence next to me. The six nights without her were the worst I'd slept in a long time.

I didn't like sleeping alone.

Yet now she was next to me in the bed and it felt like I was more alone than ever. She was basically a zombie next to me.

I missed Violet. She hadn't been the same ever since they had taken her into that basement. Every time I tried to talk about it with her, she shut me out and claimed she was fine while she was most obviously not. She had been distant, quiet, reserved with me. I had been trying to joke around, cheer her up, but the most I got was a faint, forced smile that didn't reach her eyes.

It was different. She didn't want to talk about it, no matter how many times I tried. My protective, controlling personality told me to talk to Abby about it, or to drag her to a therapist, but I also wanted to respect her privacy and her choice for taking time.