Six Letter Word [Kaylor]

April 2017 (Part 1)

When the nightmares started again the weekend before resuming chemo, I wasn't even surprised. We'd talked about it in therapy a bit, the likelihood they would come back as it loomed closer. I'd even had Karlie come to a session with me so we could talk through how I was feeling together. It had been a good session, and an important one, but also draining, emotionally and physically. When we'd gotten home after, we'd just laid on the bed, holding each other, lost in our own heads, trying to process all the things we'd said, the fears we'd put to words. It wasn't easy for either of us to say aloud the things we worried about. I was particularly concerned about getting infusions three days a week. Given how strongly I usually reacted to day one, it seemed disingenuous to have more infusion days in the name of keeping me stronger through the next round of chemo, but I knew my team at the hospital wouldn't be trying it if they didn't think it would work. I didn't want to have to be admitted. The hospital was boring, but yet, strangely full of activity. I was willing to seclude myself in my house and never leave over spending weeks in the hospital, even send the cats back to Martha's place. But more than anything, I didn't want to risk infection again.

That was, I think, the basis of the first dream. I dreamed I was performing, at the center of a huge stadium, surrounded by fans holding signs and waving glowsticks, but it was like the dream was on mute. I couldn't hear the crowd, and when I strummed the guitar hanging from my back, I heard no sound. I shouted for them to turn up my in-ears, but nothing changed. I popped out the right one, figuring seventy percent loudness would be better than silence, but there was still no change no matter what I did. I woke up to Karlie shaking my shoulder. I'd apparently been screaming in my sleep and scared her. I'd rolled over so my right ear was in the pillow, so I hadn't been able to hear her call my name, which didn't exactly make a dream about being trapped in absolute silence any easier to deal with. She'd been so sweet to stay up with me just talking for an hour after that, proving that I could still hear her, but she had her own crap to deal with, still battling with her team to figure out a schedule that would allow her to not completely stop working while she took care of me.

She'd come home that night emotionally exhausted and cranky and we'd fought over stupid, petty shit that had escalated to me throwing things and her calling me a bitch and going for a run that lasted three hours and ended with her sheepishly calling me to send a car because she was somehow in Prospect Park and she was so, so sorry. I hated the fact that while she'd been running across Manhattan, and apparently the Brooklyn Bridge, I'd finally been able to write a song the way I used to, when I was a teenager and everything that happened to me was grounds for an emotional breakdown and therefore a song. It had taken me less than half the time she'd been gone to get it written and a demo recorded, and I knew the fans would love the way it used the harsh electric guitar to evoke the way my emotions felt, raw and unbridled and angry. But I hated that we'd had to fight to get me back into the music room. I hated even more how surprised I was when she called because I'd just figured she'd come home a while ago and was waiting for me to emerge so we could talk, because she knew I was processing my emotions the way I did so she could process hers the way she did and we could finally talk about what we'd really been angry enough once they were out.

The second nightmare came that night. She left me. It was all too much and she told me she was leaving while I was face first in the toilet heaving up everything I'd eaten ever, or so it seemed, and when I looked up all I could see was her flawless ass walking away from me with a suitcase, and she refused to turn around when I called her name and every time I tried to stand up and run after her I would feel sick again and have to go right back where I started. That one was so real that when I woke up, this time crying more than screaming, I actually was halfway to the bathroom to throw up when I realized that my stomach was fine, though I was having trouble stemming the tide of tears flowing down my face. She assured me, of course, that although she might have run, and farther than anticipated or than she should have, she would always come home. That she'd meant every word of the vows she'd made, and that even when she was angry, she would only leave long enough to cool down and talk rationally. Intellectually I knew that was true. Karlie was the most loyal person I knew, and I couldn't imagine her just walking out on me. Even if she hated me, she'd give me warning.