Under Different Circumstances

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

It took me a while to realise that the jolting movements, the rapid breathing, and the grunts I was hearing weren't a part of my dream. Drowsily, I came to and squinted my eyes open, orienting myself and trying to make sense of the noises. In the exact moment I turned my head towards Jay, I saw him shoot up in bed. Panting heavily, he sat next to me, hunched over and lowered his elbows to rest on his legs.

"Jay?" I asked carefully and propped myself up onto my elbows. My voice came out croaky.

His head angled towards the sound of my voice slightly, but that was the only reaction I got. He wasn't fully present yet as he was coming down from the nightmare he'd had.

"Are you alright?" I whispered and crawled out from underneath the covers towards him.

Gingerly, I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. Jay flinched but didn't move away from my touch.

He sucked in a ragged breath. "The boy... He bled out under my car. His eyes are dead, staring at me. There is so much blood everywhere, all over my hands," he sobbed, staring down at his clean hands.

Hearing the distress in his voice made my eyes well up.

"The little girl I killed, I keep seeing her face too, I-" A sob choked off his voice.

"Shhh, Jay, you had a nightmare," I whispered with a lump in my throat. "Just breathe. It was a nightmare."

My heart was pounding in my chest. I didn't know what little girl he was talking about. Was she real or just a figment of his dream?

He hid his face in his shaking hands, and his entire body was heaving with his accelerated breathing.

Since my words had no effect on him, I moved to kneel in front of him and ran my hands up and down his arms in soothing circles, trying to calm him down with my touch instead.

Beads of sweat glistened on his bare chest and face. He rubbed his hand over his face hastily to wipe away a few stray tears and let his head hang to hide his face from me. As he fought to get his breathing under control, a tear escaped my eye and rolled down my cheek. It pained me to see him like this.

While I sat there in front of him, I kept wondering what he'd meant when he'd said that he'd killed a girl, but if he didn't bring it up himself, I wouldn't ask.

A few minutes passed until he lifted his head and stared back at me with sorrowful eyes swimming with tears. Immediately, my eyes teared up again too, and I grabbed his face between my hands and placed a kiss on his cheek.

"It's okay, the boy is alive and doing alright," I murmured.

He looked down at his hands. "I know, Hailey," he whispered, "but in my dreams, he's not."

I watched him struggle, and my insides twisted at the sight. He glanced at me briefly, then tilted his head up to the ceiling to keep more tears from falling.

"Three years ago, we came under fire," he began in a quiet voice with his eyes fixated on a spot in the room behind me. "I fired off one round. The bullet went through the offender and a door and hit a little girl playing in an illegal daycare we didn't know about. She died later at the hospital."

When his voice broke at the last part, my bottom lip quivered and another tear ran down my cheek.

"I struggled a lot with it after it happened. Through the years, I learned to deal and live with the guilt, but the accident with the boy brought it all back. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces, their parent's faces, the pain in their eyes. I wake up from the dreams and feel like I'm going to throw up from the excruciating guilt."