The image of his face faded from sight, and she felt herself falling. Falling away from him. She reached out and called his name in desperate hope that he would catch her. But she just kept falling. Falling further away from him. Relief washed over her when she realized that the memory of him was following her. The fear that it would happen to her too disappeared, and she stopped struggling. But as she watched the memory, she saw it start to morph. All the love that she felt when she gazed at it slipped away from her as she fell into the endless dark abyss. Now it was nothing more but an image...
"No!"
Jodie sat up suddenly, her whole body burning with fear. Sweat dripped from her forehead and she felt her heart pounding. Andrew sat up too, obviously awoken by her sudden outburst. Almost instantly he wrapped his arm around her, as he had the previous evening. His touch was full of love for her. But as Jodie rested her head on his chest, she felt no such feeling.
"You okay?" asked Andrew tenderly, stroking the top of her head.
Jodie felt herself resisting him. She didn't feel right in his arms. Perhaps it was because she wasn't used to him being so comforting, or because she hadn't seen him in a while? Neither explanations quite fit how she was feeling. She had spent the past few months doing nothing but missing him, but not daring to step back into the cursed place that was her home. She may have been staying with her family, but she had done little talking. They knew nothing of the traumatic events with Carrie, and Jodie had decided that they never would. They didn't need to. It was over now. Or so she hoped.
She still remembered Carrie's haunting last words: "I will come to collect my price, one day."
She was sure that Connor wouldn't have forgotten them either. It had plagued her sleep for months, and still did to this day. She had hoped to heal some of the wounds when she left. But seeing Andrew's face again made her realize that they were scars, and they would never heal.
And now, as she sat with him, listening to his breathing and heartbeat, she felt nothing. The warmth of his body and the gentle stroke of his hand did nothing for her. She wanted to feel something, but she didn't. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how she had felt before all of this and somehow summon those feelings back to the present. But all those feelings weren't hers anymore. They belonged to the person that no longer existed. They belonged to the person who had fallen in love with Andrew. The person who, up until this point, had had a special place in their heart for him. Now that place was empty.