– Friday, June 2nd, 2018 –
It's a little past midnight when I'm forcefully woken up by Finnley, who's staring at me with wide eyes. I'm covered in sweat, and I can't get rid of the angsty feeling that took a hold of me in my dream, or should I say nightmare.
I kept struggling to breath, to resurface while drowning in a large body of water, no banks of the lake visible, no beach to swim to, no stairs out of a pool. I had no idea what kind of water it was. All I know was a force was keeping me down while I was submerged in darkness and water.
"Cris, snap out of it!" Finnley cries with a desperate voice. "It's not real. It's a dream."
"It's a memory." I snap in annoyance, still taking in deep breaths while blinking rapidly to focus on him instead of the images in my mind. "It's the drowning, alright!?"
"I know..." Finnley whispers sadly, pulling me in his arms as soon as he made sure I snapped out of the experience enough to see him. "But it isn't happening anymore. It's a dream now."
"It's a fucking nightmare." I grumble, rubbing my eyes sleepily, looking at Finnley a bit better. He seems worried and stressed. "Do you think it'll help to get rid of these nightmares when I remember what happened?"
He bites his lip, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head a bit. "I don't know, Cris. Oliver said you had nightmares before the car crash too."
"So, it might not help me."
"It might help you understand what happened. And when you know what happened, you might be able to process it."
"In that case... I want to try." I take in a deep breath before I send him a small smile. "At least it'll help me understand what happened to you better."
"There's no guarantee the memory will come back." Finnley gets out of bed and for a second, I'm distracted because he isn't wearing any clothes, but soon he puts on a swimming trunk, throwing me one too. "It's a trauma, and you obviously hadn't processed it yet before the crash."
"But..." I bite my lip, ruffling up my hair a bit, supressing a yawn. "Then I didn't have you, right? You weren't here before the car crash."
"I wasn't, no. But why would that make a difference?" He smiles, but it's simply a polite smile. I know he wants to call me stupid for thinking him being there or not would make a difference.
"You went missing on that night in November." I point out the obvious since he's not the one who lost his memory.
"Still, why would that matter?"
"Because maybe it messed me up to not have you with me. Maybe I couldn't process it, because I still didn't prevent Sydney from taking you away."
Finnley sucks in his lips in a cute way, staring at me while obviously overthinking what I just said. "Maybe that's part of it." He eventually says while nodding. "It doesn't matter anyway. We still don't know if the memory will come back at all."
"Only one way to find that out, right?"
"Right..." He smiles again, retrieving two towels from a closet. "I'll get the jacuzzi ready."
"Wait!" I call out after he just left the room with a sweater and the towels in hand.
"Gimme a sec, be right back!" He calls out, while I frown and wonder why he didn't just wait for me. I shake my head, pulling on the swimming trunk while I'm waiting anyway.
He soon returns, a bit occupied with his mind as he seems in deep thought. But then he smiles at me with a content smile. "All set. Why did you want me to wait?"
"I don't know the way around here."
"Oh... right." Finnley chuckles a bit. "I forgot you haven't been here before that you remember..."
"Something tells me coming here a handful of times isn't going to help me find the way around here either." I smirk, and he laughs a bit, while I'm noticing my swimming trunks are a tad bit big. It shouldn't surprise me; I've lost a lot of weight in two years, since my clothes are all smaller, and still a size too large for me right now. I should eat more.
I pull on my t-shirt, before I follow Finnley through the house and into the back garden. He pulls a chair towards the jacuzzi, leaving the towels on it, along with his phone and... "Is that a baby monitor?"
"Eh..." Finnley turns to look at me while he was just moving to remove the top of the jacuzzi. "It is, yes."
"Why? Aunt Cady and Jason are home, right?"
"They are..." He bites his lip and stops his movement to walk up to me. "Cris, Jason agreed to keep an eye on us. He's able to see us and respond to us if needed."
"Why?"
"Because it's a traumatic memory and I have no idea how you will respond when it does come back to you."
"So, safety?"
"Exactly. Safety first." He pecks a kiss on my lip and returns to getting the jacuzzi ready, and I help him as much as I can.
He fires up the bubbles, and heads inside to grab two beers, causing me to frown again.
"Are you even allowed to drink in your current state?"
Finnley cocks a brow before he snorts. "Hypocrite, because you always drink even when you're not supposed to. But they're alcohol-free." He holds up the bottles, showing me the label. "Felt right."
"How is it hypocrite to worry over your health? Since when do you even drink?"
"That part isn't hypocrite. It's just that you never cared about the risks of drinking alcohol before."
"Right, well, since when do you drink?"
"Since about three years. It's one of the things I didn't tell you before the first time I was missing." He cocks a brow. "You do remember that, right?"
"Ooh... you went out with Stan and James, right?"
"Exactly." He smiles, hands me a bottle, and climbs onto the edge of the jacuzzi. "Ready?"
And suddenly, the nerves take over again. But he reaches his hand towards me, and I take it, closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath as I feel him squeeze gently.
"Whenever you're ready."
I don't think I'll ever get over the nerves. I'm simply scared shitless about the memories that might come back. I open my eyes, stare at a patiently waiting Finnley, and step forwards, towards the jacuzzi, climbing onto the edge with him.
"Here goes nothing..." I mutter, lowering myself into the water carefully, while he does the same next to me. I expected the memories to come back as soon as I would touch the water, but they didn't.
I expected to feel panicky, which I do a bit, but not as bad as I thought I would. Just sitting here isn't doing much to me at all. It's just water, right?
"And?" Finnley asks after I sat with closed eyes for a while.
"Nothing..." I admit, opening my eyes to find him nervously staring at me.
"Do you trust me?"
"I do, why?"
"Really trust me, I mean. Like, with your life and everything. Not just with secrets. But really, really trust me?"
"With anything, yes." I frown, feeling confused why he's asking me this, but smiling as he smiles insecurely too, coming closer.
"I love you, Cris." He whispers, right before he connects our lips in a sweet kiss. I still feel weird for his sudden jump in subject, right before he kisses me passionately.
But since he is a great kisser, I soon lose myself into the kiss, deepening it as soon as I get a chance. His arms are around my neck, one of my hands in his hair, messing it up worse than it was already.
The kiss drags on for a while, and I can't hold back a moan because I'm getting hot and bothered because of him. Flashes of us sleeping together not even hours ago keep going through my mind, but then I suddenly feel how we're getting submerged in water completely, swallowing in a bit a water as soon as I gasped in shock and surprise.
I push away from Finnley as an all too familiar feeling of fear and losing control take over my mind, but he isn't letting me go. Instead, he sends me an apologetic look under water as I struggle to resurface.
I beg him with my eyes, and even try to shout at him, while he keeps my head under water, pulling me in a hug – sending two completely different signals all at once.
But the hug isn't helping; not one single bit. As I feel the fear take over, I close my eyes, and I lose contact with reality. It feels like I have some sort of outer body experience, where Finnley isn't even with me, and I'm pushed down from above me. The same unknown force I dreamed about for weeks already is back, preventing me from resurfacing, stopping me from breathing.
I haven't been as scared before as I feel now, since I can't control what I'm doing. While I want to keep fighting, I don't. I lower to the bottom, and the force is gone soon. While I want to instantly jump up and breathe, I don't. I lay still until the darkness that I've witnessed so many times before is slowly submerging me.
That's when I turn around, resurface, and grasp for air as I stare right into the eyes of a brown-haired guy that is slightly older than I am.
"Fuck." Jeff curses, letting go of the top, he's quicker to run around the Jacuzzi than I am to climb out of it, since I slipped twice in the water; probably because I'm hurrying too much. That's when he grabs my hair, pulling my head backwards a bit. "I really didn't want to do this," he grumbles, before his fist hits my eye.
"...We recently received some intel that gives us reasons to believe both Jeffrey Donaughy and Ahmed Abdu are back in the country..."
"...He's here. Jeff found Jason..."
"...Jeff and Ahmed would never be after you if it wasn't for me..."
"...I really do love him, you know. I made a huge mistake but I thought Jeff would only give him a firm warning about using me like that..."
"...I just asked Jeff to get back at you for using me. Whatever happened to you, is because of your own behaviour towards him..."
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, all there is in my mind, are flashes of Jeff. Mentions about him, seeing him, hearing him, thinking about him and how I wouldn't ever want to see him again.
"...Start with the beginning. How did you meet Jeff?" My voice asks aloud, though I think it's a mere memory and I'm not actually talking right now. It's Finnley who answers. "Going out with Nathan. Nathan knew him by name, he bought us some drinks, we just talked. He seemed to be a nice guy. I guess I was too drunk to see through him."
"And when did you start... "buying" drugs?..."
I have no idea when we had that conversation, but I remember his answers all too clear. I remember the things he did before he first went missing, the things he kept hidden, the things he only explained to me after months. After fighting, after avoiding each other, after constantly wondering what really happened that got him in that awful situation.
"Cris!?" A faint voice calls out, panicky, worried, scared a bit.
It's a confusing voice, since it isn't connecting to the memory of talking to Finn and him explaining everything calmly.
"Cris!?" The voice becomes louder, and as I snap my eyes open, I'm shivering in cold, staring into the eyes of a scared to dead and worried Finnley, Jason right beside him, also seemingly a bit panicky. "Oh! Cris!" Finnley pulls me in a hug, a sob soon escaping his throat. "I'm so fucking sorry!"
And then I remember the jacuzzi and how he forced me under water.
"What the hell Finn!?" I call out in anger, wanting to push him away with force. Instead of fear, I feel angry.
"I'm really fucking sorry..." He's fighting to hold onto me, while I'm still trying to get out of his arms. Weird, since it's usually the other way around.
"A warning would've been nice!"
"I'm not sure if that would've helped..."
"What the hell happened?" I give up on fighting him, since I'm simply too tired, slumping into his hold a bit more, while I feel Jason putting a towel around us.
"You... panicked." He sobs, holding me tightly. "I didn't mean to... I just... I wanted to help..."
"Did I faint?"
"Slight black out," Jason calmly tells me, wrapping me in another towel while Finnley is still holding me. "We had to pull you from the water because you kept shouting for anyone to help you."
"I'm sorry, Cris." Finnley is still crying and I put my arms around him to try and comfort him a bit, though I need to be comforted too. "I shouldn't have pushed you to remember..."
"It's okay, I'm here, I'm fine..." Though slightly trembling and still on edge and scared. And angry, because that scared the shit out of me.
"I didn't think you would actually react like this." He cries out, cupping my face while staring at me with a bit of desperation. "It was like you didn't hear me at all..."
"I think I didn't..." I shortly look towards Jason, before I lean into Finnley's hands to ask for a kiss, wanting to tell him it's okay. "It worked, anyway." I whisper as soon as he gave me a kiss. "I remember things..."
A/N: Would you have done the same as Finn? Or do you think he went too far? Let me know what you think about the chapter ^^