Viv. I'm glad you've stuck around.
And thank you sooooooo much for leaving a feedback note. I *PROMISE* I'll finish this story. Uh, I have to, since I'm using it for a novel writing class. I was just planning to work on it to post here. But my instructor has told me I have no choice. I have to finish the story by the end of her class, or she's going to fail me. (Nifty trick, because there's no Advanced class, a few of us are taking this one a second time --- first go round...90%, second go, failure ...)
This update is a little rough, but I want to get finished. So, I'm going to post shorter pieces until we hit the words, The End. Then the story goes into re-write.
ETA -- testing editing feature -- sorry, the board doesn't pick up Word formatting (like indented paragraphs and double spacing -- grr). Few minor changes, the dream is now narrative instead of dialogue.
Thanks everyone for reading, and if you're of a mind, just scribble a few notes. Feedback is better than ambrosia
Cheers!!
Patches,
Chapter 13
Conscious and unconscious merged; fractured images dissolved before a soothing voice. “Ari? Wake up. Hun, wake up.”
I bolted upright, shaking, disoriented. The cabin was still dark. Was it morning, night?
“Hey, it’s okay.” Katlyn’s hand rested on my shoulder. “You were dreaming.”
“Oh, shit.”
“C’mere. Your heart’s pounding and you’re soaked with sweat,” she said, wrapping her arm protectively around my shoulders. “It’s okay. Relax, Hun, relax. Breathe.”
“What time is it?”
“Probably about 2:00 a.m.”
“What day?”
“Friday night still. Are you okay? You started thrashing and crying out in your sleep. I think we’ve been asleep for a couple of hours. Here, lie down beside me.”
“Holy fuck. I…I thought maybe, now, after…after last night… Sorry,” I scrubbed away the tears on my face, took a deep breath, and tried to force the horrible images from my mind.
“Shh, don’t be sorry. How bad are they, the dreams I mean?”
“Oh God. Ugly, and that’s understating the fact,” I said, accepting her offer and welcoming the unaccustomed warmth of a body next to mine. “Mostly, I don’t remember them once I’m fully awake. But is one is different, it’s a recurring nightmare. One I’d like to forget. Bit scary, though, how bad the others must be if this is the one I remember. Maybe it’s a good thing, just waking up in a fog.”
“What happens in the dream?
I looked at her warily, “You’re not planning on going all Shrink on me, are you?”
“Of course not. My hot ticket is sports psychology, remember.”
“Uh huh, and that differs how?”
“Well…and besides,” she said, pulling me closer and planting a kiss on the top of my head, “a shrink spends less time in school than I did.”
“Woo hoo! Ego Trip and Dream Analysis, 101. Can this weekend get any stranger?” I didn’t need to see her face to know the look I was getting. “Guess, I probably shouldn’t have said that. But, any way, if you really want to know…The dream's almost always the same”
I closed my eyes and brought the dreamscape into waking hours. I am surrounded by machines—medical instruments—images, foreign accented words ring in my head, I don’t understand them. Walking along tunnels, air thick and stale. It’s bitterly cold; breath frosts and freezes like an ice mist before me. Slimy dungeon walls, blood-spattered cages surround me. I am outside them, staring at a tormented soul trapped, awaiting execution. A man approaches. He opens the door to the torture cell and disrobes. I have to watch; I want to run. I don’t see her face—just hear her screams. He grunts and groans. Blood pools and creeps toward me on the filthy floor. Stone dissolves beneath my feet. I struggle but sink deeper into cold, murky ground. Darkness envelops. Helpless, screams follow my descent. I reach to save her, but touch only blood. Then I’m alone, outside, naked, but covered in blood, freezing.
I felt Katlyn shiver at my description, her arms holding me tight.
“Uh, not really much of a motive to sleep on a regular basis,” I said, sighing into her.
“How long have you had this dream?”
“I thought you weren’t going to pull Shrink on me? But it doesn’t take ten-years of post-secondary to figure it out, does it.”
“No, I guess it doesn't.”
I lay with my head on her chest, body half draped over hers. The sound of her heartbeat lulled me, and my eyelids again grew heavy with sleep. I struggled to stay awake, but into shadows I fell.
“Mmmm, coffee.” The aroma of freshly ground beans filled the cabin, pulling me out of a dreamless sleep. “That’s nice. You can stay,” I said, as I heard Katlyn’s feet pad across the floor toward me. Venturing a peek into daylight, the tall robe-clad woman approached, two steaming mugs of java in hand.
“Good morning, Ari,” Katlyn said, with a slight laugh and shake of her head. “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“All these years, and I just had to make you coffee.”
“Mmmm, coffee good. Coffee solves everything. Ugh, except maybe morning breath.”
My comment was rewarded with Katlyn’s rich laugh as she sat cross-legged beside me, holding the mug enticingly close. It was nice to hear Katlyn laugh and nicer still was how easy it felt to wake up with her in the room. I coaxed my eyes to adjust to the light of day. Bright sun glinted in spectral colours on the ice-coated windows, as the cabin took on the mantle of daylight. Dark shadows no longer danced macabre across walls.
“I could get very used to this,” Katlyn said, putting down the coffee and wriggling under the warm blankets beside me. “Um, you smell wonderfully of sleep.”
“Sleep is almost as good as coffee.”
“But not as nice as this.”
“No, not as nice as this.” I curled up against her shoulder as she lay on her side, hand cupped against the side of her face. Raven-dark hair fell across her shoulders and I reached to tuck the tickling strands behind her ear, never breaking our gaze. Katlyn noticed, despite my best effort, the wince as I nestled into her.
“How bad it is?”
“Well, on that one to ten scale. Humm, maybe we should start using exponents. Really though, it’s okay. I’m not used to quite so much, uh, activity,” I said with a wry smile. “You know, snowmobile mishaps, ice storms, past catching up to kick my ass, and then there was the whole trying to keep up to with you.”
“Oh, ya, that was a bit of a pissing contest on the way in wasn’t it? It’s your fault—”
“Um, that’s not quite what I meant. You barely broke a sweat, while I prayed you’d recertified your CPR…I meant last night, earlier.” There was no denying the raging blush that crept up my cheeks. I’d woken her sometime in the middle of the night after another horrid string of nightmares, meaning to talk. “I never expected the word, surrender, to be part of my vocabulary.”
“I’m glad it is,” Katlyn said, gently rubbing my shoulder. Her wolf-grey eyes asked, though her lips remained sealed.
“And I meant the other words too, if that’s what you’re wondering. You make me feel. I think I need that coffee now.”
Katlyn reached back for the coffee and sat up, looking at me. “We don’t have to go there, you know. I can be a little…persistent, when I shouldn’t be. Splash of cream, right?” she said, handing me my mug.
“Uh-huh. Good guess.” I took the steaming beverage from her.
“Took a chance that things might not have changed much in ten years. At least as far as coffee goes—splash of cream, colour of mud.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’d have done better to have made you coffee, back then. I guess.”
We lapsed into silence. The fire had burned out, but the old Franklin stove provided more than enough warmth to fend off winter’s icy chill. Without the constant crack and spit of burning wood and the groan of windstorm beating at the cabin we were left with only our own sounds to fill the air. “Is this nearly as awkward as I think it is?” I asked, venturing a look toward her.
Katlyn leaned back on her elbows, the loose fitting robe slipped down one shoulder. The sensual image of her sent a little shiver through me.
“Likely. At least this time we made it through morning. That has to be something.”
I leaned in and rested my head against her stomach, snuggling my aching body as closely as possible, arm positively wrapped around her hips.
“Your stomach’s gurgling at me,” I said with a laugh. “What’s that?
Really. You don’t say. You want coffee??”
“God, Ari,” Katlyn said lightly, “you’re such a kid sometimes.”
“Yup, uh-huh. That’d be me. This is a real toss up. I can’t quite decide, snuggle or coffee, snuggle and talk, or coffee and talk, but no snuggles, talk
and coffee.”
“Here let me fix that. Sit up for a sec.”
I pouted, but complied. Katlyn slid in behind me, then wrapped her arms around my stomach so my body was nestled comfortably against her, my head resting against her shoulder and chest.
“Better?” Katlyn hugged me close.
“Umm, Muchly,” I said, taking a sip of the freshly brewed beverage, then letting out a long sigh. “Seems not such a good reason, but this is why I stayed away. When we were younger, it was fear. Insane, irrational fear that I’d mess up your life the way I messed up Shayla’s. Hush, let me finish,” I said, placing my hand gently against her thigh to still her protest. “You are both so differnt, but there were too many parallels. Any thoughts of intimacy with someone I cared about, well, you know…Feeling anything about you, wanting you, was like a betrayal, somehow. I didn’t know love could hurt so much, and I never wanted to feel that kind of pain again. I never wanted to inflict that kind of pain. What if we got caught? They kept Shayla there for almost a year before pronouncing her ‘cured.’ It almost worked too. After she was released, we tried to be friends, hang out and stuff. I pretended she’d just been a crush, that’s how scared I was. We even double dated. When she met someone, another girl, I just about went crazy. I—I thought if ever there was ever anyone, a girl…she’s come back to me. But she didn’t…” I trailed off.
Katlyn’s body had tensed. “Katie, what is it?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” I twisted to face her.
“All this time, I thought you knew. That was why…Oh no. I don’t believe this. She never said anything to you?”
“Katlyn, you’re not making a whole lot of sense. What don’t I know, or rather what
should I know?”
I shrugged out of her embrace and turned to look at her face on, kneeling beside her as she drew her knees up.
Katlyn shifted restlessly. “I think things are about to get a bit stranger. Shayla’s middle name is Marie, right? When I met you, that summer…up at the cottage. What is it with you and cottages anyway?”
“I have no idea. Just tell me what’s going on. And what does Shayla’s middle name have to do with this?”
Katlyn took a deep, measured breath. “The girl I had broken up with that spring, just before I met you. I told you, her name was, Marie…”
The penny dropped, and her weighty words pounded into my brain. “You?”
“Me. God, I thought you knew. I thought, Christ I don’t know what I thought. I just assumed…Ari, what are we doing?”
TBC
Here I thought you were enjoying this story ... so sorry, whatever can I do to clean my tarnished soul... lol (and really, do you *want* me to??)
Oh I am so enjoying but my skin is getting a tad wrinkly from all of the cold showers and frickin' ice 
I think you do this just to see me all worked up and close to passing out. 
Again, congratulations. 
