Wake to Dream(66)
They crashed against each other after that first time, but it only took minutes for Max to regain his strength and drag her into the shower to both love her again and help her clean up.
After showering, and before allowing her to crawl back in bed, Max changed the sheets. She found his need to change them odd, but she was too tired to question him about it. By the time her head fell against the pillow, exhaustion rode her so thoroughly that her eyes closed and she slept, her fear of what the night would bring lost in the warm strength of Max’ arms.
*
The next morning came as ordinary as any morning. Except it wasn't ordinary for one glaring reason that Alice didn't understand until she opened her eyes to find the first rays of morning sunlight trickling past the curtains of a large picture window in the room.
Dust motes glimmered where they hung suspended in a cascade of shimmering beauty, tiny fairies of light that had paused to worship the warmth that was returning to the world after hours of the cold moonlit night. Her eyes followed those small points of reflected light where they danced and swirled within the small air current that worked a path through the room.
She was aware of her surroundings, but not yet awake enough to completely understand it. More importantly, she wasn't pinned to the bed by some unseen specter. She was able to wiggle her fingers and toes, and she didn't open her eyes onto the scene of nightmare that had followed her from sleep into her waking life.
The sleep paralysis she'd suffered so often that it had become a part of her, was absent. There was no ringing in her ears so loud she feared she'd never hear anything beautiful again. There was no weight on her chest that threatened to crush her. Her body was solid and not floating above itself looking down to where she lay comfortably in the arms of a man.
The confusion that came with the absence of a demon that had plagued her for as far back as she could remember was staggering.
Max' arms were a warm weight across her body that prevented her from sitting up, but from what she could see, the pillows she laid her tired head upon the night before were still in place. The sheets were as neat over her body as they had been when Max had tucked her in. There were no obvious points of pain on her arms or legs from where she'd hurt herself fighting some unseen force through the night. She was still in place and hadn't woken to find herself standing in the threshold of a doorway, or lying down in another room.
She'd slept through the night without fighting. Without dreaming. Without panic or fear. And she'd woken peacefully to find the glimmering rays of quiet morning light.
12:37 p.m.
There wasn’t a waiting room any longer. At least not for Alice. No name being called and no doctor standing in a doorway. She woke up to the same couch where she always sat, her bent legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs as a protective cage.
With her chin resting on the hard plane of her knees, she left behind the memory of what had once been to return her attention to the doctor who sat silently in observation of her now.
As usual, his pen tapped against paper before upending to scribble out some private thought. She could never read the words he wrote, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to know what parts of her he recorded in her file.
Sure that whatever he thought or recorded was as negative as the feelings she had for herself, she didn’t need the confirmation in plain blue ink written in flowing script against the crisp white page of his notebook.
The doctor’s head tilted up, his eyes hidden beneath the lenses of his glasses and the shadow of the dimly lit room. “I think you’ve just found one of the answers you’ve been seeking during these sessions, Alice.” He paused, allowing the silence to become a ticking clock between them.
…drip…
“What are your thoughts now that you know your feelings for this man – the love you have for him – wasn’t a result of rape or cruelty, but was, in fact, due to a connection that is common among most men and women?”
She didn’t need a moment to discover the answer to that particular question. It was already sitting on the tip of her tongue.
“Foolish.” Her eyes closed on the word, her mind racing to make sense of everything she’d once been and was still becoming. “I feel stupid and foolish.”
Another beat of silence, another tick of the clock.
Another drop of water falling from the faucet to splash against the sink.
“Why do you feel foolish? From what you just told me, Max was as much of a gentleman to you as most men are in this day and age. He offered to care for you. He pulled you from a situation where he felt you weren’t safe. He cooked for you and didn’t judge you for the issues that have haunted you your entire life. How can you consider yourself foolish for loving a man who was willing to do all those things for you? A man who treated you with only kindness?”
A bark of laughter shot from her lungs, the sound unnerving and sharp. “He trapped me is what he did. Trapped me and lured me into another type of submission than if he’d simply abducted me and forced me to live in that house with him.” A shiver ran across her skin. “I don’t know. Maybe believing I had been abducted was easier than facing the hard facts.”
Her eyes opened and she locked her stare with the inquisitive eyes of the doctor.
“Being lured is worse than having the choice taken away from me entirely. I agreed to stay there with him…” Her voice trailed off on that thought, because, in truth, what she’d done was much worse than simply staying. Unable to bring herself to the point where she could say it aloud, she chose instead to push the conversation along, to remember and understand every detail of what had occurred.