Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(48)

THANKS

Zoë took the note in her hand, drawing her thumb over the surface. A sweet, terrible ache filled her chest.

Sometimes, she thought, you could rescue a person from trouble. But some kinds of trouble, a person had to rescue himself from.

All she could do for Alex was hope.

Fourteen

Alex was tormented by nightmares from midnight to dawn, his body jerking as if he’d been hit with an electric current. He dreamed of demons sitting at the foot of his bed, waiting to tear at him with long sharp claws, or of the ground opening beneath him and letting him fall into endless darkness. In one dream he was hit by a car on a dark road, the impact knocking him backward onto hard midnight asphalt. He stood over the unconscious body on the road, looking down at his own face. He was dead.

Startled awake, Alex sat up in bed. He was soaked in sweat, the sheets sticking to him in a clammy film. A bleary glance at the clock revealed that it was two in the morning.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

The ghost was nearby. “Go get some water,” he said. “You’re dehydrated.”

Alex lurched from the bed and went into the bathroom. He drank some water, turned on the shower, and stood there for a long time with the hot spray pounding on the back of his neck. He wanted a drink. It would make him feel better. It would take away the dreams, the god-awful sweating. He wanted the taste of alcohol, the sweet burn of it in his mouth. But the fact that he wanted it so badly was enough to steel him against it.

After finishing the shower, Alex dragged on some pajama pants and pulled a blanket from the bed. Too exhausted to change the sheets, he went to the living room. Breathing heavily with effort, he collapsed onto the couch.

“Maybe you should go to a doctor,” the ghost commented from the corner. “There must be something they could give you to make this easier.”

Alex rolled his head slowly against the arm of the couch. “Don’t want it to be easier.” His tongue felt too big for his mouth. “I want to remember exactly what this is like.”

“You’re taking a risk, trying to do this on your own. You might fail.”

“I won’t.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because if I do,” Alex said, “I’m going to end it.”

The ghost gave him a sharp look. “End your life?”

“Yeah.”

The ghost was silent, but the air seethed with worry and anger.

As Alex’s breathing slowed, memories slid around the headache. “By the time my brothers and sister left home,” he said after a while, his eyes closed, “both my parents were drinking nonstop. And when you live with a drunk, the sum total of your childhood is about thirty minutes. The good days were when they forgot I was there. But when either of them remembered they still had a kid in the house, that was when it sucked. It was a minefield, living with them. You never knew when you’d set your foot wrong. Sometimes asking my mom for food or trying to get her to sign a school permission slip would make her explode. One time I changed the TV channel when my dad was sleeping in the recliner, and he woke up just long enough to backhand me. I learned never to ask for anything. Never need anything.”

It was the most that Alex had ever told anyone about the way he’d grown up. He’d never explained that much even to Darcy. He wasn’t sure why he’d wanted the ghost to understand.

There was no sound or movement, but Alex had the impression of the ghost settling for the night, occupying a shadow in the corner. “What about your brothers or your sister? Did any of them try to help?”

“They had their own problems. There’s no such thing as a healthy, normal family surrounding a drunk. The trouble belongs to everyone.”

“Either of your parents ever take a shot at this?”

“You mean quit drinking?” Alex let out a quiet breath of amusement. “No, they both rode that train off the tracks.”

“While you were still on board.”

Alex changed position on the sofa, but it didn’t help the feeling of being uncomfortable in his own skin. His nerves were raw, his senses smarting. The nightmares were ready to come creeping back as soon as he tried to sleep. He could feel them waiting nearby like a pack of wolves.

“I dreamed I died,” he said abruptly.

“Earlier tonight?”

“Yeah. I was standing over my own body.”

“Part of you is dying,” the ghost said pragmatically. At Alex’s shocked silence, the ghost added, “The part of you that drinks to avoid pain. But avoiding pain only makes it worse.”

“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” Alex asked in weary hostility.

“At some point,” the ghost replied after a while, “you may have to stop running and let it catch up to you.”

After a few hours of broken sleep on a couch that resembled a torture rack, Alex showered, dressed, and made his way to Artist’s Point like one of the walking dead. He hoped to hell that he wouldn’t have to see Justine—he wasn’t going to be able to tolerate her today.

To his relief, Zoë was alone. She welcomed him into the kitchen, urging him to sit at the table immediately. “How are you this morning?”

He gave her a sullen glance. “If you measure headaches using the Fujita scale, I just reached F-5.”