RED ROOM [H.S]

52.

"So tell me, Samantha, when did these nightmares start?"

I drummed my fingers in my lap, a habit I've seemed to pick up on over the years. It gave me a moment  to calm any sort of chaos in my mind, and allowed me to rather my thoughts. I pursed my lips as I thought, back to a time I was nothing more than a fragile girl hidden within the shell of a loud mouth woman who didn't know where she stood in the world.

I offered Kelly a half smile as I tried to think back to the time where my life was in ruins and the nightmares began. How long ago that was.

I had been seeing Kelly for almost three years, though it was only as of late that I had brought up the reoccurring nightmares. I didn't want to think much of it, I didn't want to think it was a big deal, but the nightmares were beginning to affect my every day life, much to my dismay.

I liked to think I was stronger than I was, and nothing to hurt me. I was more equip to deal with things that threatened me or my life, but it was harder to maintain my own inner demons sometimes. As strong as I knew I was, I had to get external help for my demons.

I glanced down at my nails, noticing the chipped black paint that I had picked at on the way here, and frowned to myself. "I think...I would say when he left. Or well, I guess, when I left."

Kelly nodded, tucking a loose strain of her hair behind her ear before scribbling notes down.

A part of me wanted to scream my thoughts at her, tell her the depths of how badly my nightmares were getting, but I was too afraid of what it meant. Instead, I allowed my anxiety to hover above my head, hoping to leave it here in our session like I did every other week.

The thing is, I've seen flashes of the man, my nightmare, hidden in the whiff of a smell of a certain cologne, or out of the corner of my eye when I was in a hurry. Flashes of a man who stole my soul, and kept it locked up in a tower for a few short weeks. My nightmare extended far more from what I just saw at night when I closed my eyes, I saw it in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of my errand runs. I saw it everywhere. I saw him everywhere.

Despite the duration of our time spent together, he made me feel things I hadn't felt since i last saw him, and it scared me. It scared me how he was still a walking nightmare, but even three years later, he was often all I could think about.

"And how long ago was that?" She asked, glancing up from her notebook.

I had to pause for a moment to think about it. It wasn't as if I didn't think of him often, though it had been a while since I thought about the day it at all ended, and Harry was taken away. In handcuffs and put behind bars.

Most days I just felt sadness because of it. I wanted to know he was doing and if he was okay, but I couldn't bring myself to be put through that sort of torture. I last I heard from Niall he was still in jail, but. I never asked for how long. I didn't want to put a time limit on my happiness. For my temporary safe haven. All I knew was that it was for negligent homicide over the death of Rebecca. My heart squeezed at the thought, knowing whatever bullshit Louis and Niall had pulled to waiver his sentencing, the justice system found holes in it. It made my skin crawl knowing he wasn't even there for her death and he was still put away because of it. Imagine what would of happened if he had been linked to the crimes he had actually committed.

And in saying that, it wasn't as if I feared my life if Harry was to find me, it wasn't that. It should of been that, to be honest. I should be worried. I should feel scared, but it was far from that. If anything, I feared the person I could become if I was around him again. What it meant for my mind, and if I was strong enough to stay away from the dark desire that craved the insanity that man brought me.