𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄 | 𝟏𝟖+

18 || retrogress

alexa, play smother me by kelaska

DAY 18

        James has retrogressed. 

        He's hiding again, avoiding conversation with me, and acting angry. 

        He felt vulnerable, just like I felt vulnerable. He's scared of letting people in, justifiably. He's scared he won't remember them. Or scared that he's not good enough in the first place. 

        Amelia ran her fingers across the words she had written down in her journal, smudging the fresh ink slightly, as she sat with her legs crossed in the white chair at her desk. Despite her alarm clock saying that it was almost three AM, she didn't even feel wearied in the slightest. Her need to mend this derailing train with James made it impossible to go to sleep. 

        After their words yesterday, Amelia had contemplated leaving for good - even going as far as packing a bag full of clothes, only to unpack them again later. What would leaving solve? It wouldn't solve anything, instead, it would create more problems than what she had originally started with. 

        A booming yell interrupted her train of thought, flinching so hard she dropped her pen and flinching again when it clattered to the ground. Stuffing her hair behind her ears, she swiftly darted from her chair and towards James' bedroom, where she found him twitching around from another nightmare. 

        Not again, she thought. 

        "James!" Amelia called out, rushing over to his flailing figure on the bed, grasping his clammy face in her hands. 

        Bucky's eyebrows were knitted tightly together as he mumbled something she couldn't understand. 

        "James," she cooed shakily. "You're having a nightmare."

        His subconscious seemed to hear her, his face frowning deeper and deeper every time she spoke. 

        "Wake up," Amelia pleaded softly, brushing his damp strands of hair away from his face as she tried to hold him down. 

        "I remember, I remember." 

        James face contorted in a distraught manner, his metal fingers grasping a handful of his comforter, as his body writhed underneath hers as she pinned him down as firmly as she could. 

       "It's not real," she cooed next to his ear. "It's not real, it's okay." 

        As Amelia leaned back up to watch his face, his blue eyes flashed open, the pupils dilating as his hands thrusted her away from him in a sleepy daze. Her body tumbled backwards, her left hand catching his tiny lamp on his night stand, knocking it down into the floor with her as it shattered loudly. 

        She blinked slowly as she stared up at the ceiling, trying to piece together what had just happened. The ringing in her ears was all she could hear as she lifted her hands to see blood trickling down her left palm from a deep cut that she acquired from the breaking glass. The blood soaked into the sleeve of her white night shirt, staining the fabric with a crimson color. 

        As James came out of his haze from his nightmare, he looked down at Amelia, horrified at what he had just done. Her chestnut eyes were wide as she observed her cut on her hand - a sharp pain shooting through his chest as he saw the gash. 

        "I didn't ..." he hesitated raspily, his hands shaking. "Get out." 

        Amelia glanced up at him as a frown formed on her face, not sure whether or not she should be mad at him again or check on him to make sure he was okay. 

        "No, James-"

        "Get the fuck out," he growled this time, lunging off the bed and grabbing his backpack filled with notebooks, his back turned to her as he dug through it. 

        James wanted badly to rush over to Amelia, make sure that she was okay, apologize for hurting her again, but he couldn't. He needed to write his nightmare down, he needed to write about his sister. Rebecca. He remembered her name. 

        Amelia waveringly climbed to her feet, carefully holding her stinging palm as the blood continued to dribble down her skin. "What do you remember? What is it, James?" 

        She couldn't even focus on the throbbing pain in her palm, she was too absorbed by the fact that he was writing about whatever he dreamed about into one of his notebooks. He remembered something new. 

        "You don't care, remember?" James seethed, turning around to face her now, as he pulled his black t-shirt over his head and threw it at her. "Go." 

         Amelia tremorously wrapped the shirt around her palm to put pressure on it as she chewed anxiously at her bottom lip. "But my hand-" 

        "There's a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen," he said dismissively, his back turning to her once more as he wrote in his journal, completely oblivious to Amelia. 

        She tiptoed backwards slowly out of his bedroom, tears stinging her eyes at the searing pain that was ripping through her hand now. Instead of staying put, arguing with James, pleading with him to talk to her, she made her way into the kitchen, water blurring her vision. Amelia didn't even try to be quiet as she found the first aid kit under the sink, knocking over soap bottles and anything else in her path. 

        For the first time in a long time, tears slipped down her cheeks.