Chapter 30 - Triggered

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– Friday, June 2nd, 2018 –

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– Friday, June 2nd, 2018 –

It's a little past midnight when I'm forcefully woken up by Finnley, who's staring at me with wide eyes. I'm covered in sweat, and I can't get rid of the angsty feeling that took a hold of me in my dream, or should I say nightmare.

I kept struggling to breath, to resurface while drowning in a large body of water, no banks of the lake visible, no beach to swim to, no stairs out of a pool. I had no idea what kind of water it was. All I know was a force was keeping me down while I was submerged in darkness and water.

"Cris, snap out of it!" Finnley cries with a desperate voice. "It's not real. It's a dream."

"It's a memory." I snap in annoyance, still taking in deep breaths while blinking rapidly to focus on him instead of the images in my mind. "It's the drowning, alright!?"

"I know..." Finnley whispers sadly, pulling me in his arms as soon as he made sure I snapped out of the experience enough to see him. "But it isn't happening anymore. It's a dream now."

"It's a fucking nightmare." I grumble, rubbing my eyes sleepily, looking at Finnley a bit better. He seems worried and stressed. "Do you think it'll help to get rid of these nightmares when I remember what happened?"

He bites his lip, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head a bit. "I don't know, Cris. Oliver said you had nightmares before the car crash too."

"So, it might not help me."

"It might help you understand what happened. And when you know what happened, you might be able to process it."

"In that case... I want to try." I take in a deep breath before I send him a small smile. "At least it'll help me understand what happened to you better."

"There's no guarantee the memory will come back." Finnley gets out of bed and for a second, I'm distracted because he isn't wearing any clothes, but soon he puts on a swimming trunk, throwing me one too. "It's a trauma, and you obviously hadn't processed it yet before the crash."

"But..." I bite my lip, ruffling up my hair a bit, supressing a yawn. "Then I didn't have you, right? You weren't here before the car crash."

"I wasn't, no. But why would that make a difference?" He smiles, but it's simply a polite smile. I know he wants to call me stupid for thinking him being there or not would make a difference.

"You went missing on that night in November." I point out the obvious since he's not the one who lost his memory.

"Still, why would that matter?"

"Because maybe it messed me up to not have you with me. Maybe I couldn't process it, because I still didn't prevent Sydney from taking you away."

Finnley sucks in his lips in a cute way, staring at me while obviously overthinking what I just said. "Maybe that's part of it." He eventually says while nodding. "It doesn't matter anyway. We still don't know if the memory will come back at all."

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