Lethal

Chapter Seventeen.

Jibri and I stumbled into his apartment after a night out with my friends; though Jericho was a bit cautious around him, Mari seemed to like Jibri a lot. It wasn't the first time that they'd met him, but it was the first time that we sat down for a double date. The next milestone that we had to pass in our relationship was meeting Jibri's family; something that I'd put off for as long as I could. His mother and I had exchanged the odd "hello" when she and Jibri were on the phone, but it hadn't gone beyond that.

I wasn't entirely confident that his mother was a fan of our relationship and I knew how much his family mattered to him. Regardless of that, the only thing that I could do was show up and let her get to know me. Jibri and I took a shower and then fell into bed; too drunk to do anything but go to sleep.

I gasped for air as I was awoken by another nightmare, Jibri laid next to me peacefully; I envied him in that moment. Carefully, I crept out of his bedroom and walked to the kitchen where I hoped to regain my composure. The vivid nature of my nightmares left me with phantom pain where my foster father's boot had connected with various parts of my body; the hauntingly realistic dreams left me tethered to the past, no matter how much progress I'd made in the present. I was ashamed to be afraid of a dead man; he scared me even as he rotted beneath the earth, I could still hear his voice, his abuse was as real to me as if he'd inflicted it just the day before.

Aisha was lucky, she'd moved on with the help of therapy; I'd tried it and hadn't been successful, I felt uncomfortable with talking to strangers and preferred to self-medicate while turning to people around me for support. It was what worked. Somehow, I found myself in the kitchen and leaned against the counter as I attempted to collect my thoughts; a task that took more effort than my exhausted brain could manage.

"What are you doing up, Za?" Jibri's raspy voice caught me off guard as I turned around to face him. He was standing at the other end of the room, his facial expression a mixture of tired and confused.

I pulled a glass off of one of his shelves and prepared to pour myself some water, "I had a nightmare and I need to take the edge off." Jibri nodded in understanding while taking my glass from me and returning it to its place.

"I think I have something better than that for you." He said, before grabbing a bottle of whiskey from his alcohol collection. "Let's go to the living room."

I smiled, taking the bottle and following him. "This is exactly what I needed babe; you know me so well." We didn't bother with glasses as we got comfortable on the couch and drank straight from the bottle.

The first gulp sent a welcome burn through my chest, a promise that I'd be numb in no time.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked me, pulling my legs into his lap.

I took another gulp of the whiskey before passing the bottle to Jibri. "I see my foster dad when I close my eyes, I haven't had a nightmare in a while, but this was a bad one."

"What happens in the dreams?" He asked me, "You don't have to tell me." I contemplated whether or not I should give him more details and we passed the bottle back and forth in silence until there was about a quarter of the liquid left.

My body was buzzing as the alcohol did its job and I found myself opening up. "They're flashbacks of the abuse that my sister and I suffered; the one that I just woke up from was from the present, he was in my apartment and he dragged me out of bed just so he could kick me. Kicking was his favorite move." I paused to take a much-needed breath as my vision became blurred. "It seemed too real, I can still smell the alcohol on his breath, and I can feel the kicks." I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling more exposed than I felt comfortable with. "You know what's fucked up? He looked normal; always wore a suit and tie, people respected him and his wife and no one would've suspected what was happening at that house."