Jude stared down at me, eyes still moist. “Would you have reached the same conclusion if Jesse had kissed you back?”
“Yes. I would. As soon as it happened, I realised what a dumb move I’d made. Jude, please. I never meant to hurt you, and I never meant to make you think you aren’t enough for me. You are. You always have been.”
I pressed my forehead against his chest, gripping handfuls of his shirt and silently praying everything would be okay. I couldn’t lose him, not now.
“Bree. Everything about today has been awful. The only thing getting me through is you. I don’t want to lose my best friend and my wife in the same day, but I need some time. I can’t think straight right now. Last night you asked me for some space. Now I need to ask you for the same thing.”
Squeezing my eyes shut for a moment, I lifted my head. When I opened my eyes, Jude’s image was nothing more than a blur. “You want me to sleep in the spare room again?”
His hands rested on my cheeks and he wiped tears away with his thumbs. “No. I’m the one who wants space. I’ll take the spare room. We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”
I nodded. The last thing I wanted was more distance from Jude but I had no business demanding to stay by his side after the way I’d acted, and what he overheard.
I released my grip on his shirt, and as he walked away I sank to the floor and let everything pour out of me. The crushing agony of maybe losing my husband because of my bad choices. Regret for the way I left things with Will and the pain of knowing I could no longer change them. Grief for Freya’s loss. Anger at Taylor for everything she ever did to my friends and me, and guilt for being angry with someone who had lost her life.
If you’d asked any of my friends they’d have said I didn’t have a selfish, unkind bone in my body. Nothing I’d done lately, minus taking care of Kayla, proved that. I’d bumbled my way through self-centred, petty actions over and over, to the point where I might have lost the only person I’d ever loved, and allowed to love me since my parents died. I wanted to follow Jude upstairs, crawl into bed beside him and hold him until he understood how sorry I was and how much I loved him. But just as he’d respected what I needed, I had to do the same for him.
**
“Not good enough.”
“Stupid.”
“Selfish and ungrateful.”
I stared up at the ceiling, at the limp, hanging bodies of my mom, Taylor, and Will. All of them dangling in a row from light fittings in my childhood home. Mom wore her usual jeans and polo shirt, but with an apron over the top like she’d just finished baking. Taylor was dressed in her favourite pink mini dress, fully made-up, and Will wore his Warriors training clothes. Although their skin was pale, they somehow seemed so vibrant, like clowns at the circus. Their eyes were empty, dull, but their mouths twisted upwards into morbid grins as they spat the words at a teenage me, watching them, frozen to the spot.
“It’s no surprise your dad left us,” Mom said, her head tilted to one side. “You weren’t worth staying around for.”
Taylor’s giggle was as hollow and chilling as her gaze. “Everyone will leave you. Your head is full of air. You can’t think for yourself. Who would want you?”
The three puppet-like forms laughed, and Will’s lifeless body swung towards me. I ducked, screaming and covering my ears with my hands as the laughter got louder and louder.
Louder and louder, their words circling round and round. “You’re not enough”. “You’re stupid”. “You’re selfish”. Round and round on a loop as their bodies swung at me, around me. No escape.
“Bree! Wake up!”
“Stupid, selfish, not worth it,” I mumbled into my pillow.
“Bree, please!”
As if I’d been plunged into a bucket of cold water, I gasped and sat up straight, fully expecting to see the tormentors from my nightmare in front of me. I blinked. Nope. Just my bedroom. I wiped my hand across my forehead, sweat clinging to my skin. I was drenched and breathing hard. Jude’s arms wrapped around me and crushed me against his bare chest. Relief I’d woken up and gratitude that Jude was right there when I needed him caused tears to rain from my eyes in hard, body shaking sobs.
“It’s okay.” Jude pulled me in even closer, tucking my head under his chin. “You’re awake now, it’s okay.”
“Nightmares. Horrible nightmares.”
“I guessed. You were screaming. I thought… I thought someone was hurting you.”
I clung to him, finally aware of how fast Jude’s heart was beating. If he heard me from a couple of rooms away, I’d screamed really freaking loud.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know… I haven’t had a nightmare in a long time. Thank you. Thanks for waking me up.”
“You think I’d leave you like that?” Jude pulled away from me a little so we could see each other and he let go of me for a second to flick on the bedside lamp. “I’ve never been so scared. Not since… well, since you had nightmares before.”
When I first moved in with Jude, I’d woken up screaming a handful of times. Sometimes he didn’t hear, but when he did he was always beside me, ready to listen if I wanted to talk, or just stay until I fell asleep again.
“You wanna tell me about it?” he asked.