‘Are you still having the nightmares?’ Frost asked, sobering.
‘What nightmares?’ Kim asked, feeling a chill steal over her body.
‘Oh, come on, Stone. Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with?’
Kim said nothing.
Frost continued. ‘See, I had this incident a few years back when some crazy person kidnapped me and tried to kill me cos of some incident at school. He didn’t beat the shit out of me and neither did I actually die, but I had horrific nightmares for months afterwards and even still get ’em now.’
Kim folded her arms. She hadn’t known about Frost’s nightmares. ‘What’s that got to—?’
‘The thing is, we’re not talking about bad dreams where you wake up with relief that it isn’t real. The ones where you wait an hour, shake it off and get on with your day. Oh no, they’re not like that at all. These beauties startle you awake in the middle of the night with screams and salty, messy tears and a heart that feels like it’s going to beat right out of your chest. These monsters wake you with a fear that makes your limbs tremble. There’s no throwing these off with a pot of coffee and a couple of smokes. The memory of it lives in your pores for the whole day. You relive it, think about it, analyse it. They’re evil little bastards because they attack you at your most vulnerable time, the time when your brain should be resting, taking a break from the memories which plague you when you’re awake.’
‘Okay, I get—’
‘Yeah, I’m not done yet,’ Frost continued after taking a sip of coffee. ‘The worst thing is that no one can help you. You can do all the practical safety stuff with cameras and alarms. You can surround yourself with people every minute of the day, but you’ve got to sleep again some time. It’s likeNightmare on Elm Street. No amount of coffee, dog walking, working or cold water splashed on your face is going to keep sleep away indefinitely. Your body is going to demand it, and there’s no protection you can take into your dreams, so you fear going to sleep and you can’t really share this with anyone for two reasons.’
Kim said nothing, which Frost took as permission to continue.
‘The first is because no words have yet been invented to describe the absolute terror that these beasts induce. No one will ever get that you’re not talking about normal nightmares unless they’ve experienced them. People will think you’re being overdramatic cos at the end of the day it’s not real so get over it. The second is that people will always default to the “but at least you’re alive” setting. You should be grateful to be here. They feel that because you got through the actual ordeal, everything else is okay. You’re alive so deal with it. What people don’t understand is that in some ways, the nightmares are worse than the trauma itself.’
She paused again and Kim made no effort to interrupt her or stop her from speaking.
‘The incident happened only once. The nightmares keep coming. You don’t know when and there’s something else that’s impossible to explain. You feel even more helpless in the dreams than you did at the time. How ironic is that?’
‘Did you try therapy?’ Kim asked, unaware that Frost had suffered like this after an incident where they had both almost lost their lives.
Frost shook her head. ‘I’m not good with therapists. Everything they say reminds me of a cliché or a line from a movie. I tried it once and I found myself arguing with everything she had to say, and the second she asked me about my relationship with my mother, I was gone. I read somewhere that around five per cent of the population are immune to hypnotherapy. I think it’s the same with therapists. They help an awful lot of people but I’m just not one of them.’
Kim laughed. She couldn’t have put that any better herself.
‘Okay, what did you do instead?’ Kim asked. Damn it, the woman had piqued her interest.
‘I wrote it down. Everything. I detailed what happened in the nightmare and the way it made me feel. I threw up all over the page. Total vomit. There was no rhyme or reason or structure, I just got a pen and paper and wrote everything down. Didn’t care how long it took or how much I wrote. I didn’t stop until I had nothing left to say.’
‘Did it help?’
Frost shrugged. ‘Something did, but it didn’t happen overnight. I just found that I had less to write down and they weren’t coming as often. That was a win for me,’ she said, finishing her drink. ‘Right, great chat and thanks for the coffee, but I gotta go.’
Kim didn’t try and stop her, but she did have one question to ask. ‘What about the other thing?’
‘What other thing?’ Frost asked, walking towards the door.
‘You know, the whole somebody saving your life thing and feeling beholden to them for what they did.’
‘Well in my case that person was you so I didn’t feel anything of the sort, but their actions are on them. You don’t owe that person your life, and neither are you obliged to feel or display eternal gratitude. You simply say thank you and move on.’
‘Okay,’ Kim said, opening the door. ‘Thanks for the visit, but if you do it again, I’m filing a restraining order.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Frost said, giving her a backwards wave.
Kim locked the door and leaned against it.
What to do with the rest of her night? It was too early for Barney’s walk and her body was too exhausted for a treadmill session, yet her mind needed to do something.
‘Damn you, Frost,’ she said as she headed for the kitchen drawer to take out a notepad and pen.
FIFTY-EIGHT