"What is it like?" Jonathan pursued, calling me back to meet his dark eyes. "For you I mean, what's it like?"
I breathed out a humorless laugh and allowed the honesty to slip through. "It makes me stupid."
"What?" Jonathan questioned in alarm. "I don't understand how you can say that."
I focused on a distant light on the water, trying to find the words to explain what was starting to become apparent to me―having thought incessantly about what I did wrong over the past year. I had my mother to thank for clicking it all into place for me with her bouts of drunken candor.
"I close my eyes to the truth. I refuse to see what's happening, convinced that I can handle whatever it is―believing that I'm strong enough and will recognize when I'm not.
"But in order to really see it, the truth, I have to admit how much I'm hated. And who wants to think they're worthy of that much anger? To be despised so much... to have someone wish you never existed." I paused to take a breath.
"I shut it out. I choose not to see. I never ask for help. I even try to convince everyone that it's not a big deal. They don't know. No one really knows how bad it is because I won't let them." I paused and repeated, "It makes me stupid."
Jonathan silently absorbed my whispered words. Exhaustion rolled over me and my head became as heavy as my heart. I felt outside of myself as my eyes burned with fatigue.
"How do you do it?" Jonathan asked. He sounded so far away. I tried to focus on him, but I couldn't. "How do you get through it?"
"By not feeling," I murmured, blinking heavily, lulled by the voices crooning in the background. This wasn't difficult to explain, since I'd done it so easily all those years living with Carol. "I shut it off. And I guess if it's really bad, I block it out completely. I didn't realize I did that until my mother showed me what I'd forgotten."
I shut my eyes. "She thinks I'm strong because I can push everything into the dark. But it leaves me empty. And the dark always ends up finding me in my sleep."
I felt the weight of a blanket being pulled over me. I opened my eyes and found him propped on the coffee table in front of me. He smiled gently, holding a pillow in his hands. I sat up enough for him to place it beneath my head and lowered myself down again.
"Sorry," I offered in a whisper, my eyes sliding shut again. "I'm so tired."
"I know," he returned gently. "You can sleep here if you want."
"I'm just gonna rest before I go," I muttered, blinking my eyes. They were so heavy; it almost hurt to keep them open. Jonathan stood up.
"Jonathan?"
He squatted down in front of me. "Yes, Emma."
"Do you think you'll ever love again?" I murmured, not fighting against my lids any longer.
"I think so," he whispered, brushing the hair from my cheek. I shivered against his touch. "I'll see you in my sleep."
I pushed my eyes open one final time to find him walking away. "What did you say?"
"I said I'll see you in the morning. Get some sleep."
"I'm just going to rest for a bit," I slurred, closing my eyes again. I couldn't have kept them open if I'd tried.
My screams still echoed through the room when I sat up in a panic, trying to breathe.
"Emma?" Jonathan called out. The clang of the metal stairs echoed sharply in the dark. It took me a moment to focus on him when he crouched in front of me. "You're okay. It was just a dream."
I nodded and my lips trembled. "I can't do this anymore," I choked, my eyes filling with tears. I was too exhausted and shaken to hold them back. "I'm so tired."
"I know," Jonathan soothed, sliding next to me on the couch and rubbing my shoulder.
I released a quivering breath and wiped my eyes with my sleeves. "I don't know how to make it stop."
Jonathan's brow creased with empathy.
"Can I please have a glass of water?" I requested, trying to recover from my emotional meltdown.
Jonathan nodded and stood to retrieve it. I sat up with the blanket wrapped around me and took a deep breath to calm the shaking. He turned on the canister lights above the island, providing enough light for me to look around.
"Where's your television?" I asked, not finding the post-nightmare distraction.
"Oh, it's in my bedroom," he nodded toward the loft in the corner. "You need something to clear you head?" he surmised.
"Something," I begged. "I can't keep thinking about her trying to kill me anymore."