Through my eyes: About ghosts and nightmares II

A/N: after the last one this one´s really short.... but... I think it´s perfect this way, the other half like that, bigger and this one smaller

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“Love me when I least deserve it,

Because that´s when I really need it.”

~Swedish proverb

Air, I needed air. Air...

I couldn’t breath

“Breath” through the fog I heard a voice

“Hey, Josh, hey –Nichole´s voice right next to me- breath” she placed both her hands on my face, I wanted to breath, I just couldn’t, water was everywhere.

“Hey, hey, look, at me – she made us lock gazes- it’s ok, you’re not drowning. I’ve got you” she smiled that half smile of hers and a memory I didn’t know I had showed itself loud and clear before my blinking eyes.

I forced myself to search in my jacket´s pocket but I didn’t find what I was looking for, I was losing focus, rain and blackness closing on me just like my throat. Nichole´s voice telling me I was in her house, that she´d pull me out, to breath kept going further away. Before I could black out completely, I felt my body inhaled so deeply that my shoulders rose high as I felt the usual itching in my nose whenever I inhale the quick relief asthma medication as it opened my throat and then I gasped, started to feel jittery like I always did, probably had palpitations but since I had have those before I couldn’t tell.

Once the need to breath had been taken care of the embarrassment overwhelmed me completely. It was bigger than my anger and my questions and even for a moment worse than the rain. I opened my mouth, no words came out, although I still was having a hard time to breathe I knew the spray that somehow Nichole had managed to find in my jacket and made me breath wouldn’t let my throat close. I looked away until I saw Nichole´s hand raised, almost as high as my face I looked at her then at her hand still raised like when you are about to high five. Very slow I touched my hand to her, like in my memory, the palms of our hands touching through the glass but there wasn’t any glass. I stared at our hands, my mind taking me to that time, a little girl crying in front of me. She moved her fingers between mine and held my hand and being as unpredictable as always, pulled me to her in some awkward hug.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry” she whispered against my hair. I just focused in breathing. The rain picked up.

“It rained the next day and the next day and on the funerals too…” I said as if continuing the last thing I had said

“I know… I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you” her voice faltered, I didn’t say a word, I don’t think I would´ve been able to say anything. She held me and I let her, my anger had left me, my heart pounded.

“I´m sorry I shouted…” after a little while I sat up, I wasn’t panting anymore, my mind a little calmer, just a tad, at least the world wasn’t made of water anymore. She shook her head.

“I deserved it” she said barely above a whisper with a sigh. Suddenly I was not only ashamed for letting her see one of my panic attacks but for acting irrationally. I had seen two deaths, felt in danger and been abandoned when I was seventeen, one month, a few months at most. It was terrible but in truth I had my family, I had lived well, I had been loved all my life, I had been safe, I had a home, I belonged whereas Nichole´s life had been plagued with tragedy since before she was born, she witnessed the same deaths I did that March three years ago but she´d also witnessed so many. She was abandoned, alone, without a family to protect her and those who should´ve protect and love her hurt and used her.

My mom and dad had taken care of everything regarding Alexander, the money, house where he died, the police, the funeral…I only know she got the responsibility of the business with my father that couldn’t be easy… sure it was bad to have just left but she´d been alone too. I wish she could´ve trust me to have been there but maybe I would’ve just gotten crazy like I had just done, blacking out… who´d want that on top of everything else?

“Are you tired? –Nichole whispered- do you want to lie down? It might take a while for the rain to stop” she looked out the window. I sighed exhausted but I knew sleep wouldn’t come.

“Come on” almost a whisper, our hands still locked, she took me out and around again, upstairs through another flight of stairs, pictures of places on the way up. I kept focusing on my breathing, in a day like this, the anniversary of my grandfather´s death it was particularly challenging to endure such a hard storm. Breathing was basically all I could do as we walked slowly through the long hallway. Nichole took me to a guest room.

“Mii´s across the hall… I´ll check on her” she left. I lay on the bed, on my side as I listened to rain still surrounding everything. I didn’t turn the lights off. Instead of focusing on the rain I started to think of that new old memory. It was probably the reason why I knew how to differentiate Nichole´s true smile. I had seen that tiny half smile when I was at my worst. I had heard that “hey, hey, look at me” but coming from a little girl. Until today I had never heard her voice. “Don’t be afraid, you’re here, you’re safe” in her small child-like voice. “Shhh, there, there” maybe her mom cooed this when she cried.

She came back after a little while, less than five minutes, the door was opened; I was staring at the ceiling when she came back after what felt like five minutes, the door had been left opened. From the corner of my eye I could see the painting of some random forest as she entered with hesitation.

“Are you ok?” she asked with a small voice. I considered this. I was mostly angry, angry and tired. I had been angry at her but I wasn’t anymore, I felt sad for her. I was angry at Alexander and Karl and Natasha and that woman with the journal but they were not important, I was angry that their influence affected my life and her life in such a heart-wrenching way. She became a fugitive while I got paralyzed by some stupid fear. I was thinking too much, taking too long to reply. I shook my head and wondered if she´d see and if she did what she’d do next.

“I´m reminded of the New Year´s I spent with you. Both of us waiting for the other to fall asleep” she walked in and sat on the edge of the bed. Despite myself, I smiled only with the side of my mouth. She´d told me then that maybe I could make good memories of rainy days, just what I had used when I insisted in bringing her back to my life; it had been what broke her arguments then. During that New Year´s she’d promised to look for the little girl, to find her and now here I was with her.

“I fell asleep first” I sighed

“Mh… it was raining the first time you stayed in my room and wore one of my pjs” some humor in her voice. I snorted. I remembered

“Had to use your shampoo”

“It rained a little when you picked me up when I visited you” she was telling me, I guessed good memories of rainy days, although they fell so distant, so lost

“I drove” I said, Aaron had smiled when he saw us holding hands. It had been the time when he´d told me he´d stop flirting with her.

“Yeah…  Did it rain on my birthday?” she asked, I tried to remember, despite the rain sounds, I was getting sleepy, my eyelids felt heavy, it was surprising but maybe not, I hadn’t sleep more than a few hours in the past days

“I don’t remember –I said- did it?”

“Not the main event –a smile in her voice, I knew this Nichole, she sounded like my friend, like the little girl- You had an umbrella, once, for me, so that I didn’t get wet” she continued, I remembered that, I had waited for her, it had been hard but it was just a drizzle and then after that I could endure more, it had been like practice.

“You didn’t use it”

“I like rain”

“You spun around under the rain” I saw her back then spinning under the rain with her half smile and her head slightly tilted up to the sky like a movie in the back of my eyelids

“You thought I´d get sick”

“Yeah” my eyes had closed

“Go to sleep”

“…” I blinked my eyes opened

“I’ll stay here for a bit…” her voice was barely audible. My eyes closed, did that make it better?

“Do you play the piano?” I mumbled

“Mh?”

“There’s a piano…” I don’t know why it was such an important question for me

“Ah, no, I can’t play but mom always wanted one…I think…” I don’t know what else she said, I was gone.