Just a Little Reminder (6 page)

When I said that we’d all changed, I meant it.

See, Derek wasn’t scared and scarred. He wasn’t regretful, pained, or even slightly pegged with guilt. I’d looked at him a million times and tried to find a shred of remorse, but there wasn’t any to be found.

When I looked at Derek Milton… I saw nothing but happiness.

Unbelievable happiness.

“I don’t judge him,” I managed to whisper. “I just… I can’t imagine killing someone, taking someone’s life, and walking away from it like it never happened. I mean, Grace…it’s almost like he’s celebrating it. It’s like he enjoyed killing his father, and now he’s on some kind of celebratory vacation,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s like it never registered in his brain.
He killed someone
—his own flesh and blood—and he walked away from it with a gleam in his eye and a smile on his lips.
How can a person do that?
”

“A monster is a monster, Julie,” she said, tilting her head. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a stranger or the man who gave you life. Conan destroyed everything you ever loved, and then
you
became something that Derek Milton loved. Conan would’ve killed you, and it didn’t matter to Derek that it was his father holding the gun. He saw your life in danger, Julie, and he did what he had to do—
what any person would’ve done
—to save someone they love. Think about what you just said, and tell me you don’t really believe it. Derek’s not happy that his father’s dead;
he’s happy that you’re both alive
. That’s all that’s ever mattered to him.”

Grace patted her legs and stood up.

“Just think about it,” she said, looking down at me. There was a kindness in her voice that assured me she wasn’t preaching. She just wanted to get through to me the only way she knew how. “Do you honestly believe that that man—someone you’ve repeatedly called your best friend—is a cold-blooded killer?”

“Of course not….”

“Then stop questioning the reason behind his smile,” she said. “He’s faced his demons, Julie, and he lived to see another day. There’s nothing left to hold him back. And if you’re really his friend, you’ll let him revel in that. And when he comes back—because he will come back—you’ll be there to celebrate with him.”

With a kind wink and a simple
good night
, Grace left the room and closed the door.

I scoffed.

“Good night?”
I asked, rolling my eyes.

After that conversation? No way.

Good nights were a thing of the past. Good nights only belonged to people who were happy… people who had nothing left to worry about… people who’d faced all their fears… people like Derek.

Not people like me.

I didn’t even know the meaning of a “good night” anymore.

But nightmares? Yep. I knew all about those….

Wednesday, June 05 | 10:45 p.m.

“She just kept screaming.”

Grace’s quiet voice woke me from my slumber, and my eyes fluttered open. “I went in to check on her, but she wasn’t in her room.”

The house was dark, and I quickly realized that it was still night time. It didn’t take but a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t in the bed upstairs, but facing the back of the couch in the living room.

How in the world?

“Your dad found her down here fighting with the locks on the door. She kept trying to leave, so he’d hold her back. She blackened both of his eyes trying to fight him away.”

“Where was she going?” Luke asked, and the sound of his voice made my nerves jump.

“We don’t know,” Grace said quietly. “She wasn’t awake. She didn’t say a word; she only screamed.”

“There’s something wrong with that girl, Luke,” Lonnie chimed in, and I felt my heart grow heavier. “Something’s not right in her head. She’s about twenty kinds of crazy, and I’m not sure there’s anyone who can fix all the things that are wrong with that one.”

“There’s nothing
wrong
with her,” Luke snapped, and his tone was one everyone immediately recognized. It was his
screw you
tone, and—when not directed at me—it sounded just sexy enough to make my toes curl.

His footsteps grew closer, and I pressed my eyes shut so he wouldn’t know I’d been listening. He leaned next to the couch and brushed the backside of my hair with a few gentle strokes.

“Did she say anything before she went to bed earlier?” Luke asked, and I vaguely heard Grace clear her throat.

“Like what?”

“Anything,” he said. “Did she come out of her room, talk to either of you, say anything at all?”

The room grew quiet for a moment. The steady ticking of the clock echoed through the room; I counted a solid thirty ticks before Grace simply answered with a “
not that I recall
.”

He didn’t believe her, and I knew because he jerked his hand away from me and stood up immediately after she answered.

“Julie is psychologically traumatized,” he said, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “I told you—
not seconds before I left
—not to go poking for information. I left her here because I trusted that you would respect those boundaries. Now, if you said something to her, or she said something to you, I need to know. These nightmares
have
to be triggered by
something
.”

“I only wanted to help,” Grace said, and her voice quivered. “I thought I could help her understand—”

“
You thought you could help her?
” Luke asked, and I found it astonishing that he’d gotten angry with Grace of all people. “She’s been through hell and back, Grace, and you thought
you
could help her?”

“She just needs a friend—”

“No,” he snapped, and Grace whimpered. “She needs patience… and insight, and that will come with time. She doesn’t need
you
to tell her what’s right and what’s wrong. You had no right to butt-in—”

“That’s enough, Luke,” Lonnie said, and Luke silenced at his father’s order.

“I’m taking her with me,” Luke said, and suddenly his arms were tucked beneath my body and lifting me from the couch.

He cradled me to his chest, carried me across the living room, and somehow managed to get through the front door without dropping me. I nuzzled against his shoulder as he carried me outside and put me in his car. It was only when he settled me in the seat and leaned in to secure the seat belt that I opened my heavy eyes.

“Hey, kid,” he said quietly, and his face was only inches from mine. The seat belt clicked, and his eyes quickly met mine. “Give me a second to grab your stuff and we’ll get out of here.”

I nodded, and he took a few steps back. Grace waited on the front porch with my bags in hand, and she appeared to say ‘sorry’ as Luke grabbed my things and turned away.

He returned and opened the back door to toss my bags on the backseat. A moment later, he nestled in behind the wheel and started the engine.

“Where are you taking me?” I whispered, no longer fighting my heavy eyes. I’d suddenly become keenly aware of the fact that Luke had just whisked me out of his parents’ house with no intention of taking me back.

With a slow glance in my direction, he shrugged a shoulder and managed a half-smile.

“Home,” he said, checking the mirrors before backing out on the street. “I thought you’d wanna shack up with me for a couple of nights.”

“But you said….” My words slurred together. I pinched the bridge of my nose to ease the aching tension in my head. “Too much risk….”

Luke half-laughed and shook his head.

“We wouldn’t be us if we weren’t taking risks, right?” he asked under his breath.

I managed the faintest smile, and then his hand found mine.

“We’ll be at the apartment in a few minutes, and then you can get back to bed, okay?”

I looked out the window and shrugged.

“Doesn’t much matter,” I said. “I’m not really tired anymore.”

“Okay,” he said, glancing away from the road for just a second. “You hungry?”

**

Monday, June 10

“And that was…?”

“Last Wednesday night,” I said, still sitting straight on the couch in Dr. Norwood’s office.

“And how many nights did you stay with him?”

“Three.”

It didn’t matter much that I told her about the non-nightmare related events in my life, but I always found the need to tell Dr. Norwood about every minute detail—within reason, of course.

Okay, so not
every
minute detail.

It was nice being in control of who knew what and why, and there were just some things I didn’t feel comfortable sharing.

Was it imperative that she knew I’d sleepwalked on that first (and only) night at Lonnie and Grace’s house? Yes. Did she need to know that I’d been a diligent little notetaker, sighting every little detail I could remember from every single dream? Yes.

But did she really need to know that I’d only talked to Derek
once
since coming home from Piqua? Did I have to tell her that he’d become some ultra-happy, carefree spirit with this incredibly optimistic outlook on life? Did she really need to know that every tiny quality I loved about my friend had ceased to exist the night he killed his father?  No.

But telling her about Luke was kind of intriguing. In a way—a very, very tiny way—it almost felt like I’d gotten the opportunity to share my deepest, darkest, dirtiest little secret with my best friend.

The only difference was that I was simply detailing my day-to-day experience to my therapist.

Yep… the lowest of low.

Dr. Norwood didn’t show the slightest bit of interest in the fact that I’d temporarily shacked up with my sexy, wounded policeman boyfriend. Kara, though—I felt my stomach drop a little; God, I missed her—would’ve fallen at my feet for details of the past few days. She would’ve been on edge, drooling to know everything from how he acted all the way down to our late-night sleeping arrangements.

“And the nightmares have stopped?”

“Yes.” I said, raising my chest proudly. “Completely.”

Dr. Norwood lowered her pen and leaned forward.

“When was your last dream?”

“Thursday night,” I said. “At Luke’s. It’s the last one I can remember, anyway.”

“And the last time you were here we discussed the idea of trying something new,” she said, tilting her head to read my sheepish expression. “How did that go for you?”

“It didn’t. I didn’t do it,” I said, feeling a strange sense of guilt.  “I mean, I did, but not at first.”

“But eventually?”

“Yes,” I said.

She nodded slowly and watched me with wide eyes.

“Why do you think the nightmares have subsided, Julie?” she asked, and it wasn’t because she wanted to hear me say
because I listened to you, Dr. Norwood
. She was genuinely interested in my take; I could see it in her eyes… she wanted to know what had finally made the difference.

“Luke.”

“Luke?”

“The nightmares have
stopped
because of Luke.”

“How do you mean, exactly?” she asked, and this time she set the notebook and pen aside on her desk. She leaned forward and watched me intently. “What did he do, Julie? Tell me how he helped you.”

**

Chapter Six

Five days earlier….

Wednesday, June 05 | 11:15 p.m.

“Alright,” Luke said, holding the door open with his foot. “Come on in.”

After packing my bags into the car and leaving his father’s house, Luke and I stopped off at the 24-hour pizza joint—his idea, not mine (believe it or not)—and placed an order to go. We’d sat and talked for a good twenty minutes while we waited on our order to come up, but Luke didn’t mention anything about the dreams, the sleepwalking, or the fact that his dad and step-mom didn’t want the added stress of taking care of a mentally unstable teenager.

He didn’t have to say anything; I could see it in his eyes. Lonnie had called him to come and pick me up… they didn’t want me there.

We were finally at the apartment, and Luke had insisted on carrying everything up without help. With one of my overnight bags slung over each of his shoulders, my purse hanging from his neck, and our food order clutched in his hands, he wouldn’t even let me open the door for him.

He was trying to prove something. Macho man, maybe?

Regardless, it was cute to watch.

After I slipped by him and into the apartment, he moved his foot from in front of the door, and it came crashing shut.

“Let me take that,” I said, taking the pizza from his hand.

I carried the box to the kitchen and dropped it on the counter. After stowing my two bags and purse in the corner of the living room, Luke pulled off his shoes and followed me to the kitchen. He retrieved two plates and two glasses from the overhead cupboard.

“Water?”

“Sure,” I said, and he filled both glasses with water from the refrigerator.

I opened the pizza box and added a couple slices to each of the empty plates. I carried them over to his small kitchen table, but I was immediately interrupted by the sound of Luke clearing his throat.

“This isn’t a formal dinner, Jules; you don’t have to eat at the table,” he said, nodding over at the couch. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Eyeing Luke—I mean, come on; that was suspicious, right?—I scooped up both plates and headed for the living room. I sat down on the sofa and put the food on the small coffee table in front of me. Luke handed me both glasses, asked me not to put them down just yet, and turned back to the kitchen to retrieve two coasters. He brought them in, set them on the table, and took both of the glasses and placed them in their rightful places.

“Okay,” Luke said, only halfway through his first slice by the time I’d reached for my second. “Truth or dare?”

I nearly choked as I swallowed the mouthful of crust.

“I’m sorry,
what
?”

“What?” he asked innocently, looking as though he didn’t see anything wrong with the question he’d just asked me. “Isn’t that what girls do when they have sleepovers? I’m just trying to be a good host.”