RED ROOM [H.S]

26.

20 hours to go...

We didn't talk about night in the bathroom, nor did we talk about how we fell asleep for a few more hours cuddled up to each other. After we had both showered, separately, Harry had carried our bags to the car and I had gotten us something to eat from the restaurant across the road. I was in and out, not wanting to draw attention to myself. It was a strange dynamic we now had as we drove in silence. There was no tension in the air, no fear. I wasn't too sure what to make of it.

My head was still wrapped in a haze from my dream though, and I was reliving the vivid memory of it as we drove. The storm from this morning had settled, though the rain was drizzling outside. It brought such an eerie feeling to our drive.

Finishing the last of my sandwich, I glanced over at Harry. He was wearing an oversized jumper, his curls tucked away behind the hood. He always had the same look of concentration as he drove. Even now, as he ate with one hand and steered with the other.

"Is it possible to block out parts of your memory because of a traumatic event?" I asked, catching him by surprise.

His narrowed eyes moved from the highway over to me. He swallowed the last bite of his burger and coughed into his hand. "Why do you ask?"

I shrugged, turning my gaze onto the speeding cars. "The dream I had really bothered me," I admitted. "I dreamt I was with the younger version of myself. I was trying to calm her down because of the storm, but she kept telling me I needed to remember something that happened during a storm. She told me I needed to heal from it or I was going to break myself. Whatever that means."

I wasn't too sure why I was telling Harry about my dream. For one thing, I doubted he'd even care about whatever was going on in my mind. It was silly of me to talk to him like we were friends. We were anything but that.

"Well," Harry paused for a second, frowning at me. "It's possible that the sound of the storm entered your subconscious and made you dream of it."

I nodded slowly. "So that's an actual thing?"

"Yeah, sometimes we dream about things we hear, but to answer your question...it is possible that your mind can block certain memories from you if they were traumatic. It's a way of your brain protecting you."

I made a sound at the back of my throat. "That's interesting."

"Do you think that something happened to you when you were a child to make you afraid of storms?" Harry asked. His voice was soft, hesitant.

I shrugged, not wanting to make this into a big deal. "I doubt it. I got over my fear of storms, I don't really think that I would of if there was something that scarred me during one."

"But what if the only reason you got over it was because your brain forced you to forget about it?" He pushed.

"But why would I be remembering it now?" I said with a sigh. "I've had years for unresolved trauma to make its way to the surface."

I didn't want to mention that I was also seeing a therapist for a while. That might just play into this a lot more.

Harry cleared his throat and glanced over at me again. I didn't miss the way his fingers gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter. "I'm sure the...stress you've been going through is different from what you've experienced previously. Sometimes that can trigger things for us..."

Guilt was wrapped around his words. I didn't make a comment on it though, because he was right. The stress I had faced since knowing Harry was different from anything I had ever experienced before. The adrenaline, the lack of care for myself when I had a gun pressed against my temple willingly...it wasn't me. It was different.