Before We Lit It Up

9| After

The scream rips out of me violently and loud as I throw myself up, hands braced on soft duvets, heart palpitating wildly in my chest, and sweat rolling down my spine. I pant, a hand over my chest as I try to breathe in deeply. Scrambling over, I turn on the bedside lamp, and the familiar view of my room greets me. My room in California. Familiar beige walls, familiar paintings hung up, and a familiar fluffy blue carpet.

I lie back down, my hair sticks to the back of my neck and my forehead, and everything is blurry because I'm not wearing my glasses, but I don't care.

Instead, I smile. I'd been using sleeping pills very rarely and what I remember from my therapy sessions all those years ago, but I didn't do anything this night, and still got to sleep.

And it's not as if I remember the dream, because it was a night terror, not a nightmare. Key difference being that while one seems more traumatized after a night terror, one doesn't remember what it was about.

Sure, I could do without the screaming and the shaking, but I don't remember it. And no pills. I won't have a repeat of what happened three years ago.

So even when Harlow barges into the room, her short, black hair in a disarray, I'm still not done grinning. Although I do regret how they wake her up some nights.

She stops when she sees me grinning. "Are you more crazy than I thought?" she asks, though it comes out like a mumble and growly. I wince, the grin going away. I really regret waking her up. No one messes up with Harlow's dream sleep.

"Nope. Same amount of crazy. But no pills!"

"You were screaming, like pure terror and oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-die screaming."

I shrug. "Don't remember it. It was a night terror, not a nightmare."

She rolls her eyes and collapses beside me on the bed on her front with her head buried in the pillow. One of her pajama pant legs is rolled up to her knee, while the other one is past her ankles.

"Yeah yeah," she mutters, her voice muffled from the pillows. "Don't tell me, you researched all about the differences and now you're going to give me a psychology lesson."

"No," I start, although any smile falls from my face and it's as if my heart has strings and someone is tugging on them hard. "Jaxon told me. He was into – maybe still is – psychology."

She turns her head to the side, her gaze sympathetic, but also preparing. "You have to move on, Layla. He's not in your life anymore."

I nod, already knowing where this is heading. "I am. I'm going on a date with Aaron today, remember?"

Maybe it would've been easier if I am – trying – to move on because of some reason that I know moving on will be worth it. Like a breakup, or finding him cheating on me, or worse, him dying.

For all I know, he can be dead.

The thought has panic gnawing at me, making it hard to breathe and hear beyond the blood that is pounding in my veins.

Harlow grabs my shoulders and shakes me. "Stop overthinking and panicking. We all have people from our past we miss and wish to see again, and while the way you two....stopped seeing each other was....different and left you with a lot of questions and a need to at least see him again, you have no idea where he is. It's been three years, you can't wait for a miracle. Make your own."

For all of the internet's leaps in communication, I never found him by that either, and I know she's right.

So I nod and pull myself off the bed, swinging my legs over the bed while searching for my glasses. It's still early, but I might as well as go for a run. Get in shape and put on some muscle.