Sure enough, it was as bad as she had feared. Her chin-length, dark-blonde hair stuck up every which way and her eyes were ringed with the remnants of her mascara. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot and pink, her complexion waxy, and ugly streaks of purple, red wine stains clung to her chapped lips.
Well, that’s just marvellous, she thought, running the tap to begin the repair job and to gulp down the water.
* * * *
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee greeted her on re-entering the room downstairs.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, hating how lame she sounded.
“Are you okay?” Ethan asked.
“Feeling better by the second,” she answered honestly.
“That’s good to hear.”
She watched as he retrieved the coffee pot from the coffee machine tray and poured out two mugs of coffee. She wandered over to him, heat flaming in her cheeks when she remembered the way she had given him an eyeful earlier.
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Black is fine, thanks,” she murmured, accepting the mug of coffee.
Her fingers curled around the mug and she closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling the fragrant steam.
When she opened them again she could feel Ethan’s gaze upon her and she sipped her coffee, pretending not to notice. He was looking exceptionally handsome this morning, making her feel even more like drunken stop-out. He was wearing a pair of skinny jeans and an ancient looking t-shirt that had The Sex Pistols emblazoned across his chest. His feet were bare and she found herself admiring them. She liked well-proportioned feet, believing that a shapely foot spoke volumes about a person’s genetics.
“Are you sure you’re okay? That was a hell of a turn you took last night. I mean, it’s not like you had that much to drink. Well, okay you had a bit.”
“Yeah.”
She hardly thought it pertinent to tell him that she could drink a lot more than that and still be upright and perfectly coherent.
Maybe Ethan spiked my drink.
The unwelcome thought slammed into her head, making the breath catch in her throat and her heart beat that much faster.
No. He didn’t. Why would he do that? This wouldn’t be the first time you’ve drunk yourself into a coma, would it?
But there was no escaping the fact that she’d only consumed one bottle. Her head swam with confusion and that awful, clinging grogginess and suddenly, she couldn’t stand to be there for a second longer. She needed to get her head round things, needed some space.
Placing her coffee cup on the table, she spied her bag over by the sofa and went to retrieve it.
“What are you doing?” Ethan asked.
“Calling a taxi.”
Rummaging through her bag, she retrieved her phone and scrolled through her contacts for the number of the local taxi rank.
“You don’t have to rush off.”
She paused to look at him, the confusion clinging to her. For some unknown reason, she fully trusted this man, but it didn’t change the fact that it simply wasn’t right the way in which she had passed out. On the deepest level, she felt that he hadn’t drugged her, especially as there was no trace of any interference, sexually.
“I have to be somewhere.”
Only when the words exited her mouth did she realise that they were, indeed, true. She did have to be somewhere.
I’m supposed to be seeing Dr Thornton at eleven.
She glanced at the time on her mobile – it was just gone eight. That gave her plenty of time to get home and get herself together before the appointment.
“You do? You don’t want me to cook you breakfast? I do a wicked fry up.”
But Cassie already had her mobile pressed to her ear, and it was ringing. The female voice on the other end of the line took down her details and that done, she smiled awkwardly at him.
“It’ll be on the main road in five minutes. I really do have to be somewhere.”
“I would’ve driven you,” he said.
“I didn’t want to put you out,” she said primly.
I should never have come here.
But whether that was true or not, it was too late now.
“Okay. I’ll message you on facebook, then.”
“Sure,” she said, her smile feeling tight and unnatural on her face.
She didn’t hug him on the way out. In fact, she could barely bring herself to look at him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Less than three hours later, she was back on Dr Thornton’s couch. She had showered when she had got home, meticulously examining her body for signs of sexual assault, of any kind. She would know, wouldn’t she, if that had happened?
Common sense told her that yes, of course she would know, but she was still uneasy. Besides waking up with her dress rucked up around her waist – which surely would’ve been self-inflicted with her sleeping awkwardly on the sofa – she felt sure that she hadn’t been touched. And there was no way that she had been raped, of that she was one-hundred percent positive.
“You seem troubled today, Cassie. Where would you like to begin?”
Cassie sighed, staring up at the ceiling. She had only just that second lay back on the couch – Dr Thornton was never one for small talk. Usually, she appreciated his blunt approach but today she could’ve done with a bit of easing in. Especially as the last time that she had seen him, she had walked out during their session. Dr Thornton had barely even acknowledged that fact upon seeing her, greeting her with a, I do hope that you last the entirety of this session today. Please, lie down on the couch.
That aside, it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t know quite where to start. She felt wound tight, still not having recovered from the weirdness of last night and the awkwardness of this morning. She was still confused as to why she had zonked out like that. Like she had been drugged.
She shivered, dangerously close to tears.
What did he do to me last night?
Nothing. He did nothing.
Gathering her thoughts, she slowly began to speak:
“I’ve been having nightmares again.”
Yes. That seemed as good a place as any to start.
“The same one about Chloe? Is the sleep paralysis back?”
She shivered.
“No. Chloe wasn’t in it this time – it was Hugh. But with the Chloe nightmares, I mostly knew at the time that it was a dream. This felt different. I didn’t know I was dreaming.”
She fell silent, not wanting to remember the horrible ‘Chloe’ nightmares, too, but unable to stop just the same. The nightmares where she woke in a cold sweat the dead of night, convinced that she and Hugh weren’t alone in the dark bedroom. In these nightmares, Hugh always had his back to her, snoring softly. Every time, she would go to shake him on the shoulder, to tell him that there was somebody in the bedroom, but every time she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She was paralysed.
Chloe would appear from the shadows in the corner of the room, laughing at her. She looked so beautiful, so vital, so alive.
I’m not dead you stupid fucking bitch, she would always say. I’m not dead and I’m coming for you.
Then she would straddle her on the bed and scream in her face:
I’m alive you dumb cunt! I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive…
Her limbs would then tingle and her head would buzz like it was filled with electricity. She would somehow claw herself to the surface of wakefulness, it feeling as if she were fighting her way out of her own grave. She would then wake up, sitting bolt upright in the bed with a gasp that was nearer an inhaled scream. Her heart would be hammering and she would be terrified out of her wits.
“Cassie, you must share your thoughts with me, don’t just lie on the sofa and reflect, you must tell me. Tell me about this nightmare.”
Pushing all thoughts of the sleep paralysis nightmares aside, she focussed on last night’s nightmare.
“This one was different. I didn’t know it was a nightmare. Or maybe I di
d, I’m not sure. It was a dream within a dream. I dreamt that Hugh came home in the dead of night, came into the bedroom and strangled me to death. I don’t know it’s him at first, I hear a noise coming from downstairs, and I sit upright in bed, suddenly scared. And when he’s killed me, I would wake up and the whole thing would happen all over again. I lost count of the amount of times I dreamt this.”
She spoke matter-of-factly about it, and the mere act of voicing it made her feel slightly better. She could almost feel the tenseness draining from her. She didn’t know how Dr Thornton did it, but sometimes he was like magic.
“Have you had this dream before?”
“No.”
“Your sleep paralysis nightmare involving Chloe was recurring, and it is more than possible that this one will be, too. Dreams within dreams sadly normally follow this pattern.”
“Well, it probably will now, now that you’ve planted the idea in my head.”
“Sorry, Cassie, I don’t make the dream rules.”
She turned to look at him sharply.
The dream rules?
Christ, he sounded so juvenile saying that, so unprofessional. The strangest feeling – that same feeling from their last session – curdled in her guts. The feeling that something was wrong with Dr Thornton.
“The thing about dreams within dreams, Cassie, is that they invariably repeat themselves until you are able to break the cycle. These dreams within dreams are known as false-awakening dreams. They are quite common in persons suffering from PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And I think that it is fair to say that you suffer from this. It is just your subconscious sorting through problems that you haven’t solved yet. Solve the root of your angst and they will stop. Do you see things that aren’t there in your waking life?”
“What? No. Do you think that I’m crazy now?”
“No, Cassie, I don’t think that you’re crazy. I think you’re dealing with your demons remarkably well. I am merely here to help you, not to judge. False awakening dreams are sometimes accompanied by something called micro-sleeps, whereby the primary delusionary experience intrudes into waking consciousness. In other words, hallucinations occur. The subject is in a state of hyper-arousal and dreams and reality can become blurred.”
Cassie tensed on the couch, not liking what he was saying at all.
“Are you telling me that I’m losing my mind, here? That I’m going to start seeing things when I’m awake?”
“No, I’m not saying that will definitely happen. I’m saying that it’s a possibility. Are you quite sure that this isn’t happening to you? It in no way means that you’re crazy, I’m only asking that you’re honest with me, here.”
“No. Nothing like that. Really.”
“That’s good, Cassie. Because we don’t want these nightmares to take hold, do we? We don’t want them to seep into your waking conscience. I may be able to help you before things progress to that stage.”
“How?”
“You have said a lot to me, Cassie. We’ve had ten sessions together, have we not? We have built up a trust and rapport together. Yet still we have not directly discussed that night.”
Cassie stiffened on the couch, licking her dry lips. It was true; they hadn’t. Of course, she had alluded to it because the events of that night had come to define the person that she was now. The girl she had once been was dead.
“Look, Cassie, I don’t wish to pressure you into saying anything that you are uncomfortable saying, but I need you to understand that talking about what happened is absolutely critical to your future mental health. We will have to talk about it soon, but in the meantime, there are a few cheap tricks we can perform to help control the nightmares. For example, I can teach you relaxation techniques and imagery exercises. A common but effective method is to run through the events of the nightmare in your mind before you go to sleep, but to alter a small aspect of the dream. Like, you simply do not get out of bed and you roll over and go back to sleep. Or you get up to urinate and ignore the noise coming from downstairs, telling yourself that you imagined it. This should have the effect of acting as a pre-rehearsal cue in order to remind you that you are dreaming and you should remember to carry out your new task when you are actually in the nightmare.”
“But how could that possibly work? I mean, I don’t know that I’m dreaming, at the time.”
“Yes, you do, Cassie. On a subconscious level you understand that you are dreaming. Deep down, I think you understand most things. Somewhere along the line, your conscious and subconscious mind are going to have to meet.”
His word sent a deep chill through her, although she wasn’t quite sure why. All she knew was that she was so sick of living in fear.
“Everyday, I’m scared. I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay with what happened.”
“One day, you’re going to have to be.”
She turned her head to look at him, fancying that there was a veiled threat behind his words. Instantly, she dismissed the foolish notion.
He was sitting there in his usual manner, his legs crossed in that vaguely effeminate way of his, his expression mild. There was such an air of gentleness about him, such gravity and kindness she knew instantly that she imagined any malice on his part.
His dark brown eyes regarded her passively behind his glasses. They shone with kindness and intelligence. Absently, he dragged the end of his biro over his neatly clipped white beard.
“I’m here to help you. The only way to move forward is to face your fears head on. Ultimately, that is going to have to happen. Face the monsters and slay the monsters.” He smiled benignly. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“Yeah.”
She gazed back up at the ceiling, forcing herself to relax and to trust him.
“What else has been happening in your life, Cassie? Have you been in further contact with that man you met in the supermarket?”
Fleetingly, she considered lying, but what would be the point in that? She was paying good money for these sessions, it would be entirely detrimental.
“Yes. I had dinner with him last night, as it happens.”
“Did you have sex with him?”
Her natural instinct was to tell him to mind his own business, but she bit down the retort in time.
“No. We’re just friends. That was never my intention. I just get so lonely sometimes.”
“Did you not have sex with him for moral reasons or is it because of your bodily scars?”
She bristled at the direct question. If he kept on in this vein, she could feel that she was brewing up to strop out on him for a second time. Fighting against every instinct that told her otherwise, she decided to be honest.
“I guess I’ll never know what I might or might not have done, because I passed out after dinner.”
“You passed out? Did you drink too much?”
“Probably.”
“Probably? Do you have suspicions that you were drugged? Did you exhibit any physical signs of sexual assault upon waking?”
How did he do that? she wondered. How could he be so damn inciteful?
“No. Nothing like that. I drank a bottle of red wine and passed out.”
“Although consuming a bottle of wine a day is hardly in the government recommended guidelines, you are a hardened drinker. Such an amount is hardly likely to have such an effect on you.”
She was a hardened drinker now?
“Now hang on just a minute, I would hardly describe myself a hardened drinker.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t. Most functioning alcoholics would agree with you.”
“I’m not paying you to insult me,” she said, sitting up on the couch to glare at him.
“Are you going to strop out again? It is not in your interests to do so, Cassie. I am helping you here and you know it.”
Her heart hammered in indignation in her chest – he never used to insult her like this.
He’s not insulting you, stop overreacting. He knows what he’s doing, this
is his job, and he’s very good at it…
“That’s right, Cassie. Lie back down. Trust the process.”
She lay back once more on his leather chaise lounge, her hands clasped loosely high up on her chest, forcing herself to relax.
“Before you start looking to forge new relationships, there is one relationship that you need to work on first. And that, of course, is the relationship with yourself. You need to work out who you now are, in the light of what has happened to you. And in order for that to happen, you must first confront the many different aspects of your own past. Tell me more about the relationship you had with your parents.”
Her sister’s, sneering voice rang in her ears:
They don’t love us, Cassie. Everything they do for us is just for show…
“We’ve talked about this no end,” she said, “I’m not sure why you want to keep on going over the same old ground.”
“The answer to the future lies in the past.”
“So you always say.”
“Yes, I do. So humour me. Tell me.”
“My parents could be cold. They were both teachers, they worked long hours. They threw a lot of dinner parties, and were out most weekend nights…”
Her voice trailed away as Chloe’s words rang in her ears. Because she was right.
They never loved us.
“You’re doing it again, Cassie; internalising your thoughts. Do you feel ready to discuss the events of that night?”
“No, I don’t,” she quickly snapped.
“You had a difficult childhood, Cassie, of that there is no doubt. It would have been a waking nightmare for you to have a fully-fledged psychopath as a twin sister, and parents that were oblivious, largely ignoring the pair of you. Do you blame your parents’ coldness for your twin’s psychosis?”
Her instinct was to simply shut down, but talking to him was like picking at a scab – impossible to resist despite knowing the mess that would spill out.
“That’s a loaded question, Dr Thornton, what do I know about the nature, nurture, debate?”
After She Died Page 10