Текст книги "Sharing You"
Автор книги: Molly McAdams
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Sharing You
Sharing You – 1
Molly McAdams
Dedication
For R & S, you know who you are.
Your story is beautiful, and your love is something of dreams. I’m so happy y’all are finally able to live out the Happy Ever After you deserve.
For the Readers
THIS IS OUR story. It’s one many won’t understand or accept, and some may even be offended by it . . . but this is the reality of our fight for each other and our struggle to be together.
In a perfect world, you have a soul mate, you’ll search until you finally find each other, and you’ll begin this perfect journey you’ve been planning out for years. As for us . . . well, there was nothing perfect about the way we had to do things.
Our connection was instant, and there was no doubting the pull we had for each other. But with everything in our lives forcing us to stay apart, our relationship was full of secrets, pain, guilt, sorrow, and the most beautiful love either of us has ever known.
And we wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Prologue
Kamryn
September 2, 2014
THE SOUND OF three familiar, masculine laughs stopped my retreat to my room, and I quietly tiptoed back toward the study. What are Charles and his dad doing here? I peeked through the door they had left cracked and was thankful for the darkened hallway. I knew from experience they wouldn’t see me unless they were actively searching, and since all of them were huddled around a far table with drinks in their hands, I figured I was fine.
I pulled my cell out of my pocket and glanced at the time before dimming the screen again. Charles wasn’t supposed to pick me up for another four hours, and we’d just had brunch with his family. Couldn’t he go away for a while?
Charles. Good God, what had he even changed into? He had brown loafers—no socks—khaki shorts, and a dark pink polo on. And yeah, the collar was popped. His dark blond hair had that “I just got out of bed” look, but I’d had the unfortunate pleasure of watching him spend twenty-five minutes to make it look that way that morning, so it had lost its appeal.
I’d been dating Charles York since our junior year of high school, and it was safe to say that over the last six years . . . I’d really come to loathe him. His clothes, his too-perfect bleached smile, his fake tan, his laugh that had to be louder than everyone else’s in the room, the fact that he was the third Charles York, his signature silver BMW he upgraded for the newer version every two years like it was a cell phone or something. And this was probably the worst part of all—he was so close with my dad that he was having drinks with him on his own time.
I’m sure most girls dreamed of a man their parents would absolutely adore, but my parents hadn’t exactly given me a choice when it came to Charles. I had to date him. It was a match made in “Kentucky Derby Heaven,” as my mother liked to say. And no, I’m not joking. Both our families were from the Brighton Country Club neighborhood in Lexington, and every year for the last fifteen years either Charles’s family or my family has had a horse win the Kentucky Derby. Our parents were always talking about combining our stables, and I was beginning to think I’d already been sold off to the York family to make this happen.
Why not just break up with him and tell my parents to shove it? Uh, yeah . . . not so easy in my family. I was a Cunningham; in the racing world, we were pretty much royalty. My parents were Bruce and Charlotte, and as the only daughter of the perfect power couple, I was expected to be perfect as well. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, and a perfectly planned life. That perfectly planned life included marrying Charles someday. And breaking up with Charles didn’t just mean ruining the plans both our families had for us; it would be devastating to the racing world. Mom’s words, not mine—she’s a little dramatic.
It hadn’t always been awful with him. We’d grown up together, I’d crushed on him for as long as I could remember before we actually started dating, and we’d been friends our entire lives. When I say entire, I mean I’m praying I burned all the evidence of our moms bathing us together when we were babies. Charles had always been funny, incredibly smart, and attractive—probably too attractive for his own good, because, unfortunately, he knew how good he looked. It wasn’t until after we began dating that he started turning into the guy I couldn’t stand to be around . . . or maybe it was just that I began realizing how much I hated the world I’d grown up in. That world was full of people with too much money, a place where unfaithful and backstabbing relationships were the norm, where you couldn’t have a conversation unless you were gossiping or slandering someone, and where friends and enemies were one and the same. Yeah . . . now that I think back on it, Charles hadn’t changed at all when we started dating, it was just that it also happened about the same time I decided I needed to get away from Kentucky . . . away from everything I’d ever known.
I started pulling away from him as much as my parents would allow when he went away to college and thankfully I only had to see him about two days out of the month, unless he was on break. Once he graduated and came back home, I’d just had to stomach it. Because doing anything that wasn’t on my parents’ planned-out path wasn’t an option. I’d found that out the hard way one night when my mom overheard me mentioning my desire for a life without Charles . . . I can’t imagine how she would have reacted if she’d known I’d planned to take a very different path from the one she’d made for me.
The only thing I’d ever done for myself was go to culinary and then pastry school, and that had been a huge to-do in our house. The only people who had supported me were our maid, Barbara, and, surprisingly, Charles. I’d been so taken aback and grateful—Charles’s support had gotten my parents to finally agree to it—that it’d been the only time since we started dating that I’d ever called him by his preferred name, Chad. He hated the name Charles, and I think that is why I refused to call him anything else.
Charles said my name, and I leaned closer to the door in time to catch whatever his dad had begun saying.
“You’re sure she’ll say yes? I don’t know what’s going on with that girl of yours, Bruce, but she’s seemed rather . . . hesitant lately.”
Say yes to what?
“I’m sure of it, she knows her place. She knows how important this merger is.”
“I don’t know . . .” Chuck, Charles’s father, began.
“Dad, stop. She’ll marry me. Like Bruce said, she knows her place, and thank God for that. The sooner she gets off this pipe dream of owning a bakery the better.”
Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s surprising, seeing as you’re the only one who encouraged Kamryn to go to those food schools.”
Charles laughed and took a sip of his drink. “No offense to your home and wife, Bruce, but I want a wife who knows her place in my home as well as by my side.”
Chuck and Dad both snickered. I continued to stand there with my jaw on the floor.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Charles went on. “Charlotte’s great for business and public outings, but that woman couldn’t cook if her life depended on—”
Dad cut him off. “Which, of course, means Kamryn couldn’t cook before she went to those schools.”
Charles clucked his tongue and pointed his hand—the one holding his scotch glass—at Dad. “Precisely.”
“Smart kid you’ve got there, Chuck.” Dad laughed into his glass before taking another sip. “Damn smart kid.”
“So you aren’t letting her open up the bakery? Your mother and I have been worried about your judgment in letting her do this.”
“Hell no.” Charles laughed, shooting his dad a look like he was crazy. “There’s a reason I haven’t let her open one yet—I’m just trying to keep her happy until we’re married.”
“And you’ll be proposing tonight?”
My eyes about popped out of my head at my dad’s question.
“Yup, gonna push for that whole ‘we’ve been together forever, there’s no point in having a long engagement’ thing. My guess, end of the year, we’ll be married and we can stop dicking around with this merger.”
“Sounds good,” Dad said, and the men stood up to shake hands across the table.
I made sure to keep quiet as I quickly backed away from the door and took off for my room. Get married to him? Oh, hell no. I might have stayed with him to keep Mom and Dad happy and off my back for the last six years, but no way in hell was I going into a lifelong commitment with him. And I couldn’t believe he would encourage me to go to the cooking schools just so he’d have a wife from the fucking fifties!
“Cook for you?” I hissed as I shut my bedroom door and hurried to the closet. “I’ll cook for you.” Grabbing a small suitcase, I threw it onto the bed and opened it up. “With rat poison.”
I buzzed Barbara before grabbing only a few of my favorite clothes and shoes and tossing everything in there. I was throwing the necessities from my bathroom in a small bag when I heard Barb’s voice in my room.
“What can I do for ya, baby girl . . . Kam, honey?”
“Barb!” I apparently still hadn’t graduated from hissing. “He’s proposing!”
Her eyes were wide as she looked at the too-full suitcase. “I thought we were already expecting that?”
“Tonight! And he just told Dad that we would be married by the end of the year. That’s barely four months away!”
“Oh, my sweet girl.” She smiled sadly and sat on my bed. “I knew this day was coming, but I’m not ready for it yet.”
“Me neither, but, Barbara, I can’t—I can’t keep doing this. Six years with him, and twenty-two years of not being able to live. I have to go.”
“I know.”
“It was one thing to continue dating him while he was away at school and I was trying to save money for this, but it’s an entirely different thing to be engaged to him. And you know Mom and Dad won’t let me say no!”
“I know,” she said again, and there were tears falling down her plump cheeks.
“Barb, don’t cry, please don’t cry!” God, now I was going to start crying. Barbara had been my parents’ maid since before I was born, she’d taken care of me growing up, and she was the reason I’d wanted to go to culinary school. She was the reason all of this was about to be possible, and she was the only reason I’d followed my parents’ path as long as I had. She had also been what my mom used against me to keep me with Charles.
I’d been telling Barb about a date with him I’d just come back from and how torturous it had been, and when I’d gone to my room a few minutes later Mom was in there waiting for me. After reminding me of how much my relationship with Charles meant to both our families, she’d asked, “You don’t want to see anything happen to Barbara, now, do you?” The threat had been clear. And it had been enough to keep my mouth shut and keep me with Charles over the next few years as Barb and I began preparing for this night.
Dad refused to pay for the schools, not like I expected him to or would have allowed it. I’d gotten loans and simultaneously started asking Barb for her help. There was no way for Barb or me to bet on the races without word getting out that we were doing so, and Dad would have flipped if he’d known. I didn’t want to use his money for anything, so I’d sold a few things Mom would never notice were missing from my room and used that money for Barb’s brother to start placing bets for me. All the bets started off small, since I hadn’t sold anything of much value, and over the last four years they’d multiplied like you wouldn’t believe.
I’d paid off the loans first before replacing what I’d originally sold from my room, and then continued to place higher and higher bets. The last race I’d bet on—and won—I’d put down close to six figures. You get the right races, and the right pockets with horses competing, you can make a fortune. And that’s just what I’d been doing.
Barbara and I had spent many nights planning this day, but like she’d said, we weren’t expecting it to happen just yet.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping away some tears. “I’m happy for you, baby girl, really I am. I’m just gonna miss you so much.”
“I’ll miss you too.” I hugged her fiercely and let a few tears escape as she held me. She would be the only person from this entire state I would miss. “As soon as I get to Oregon and get settled, I’ll get a phone and call you so you’ll have my number.”
She nodded and cleared her throat as her arms left my waist to grip my hands. “You can do this, Kamryn. I just know it. You have the money, you have the smarts, you have the talent, and you have the drive. Get away from here, baby girl, and don’t come back to this life. This life is its own form of prison.”
It was. God, it was.
“Do you have everything packed?”
“I do.”
“All right.” She cleared her throat and her lips quivered as she spoke. “I’m going to call my brother and have him come right over to take you to the train station. I just pulled some cookies out of the oven. You go take some and a glass of milk to your daddy. Your mother is at her tennis lesson and then going to a massage, so she won’t be back for some time now. By the time you’re done sweet-talking your daddy, Ray will be here and I’ll have your suitcase and money waiting in his car.”
I took a deep breath and stood when she did. “I’ll miss you, Barbara. I love you.”
“I love you too, baby girl. Go live.”
1
Kamryn
May 4, 2015
“KC! GIRL, I am definitely going to need some chocolate to get through today.”
“Kinlee, seriously?” I huffed as I came through the double doors with trays of cupcakes. “We aren’t even opened yet. That key I gave you was for emergencies if I wasn’t available.”
“You’re open—I flipped the board for you.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled. I’d met Kinlee almost immediately after moving to Jeston, Oregon, and I thanked God every day for that. I’d never had a friend like her and didn’t know how I would get through day-to-day life without her. “Only you, Lee, only you.” I handed over a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter cream cheese frosting and started stocking my pastry case.
Within two weeks of getting to Jeston, I’d bought an SUV, found a condo, and leased a small space for what would be my bakery. Over the next two and a half months I was overseeing renovations for KC’s Sweet Treats, and that’s how I’d met Kinlee. She was two years older than me and shorter than short, had long black hair and a bubbly personality I’d die for. She and her mom had the boutique right next door to me, and she’d come by asking if I knew what was going to be put in next to her store. One thing led to another, and I was her new best friend because I could bake. Kinlee could be crude, she could be sweet, and she was loyal to those she cared for. And I absolutely adored every bit of her.
Barbara and I spoke at least once a week when Mom and Dad were both out of the house, and though I missed her like crazy, I didn’t regret my decision. I did feel bad, though, for leaving her in that hell-storm. Apparently my parents and Charles’s family had gone nuts when I left, but ultimately they saw my “disappearance” as a chance for more publicity: they twisted it, saying I’d been kidnapped, so they could wind up on a few news stations. I didn’t know what the status with my “disappearance” was, because I really didn’t care. Other than talking with Barbara, I didn’t pay attention to anything that had to do with racing or Kentucky. My life was in Oregon now, and that was all I cared to focus on. If I worried about them looking for me, or having others look for me, it would just make me paranoid. I couldn’t live like that.
And I loved it in Jeston. This city of roughly 15,000 people had an old-time small-town charm to it, and I wondered how it’d taken me twenty-two years to get here. There was no doubt in my mind that I belonged here.
The best part? No one had a clue who I was.
The minute I’d gotten to Jeston and checked into a hotel, I’d found a salon, chopped fourteen inches off my hair, and dyed my golden locks a rich brown. Even with the fourteen inches gone, my hair still brushed the tops of my shoulders. With the thick, black-framed glasses I bought at a drugstore, I looked like a new person. And I couldn’t be happier.
“Oh, my God, heaven!” Kinlee groaned as she hopped onto the counter near the register. “Kace, tell me how you aren’t fat yet?”
I snorted. “Probably the same way you aren’t.”
“You mean you’re having wild animal sex twenty-four/seven? I was wondering why you wouldn’t let us set you up with anyone! You’ve been holding out on me, haven’t you?”
“Oh, God, okay, definitely not the same way as you. Ew, Kinlee, all I’m going to be able to think about when I see Jace is you two having wild sex.”
“Say that again!”
I froze with my arm inside the pastry case. “Uh, all I’m going—”
“No, no. The last few words.” She leaned close and stared at my mouth as I ran over everything I’d said.
“Having wild sex?”
“Wald? For real, where are you from?”
I blew out a heavy breath and shook my head as I smirked at my case. “Just not from here.” I tried to tame my accent—which I didn’t even know I had until I moved here—as much as possible around Kinlee. She and her husband, Jace, were always trying to figure out where I’d moved from, but if they found out they’d want to know why I was here at all. And I wasn’t ready for that.
“One of these days, Kace, I will get it out of you.” She took another bite of cupcake and moaned. “This is better than wald sex with Jace.”
“Okay, your husband is hot and all, don’t get me wrong, but I really don’t want to be thinking about him like that.”
“Just saying.” She held her hands up. “You were the one who asked.”
“Uh, no. No, I didn’t. And back to your original question: I run most mornings. Not all of us can avoid getting fat by having crazy hot sex, especially when we’re not having sex at all.”
She shoved the last bit of cupcake into her mouth and spoke through the bite. “KC, I have been trying to set you up for the last seven months! It’s not my fault you refuse to go on a date with anyone. You’re twenty-three—time to go on a date, woman!”
“Can I remind you that the last guy you tried to set me up with was shorter than me?”
It’s not like I’m an Amazon or anything, I’m five-seven, but I do love heels. Just another reason why I couldn’t stand Charles: he was one inch taller than me, so heels were a no-go. Of course, I wore heels whenever he wasn’t around, but he made me carry flats just in case he showed up anywhere I was. There are only so many flats you can wear before you want to find all the flats in the world and burn them.
“I only know so many single men!”
“This barbecue tomorrow, you aren’t going to try . . .” I trailed off when I noticed her looking away. “Kinlee!”
“I didn’t invite them! Swear to God, I didn’t invite them this time. The guys on Jace’s shift from the department are all gonna be there, and most of them are single, but that’s not my fault.”
Oh, Lord, single firemen.
“But it won’t just be the guys from the department, there will be other people, some couples from the neighborhood, all people you’ve met before.”
I nodded and shut the pastry case doors. “All right, well, you know I’ll be there, not like I have anything else to do on a Sunday. Want me to bring something?” I don’t know why I even bothered asking anymore, it’s not like I’d show up without something anyway.
“Cookies, cupcakes, whatever you want.” She leaned back and blew an air kiss before jumping off the counter. “Jeez, KC, I know you needed help taste-testing and all—what with your lovely faces you make—but you’ve really got to stop keeping me from opening my store. You’re bad for my hips and business.”
“My faces when I eat sweets are a secret, Lee! Only you and my employees know about them!”
With a wink and a saucy smile, she was gone.
Well, they were the only ones in Oregon who knew about them. I was teased relentlessly in pastry school for the faces I’d make whenever we tried our dishes, and Barb used to give a big belly laugh every time as well. Charles wouldn’t let me eat sweets in public because of those expressions, but he sure seemed to like them when we were alone. I shivered thinking about Charles and was glad that for eight months now I hadn’t had to pretend to not be swallowing back bile every time he kissed or touched me. I took a quick glance at the front of my bakery and smiled to myself before going to the back. For the first time in my life, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Brody
May 4, 2015
“OLIVIA!” WHAT THE fuck is all this?
“Hmm?”
“Liv, come here.”
“What?” she snapped when she got to the living room.
I took a deep, calming breath and planted a smile on my face. “What’s all this?”
“It’s called furniture, Brody.” Her eyebrows rose. “You know, you sit on the couches, put drinks on the coffee table, put your feet up on the ottoman . . .”
“Cute, Liv, real cute. Where did it come from?”
“The furniture store,” she said slowly, like she was talking to a child.
I huffed and gritted my teeth. “Olivia, where did you get the furniture and how much did it cost?”
“Do you not like it?”
“That’s not what I said, please answer my question.”
“These are the exact same couches the Cunninghams have in their house! They had a five-page spread in Better Homes and Gardens last month!”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I could only play this game with her so many times before I snapped. And I only had about another two minutes before I lost the calm tone I was working so hard to maintain. Liv and her parents were obsessed with some family they viewed as royalty, had been since before I’d met them. They were in the same social circles but had never met, considering a good portion of the United States separated them. I didn’t understand it. To be honest, I’d always found it weird how they tried to be exactly like the Cunningham family—and now it was one of the main reasons I freaked out on Olivia when I did. Because just as Liv wanted to make sure she was identical to the Cunninghams’ only daughter, she also thought she needed to blow money the way they did. Money I wasn’t earning fast enough.
“The Cunninghams,” I said, an edge to my voice. “For the millionth time, Liv, you can’t live as if you are them. You can’t live like we have all the money in the world.”
“How could you not like it?” Tears instantly fell to her cheeks, and I bit back a groan. “I bought them for you, it was only seven grand.”
Seven—seven grand. Only seven grand. “Olivia, where did you get seven grand?” Please, God, please say from your father.
She sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “You had five thousand just sitting in the savings account, I had to do something with it!”
“Olivia! Are you—are you—damn it! You pulled this shit again?”
Her tears kept falling, but she stopped sniffling. “How dare you! I did this for you!”
“Every time, Liv, every time I start saving money you go and blow it on something we don’t need, all because of some fucking famous family! And now this time you spent an extra two thousand? I have to pay the mortgage in a week.”
“Regardless, it was still a gift. You could at least say thank you! Every time I buy something you get upset. At least I’m giving you something—all you’ve ever done is take from me.”
With that, she turned and stormed down the hall to her bedroom, leaving me crushed, aching, and once again so damn tired of this. I rubbed my chest, where the constant dull ache was now stabbing, and fell into one of the kitchen chairs.
Not more than ten minutes later, she was back and bouncing through the kitchen. “Hey, babe! What do you want for dinner?”
I wasn’t even surprised by this anymore; I’d just been waiting until she came back. “It’s after midnight, Liv. I’m not really hungry.”
“Did you already eat dinner? I’ll heat some of this up.” She murmured the last part to herself as she continued to pull takeout boxes from the fridge.
“Yeah, earlier tonight.”
“Oh.” She slammed the fridge door shut and turned to look at me. “All right, I get it. I can’t have kids, so I’m not good enough to heat up food for you. Yeah, fine, Brody. Feed your damn self.”
And here she goes again.
My wife hadn’t always been like this—and despite how it seems, she’s not crazy—and our relationship hadn’t been like this either. We’d been high school sweethearts, and then I’d left for the Army right after we graduated and everything changed. I came back home to visit after a deployment, and though we had stayed together, Liv and I weren’t close anymore. I knew why she’d stayed with me, but I hadn’t cared either way. She was someone to come back to when I visited my family.
Her parents hated me, and they let me know it every time they saw me. I wasn’t good enough for their daughter because I wasn’t going to college and didn’t come from money like they had. My family wasn’t poor by any means—we’d grown up in a great house in a great neighborhood. But we weren’t dripping with money, and we didn’t belong to the country club that Liv’s parents did. So apparently that meant we were trash. Olivia loved that her parents didn’t accept me, and I knew that was the only reason we’d stayed together as long as we had. But like I said, I didn’t mind.
I had a year left in the Army when my world changed. She called me crying, saying she was pregnant. I’d requested emergency leave as soon as we got off the phone and married her the minute I got home. Her parents were furious—hell, so were mine—but no way was I going to let her go through that alone. I couldn’t take care of her like her parents did, but I’d take care of her the best I could.
It took a lot of people high up pulling strings, but I was able to get us a house on base for as soon as I got back. Only thing was, she refused to go back to the base with me. Basically said thanks for marrying her and she was going to stay with her parents until I decided I was done “playing Navy.” Shit you not. And I wasn’t even in the Navy.
I couldn’t get leave often, but even when I did, she still didn’t see me. Didn’t even try. When I’d ask her, she’d say, “What’s the point? We’re already married.”
Yeah. Married and I haven’t seen you since two days after the fact.
The only thing she did include me in was the baby. After every appointment she sent pictures of the ultrasound, and she’d let me help her pick out a name. I’d gotten the message the minute she went into labor and received more pictures after he was delivered. The next time I got leave she still refused to see me and wouldn’t let me see our son. Instead, I stood outside her parents’ house and called her, only to find out that if I wanted to see either of them, I wouldn’t reenlist and I’d move back to Jeston.
So that’s what I did. When it came time to reenlist, I declined and moved back. Bought us a house—it wasn’t much, and her dad let me know that all the time—but I’d bought it and that’s all that mattered. Once I had it furnished, I called her, and she finally let me meet my son for the first time.
“Brody!” Olivia snapped, and I blinked away the best day of my life. She held out her hand momentarily to show she was on the phone before continuing. “Daddy said he’d pay you back for the couches, since obviously with your pay you can’t afford what I need to be happy.”
My eyes narrowed. It was almost 12:30 in the morning, and she was calling her dad to talk to him about the damn couches? I rubbed the sharp pain in my chest and pushed away from the table before standing up. “He can keep his money, I don’t want it. Good night, Olivia.”
“BABY, ARE YOU awake?”
I sat up in my bed less than an hour later and rubbed a hand over my face. “Uh, yeah. What’s up, Liv?”
“I’m so sorry!” She burst into tears and crumpled to the floor.
Aw hell. I hopped out of my bed and went over to her. Sliding down until I was sitting up against the wall, I pulled her onto my lap. “It’s okay, you just have to stop spending our money like that.”
“B-but the c-couch we had w-was three years old! The Cunninghams never have couches three years old.”
“I know, but ours was still a perfectly good couch,” I crooned softly. “Just because your parents and the Cunninghams can refurnish their entire houses every few years doesn’t mean we can, all right?”
She nodded vigorously. “I just—I just needed something to do.”
I took a deep breath in and scrunched my face together as I prepared for what might happen next. I knew this could turn out bad again, but I had to try. “Maybe we should get a dog.”
“A dog? A damn dog? No! You can’t just give me a dog and make it all better, Brody!” She scrambled off my lap and sprinted down the hall, heading for her side of the house.
Yes, I said her side of the house. I normally don’t even see her because she prefers to spend her days at her parents’ house unless she’s in a mood like the one tonight. It usually lasts a week, as this one has, and we go through every emotion possible about fifteen times a day. I try to be patient with her because I know I’m the reason she’s like this, but after four and a half years of this constant happy-depressed-flirty-pissed-horny-sweet-flat-out-bitch roller coaster, I feel like I’m losing my damn mind. And what’s worse? As soon as we’re in public she’s normal Liv—not the Liv I fell in love with in high school, but the one who’s confident in herself and her parents’ money, and the one who will eat you alive if you cross her.
Her door slammed shut, and I stood to stumble over to my bed, thankful again that I was able to buy a big enough house that we could have our own spaces. We’d been married for almost six years, and I could count on one hand the number of times we’d had sex in those years. We hadn’t even slept in the same bed since a few months after I got back from the Army.
As I tried to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep, I rubbed at the ache in my chest and prayed the nightmares stayed away.
