the sometime nightmare quality of our lives [For heartbreakclub]

[thecutdiamond]

 It isn't often that she gets nightmares, truth be told. Usually, she's too exhausted from the day to doing anything else but sleep deeply; her body's way of trying to recover from the strain.

But for some reason, tonight her sleep isn't just a blissful, dreamless reprieve from reality. Instead, it's a terror-filled mixture of old ghosts and new ones that has her waking up screaming.

And even once she's awakened, the dreams cling so tightly to her mind that she's entirely disoriented and entirely unable to help the loud sobs that rip themselves from her throat.

Comments

[heartbreakclub]

"Of course not." He doesn't know how much harder he's making this on her, for her to know that he's fully capable of these moments where he could take care of her and support her. For her to have to live with someone who's drunk most of the time and cuts her to the bone with harsh words and words unsaid, who could redeem himself by pulling himself together, and in the end chose to love his misery more than loving her.

There's no reason for the Caustellos to be in this state if he'd known.

He pulls the covers over her when she goes to lie down again and sits down next to her, waiting in the dark until the whimpers even out to slow, deep breaths and the shuffle of creased sheets.

[thecutdiamond]

In a way, it's worse than if he was simply always drunk and hurtful. She could, perhaps, have learned to live with someone who was simply like that. But to have him be like this one night and then have him slap her away another is entirely different.

It takes time for her to slip into sleep again. Part of the reason is because she wants to savour this moment of him actually staying and comforting her.

In a way, it's for the worse. But in others, it's perhaps for the better.