As she clomped up the stairs to her cramped third story studio apartment, Sandra felt a giddy excitement building in her middle. Brandon had taken her, for a precious hour or so, away from the worries and stresses of regular life. Why couldn’t she pretend that, tonight, her life was a fairy tale?
As she fished her keys out of her purse and unlocked her door, she found herself hoping to see Brandon again. He’d said it would happen himself. A rich, intriguing, and infinitely seductive guy could be just what I need right now. Forget the rich, even—that didn’t matter much. He was handsome and had an air of mystery about him that promised to sweep her up and make her forget all her problems. Brandon, it seemed, evoked feelings in her that she hadn’t expected to find for a long time—especially not in Ocean Shores.
The door opened, and Sandra was jerked unceremoniously back to reality.
A streetlight shone through her tiny window, casting a sad, pale glow over the sparse furnishings of her room. The tiny fridge at the foot of her bed had leaked, again. The ice in the freezer had melted and the puddle of water had made a pond of half the room.
Sandra sank against the wall. The jarring contrast to the opulent night with Brandon was almost, almost enough to make her cry. Instead—as always—she forced herself up, picked her way to the bathroom, and laid down a towel she’d kept there for exactly that purpose. Then, after kicking off her shoes, she collapsed on her bed and closed her eyes.
The nightmare came again.
It was the same every time: dark bodies, poisonous odors, and terrible, frightening sounds. False hope bloomed in her chest when she saw her sister running into the far room. Overwhelming despair built when she couldn’t open the door. Then came that horrible sense of loss, disbelief, and utter finality when the house exploded in flames.
Sandra lurched upright, heart racing, blankets twisted around her legs. She could still see the roaring flames in her mind’s eye. She could still feel the hopeless emptiness as she understood that her sister was lost in the fire forever.
Tenuous rays of sunlight crept in through the single window of her apartment, lulling her slowly back to reality.
It was just a dream.
The thought was calming. Sandra felt at the mattress with one hand, and exhaled a relieved sigh. At least this morning, the sheets weren’t drenched with sweat.
The thin light from outside meant she’d managed a few hours of sleep. Even though she didn’t have work today, and could afford to sleep in, Sandra didn’t want to take the pills again. She pushed herself out of bed and walked to the window.
A depressing view greeted her. An old brick wall of an abandoned warehouse, less than ten feet away, was separated from her by a grimy alleyway. The only thing missing was the stereotypical dumpster beneath her window. For that, at least, she was grateful. She’d learned to ignore the scenery as best she could over the last two years.
Sandra glanced at the soaked towel by her fridge. With one foot, she pushed it along the floor to sop up the remaining puddles of water. The meager amount of food in the fridge would probably spoil by the evening. That was fine. Sandra didn’t eat much.
She cast an eye about the rest of her apartment. A single twin bed, the same type she’d slept on at home and smaller than the one she’d had in college, was pitched against one wall. A little night stand with her container of pills stood beside it, along with a pitiful looking lamp. The fridge by the window—busted, again—reached no higher than her waist. There was a slab of wood built into one of the corners of the room that served as a desk, with a hard stool beside it that she’d salvaged from the curb a few weeks after moving in.
There were three doors in her room: one led to the hallway, one to the bathroom, and one to the closet. The closet was more than pathetic. She could reach in and touch the back with half her forearm still sticking out. Clothes hangers didn’t even fit, and had to be turned to the side if she wanted to close the door.
With her salary, however, it was a miracle she could afford the place. The majority of her paycheck went to her student loans, which the bank had begun hounding her for immediately upon graduation.
Sandra started for the bathroom—and stopped. Once she was awake, her thoughts seldom turned to the nightmare—why would they, if nothing ever changed?—but for a brief sliver of a moment, Sandra felt an inkling that something about the dream had been different this time.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember. Everything started the same way it always had: her running into the scary house, her being frightened by the bodies. Her crawling on the sticky floor toward her sister. Her pleading for Chloe at the door; then the loud bang, then all the screaming, and then her being grabbed and rushed out by somebody she didn’t know—
Wait. Sandra’s eyes popped open in surprise. For a fleeting moment, she thought she’d dreamed about the man who’d carried her out and set her down safely. He’d looked at her. She’d never dreamed that before! She closed her eyes again, focusing on the last wisps of the dream… but it was already fading from memory.
She shook her head, dismissing the change. It was probably fictitious, anyway—something her mind had thrown into the mix just to torture her even more.
Unfortunately, stopping to consider the dream—for the first time in a long time—caused all the associated memories to come flooding back.
Sandra shuddered as she remembered the terrible first weeks after the fire. She’d woken up screaming for her sister each night. She’d loved Chloe so much, and couldn’t believe that the person she’d always relied on as a friend, a family member, an ever-constant companion, a sibling—was gone. Sometimes, Sandra used to wake up thinking the nightmare was just fantasy, and that her sister was sound asleep on the bunk below.
Those times had been the worst. Sandra could still remember how hard she’d start crying when the realization hit that Chloe was truly gone.
For weeks, Sandra had been unable to tell anyone what she’d seen inside the house. The pain was too fresh, too raw. She’d clamped down and kept her feelings locked inside. The barrage of questions that had been thrown at her that first week—from policemen, from detectives, from all types of authorities—was all met with a withdrawn silence.
Her parents were the only ones who didn’t pressure her to say anything. They understood her pain. But, they also saw the way she had trouble sleeping. They heard her screams. When the screaming continued for weeks on end, they gently convinced her to come with them to see a psychologist. It took three different doctors for them to find one Sandra could trust. Only then did Sandra reveal what she’d seen inside the house.
Sandra still remembered the look of shock on her parents’ faces when they heard her tale in the doctor’s office. For a long time, their reaction didn’t make any sense. What could be so shocking about what Sandra had told them? That question was forgotten as the caring doctor helped Sandra get over her screaming fits in just two more sessions.
Yet afterwards, the question continued returning to her young mind, together with one more: If Chloe had heard the explosion, had heard the stampede to the door… why hadn’t she run out with everybody else?
It was only years later that Sandra found the courage to look back on official reports and newspaper articles to try to find the answer. By then, she’d been in her teens—old enough to understand more about the world. What she found explained all her questions and revealed her sister in a whole new light.
Chloe had had a dark side. Official reports said that eight bodies had been found in the wreckage. Two were in what remained of the bathroom—along with various drug-related paraphernalia that survived the fire.
The implication was so horrible, Sandra didn’t want to believe it at first… but it was right there, staring her in the face. Her sister had gone to the bathroom to do drugs. She’d used too much, and had been unable to get out. Maybe she even passed out. That was why Chloe couldn’t—didn’t—get out.
That little fact explained the shocked look on he
r parents’ faces. They understood, that day in the psychologist’s office, that one of those two bodies in the bathroom had belonged to their daughter.
Sandra suspected that her parents did not tell her the truth because they’d been trying to shield her from it—trying to preserve Sandra’s innocent childhood memories of her sister.
While Sandra understood her parents’ perspective, she sometimes wished that they had tried to explain things to her earlier. That way, Sandra wouldn’t have lived for so many years thinking her sister’s death had been her fault.
The survivor guilt tore at her day-in and day-out long after her nighttime screaming stopped. In fact, Sandra had lived most of her childhood after the fire with that shadow of guilt hanging over her mind. It was reinforced every time the nightmare made her confront her failure to save her sister. Only when she understood Chloe’s secret, and realized that she couldn’t have saved her sister, did that guilt fade away.
Of course, Sandra couldn’t blame her parents too deeply—or at all. She hid her own secrets from them. After the psychologist helped the screaming fits go away, Sandra smiled and told her parents the nightmares stopped as well.
That had been a lie. The nightmares continued every single night. But the nine-year-old Sandra had been determined to look strong in the face of adversity—particularly in the eyes of her parents. When Sandra understood Chloe’s secret, it dispelled most of her guilt. Then, the nightmares stopped coming every night. However, that was the extent of their abatement.
When Sandra entered high school, the nightmares and guilt still heavy on her mind each morning, she set out to become the woman her sister had wanted to be. Maybe Sandra hoped that Chloe could live vicariously through her if she did it. More importantly, Sandra wanted to honor her sister’s memory.
Before the fire, Chloe’s life had seemed perfect. She’d been brilliant, getting straight A’s on every report card since elementary school; she’d been beautiful, with luxurious, raven hair and a perfect complexion; and, of course, she’d been caring—the most empathetic, loving sibling and daughter anyone could ask for.
Chloe had dreamed of being a doctor. So, Sandra decided to set out on that path on her own. Her freshman year in high school, she doubled down and improved her grades, then worked hard all the way to graduation to get into a good private college. There, she’d done all the extra-curricular activities the medical schools liked to see. She’d gotten immaculate recommendations, and even graduated at the top of her class. She’d done it all just to be like Chloe. She wanted to do it, of course, but she’d always held out a sliver of hope that living the life her sister desired might help banish the dreams.
That hadn’t worked.
Sandra sighed as the memories began to run their course, looking over the neglected pile of envelopes on her corner desk. Most were unopened, but she knew what they were: admission letters from medical schools all over the country. She’d received them in her last year of college—the final triumph. Yet, even with letters in hand, the dreams kept coming. At that point Sandra had decided to take a step back to reevaluate her life.
When Henry had proposed to her, she agreed to put her graduate school education on hold for eighteen months. Just like she’d told Brandon, Sandra had hoped that with her newfound free time, she could stumble on some other way to break free from the nightmares.
But that had been a mistake. In fact, living in Dallas was the only time in her life that the nightmares became worse.
The move to the new city seemed great in the beginning. The freedom of not having schoolwork was exhilarating. But it had been a false freedom.
Henry changed after the first few months in Dallas. Sandra hadn’t shared that part with Brandon last night. When they’d been in school together, Henry had always made time for her. But in Dallas, he became closed off. He stopped being available for serious discussions, and avoided all-but-the-most-banal conversations. He started treating Sandra as just another pretty thing he possessed—as a way to fulfill his ambitions. Sandra’s feelings became unnecessary obstructions to his career, and she’d been forced to keep everything to herself, again.
Even worse, in Dallas, Henry revealed a side Sandra never knew. He became cold and pragmatic, dismissing anything to do with feelings and emotions as silly frivolities. His world was the material world of possessions. Nothing else seemed worthy of his attention.
As those months in Dallas passed, Sandra had begun to loathe her life. The frequency of her nightmares increased and increased, until, in the final month leading up to the anniversary, she saw the burning terror every night. Maybe it had been her psyche’s way of telling her things were going in the wrong direction. She’d wake up panting, heart racing, barely able to suppress unbidden screams… but Henry had never noticed. He’d stopped paying attention to her long before.
So she had to leave him. And she did. It had been the best choice she’d ever made.
But Sandra didn’t just leave Henry. She left everything.
On the one-year anniversary of his proposal, she’d told him how she felt, and then run. She’d run from the life she’d built up for herself, run from Henry, and run from all her previous achievements and accumulated possessions
She needed time to find herself. For that, she forced herself to forego contact with her parents. It had been heartbreaking… but necessary. She had to be on her own, removed from her old surroundings. Still, she’d sent them a postcard every few months to let them know she was alive and well—but made sure it came from an unmarked address.
She didn’t want them tracking her. Because no matter how hard it was on them, it was no easier for Sandra. And she’d been afraid if they found out where she lived, she’d give in and lose her resolve to find herself.
Cutting off relations with her parents and the breakdown of her relationship with Henry were the main reason she’d been so hesitant to let anybody into her life while in Oceans Shores. She wanted to solve her problems by herself, first. After leaving Dallas, she’d wandered from town to town, picking up temporary jobs to pay for gas and food. She’d slept in her car most nights, showered at local YWCAs or women’s centers. The only thing she’d kept from her old life was that stack of admission letters, tempting her with the promise of a better life. A life led in the shadow of her sister’s life.
That was how Sandra ended up in Ocean Shores, Washington. Her car had broken down as she was driving through, and it seemed as good a place as any to settle temporarily. She’d hoped that maybe if she could get as far away from her old home in Chicago as possible—get to the very edge of the continent on the West Coast—it would help with the dreams.
She’d been right—to a degree. The nightmares still came, of course, but not as frequently as with Henry. So, she was still looking, still searching for some way to be rid of them forever. Even though Sandra had learned to lessen their impact on her day-to-day life, one part of the nightmare still managed to trigger a very emotional, very visceral response in her: her rescue in the hands of that stranger.
Every time the nightmare came, some last remaining trace of guilt was spurred by the unknown stranger grabbing her and rushing her out of the house. It didn’t matter that Sandra knew the guilt was irrational, didn’t matter how hard she tried to reason against it. Hell, it didn’t even matter how far removed she was from the event anymore. Being taken away from the imposing door always woke that mortifying sense of shame and responsibility.
At nine, and still battling the screaming fits, Sandra had hated that man for sparing her life. Back then, she thought it would have been truly better if she’d perished in the fire along with her sister, instead of living in a barely-functional, lonely existence with the guilt of survival. Although she’d long since overcome that dangerous mindset, she still couldn’t stop herself from hating the man. She knew she shouldn’t, knew that she should be thankful for his saving her… but all her emotions told her otherwise. It was one dark cloud she still needed to clear from her mind.
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Sandra picked up a clean towel from beside her bed and started for the bathroom. While the frugality she lived with now wasn’t exactly easy, it was her own choice. Working as a receptionist, renting a ramshackle apartment… it wasn’t ideal, but it was the simplest existence she’d ever known.
It was all she wanted for herself right now. At least, until she figured out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
That was why she’d stayed put for two years, avoiding most relationships and any resulting emotions. It gave her a chance to breathe. Maybe it didn’t make the dreams go away, but Sandra thought that her solitary lifestyle might give her the best shot at figuring out what would.
She spotted the shoes she’d kicked off last night and gave a bitter laugh. Had she really called the night magical? Amazing? The champagne must have warped her perception. She couldn’t even be sure if Brandon liked her, not after the strange way he’d said good-bye.
She had to remember to clamp down and not be so free with her emotions if she ever saw him again. And not act like some stupid puppy that was let out after being stuck in a closet for a week.
Sandra undressed and stepped into the dribbling stream of icy water from her shower. The cold always woke her up. Maybe it would numb her senses enough to make her forget all the pain that accompanied today’s recollection.
Chapter Seven
The rest of the week passed without a word from Brandon.
And if Sandra felt a tiny flair of disappointment when Monday morning hit, well, it was her own fault for making up wild narratives that didn’t exist.
She dressed in her drab receptionist’s outfit, another episode of the nightmare fresh on her mind, and left for work. Cassie was too busy with an unexpected surge of customers to chat for long, and Josh didn’t say much aside from a quick, “How’s it going?”
Monday passed quickly at the office, with lots of appointments scheduled for the doctor. Sandra reminded him again of his upcoming anniversary with Mrs. Baker. He laughed and told her if he forgot his wife would have his ears, and then asked about what had happened with the young man she went out with on Friday. She told him, “Nothing.”
Yours to Savor Page 7
