Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2016 15:15:06 GMT
Everyone has their demons. Even the happiest of people have things that haunt their dreams at night and Samantha Rose Myers was no exception.
***
She tossed and turned. The scene was horrendous. Blood was prevalent. It was all over the body of the man she knew as her father. A large gash in his neck from a piece of the windshield. Her mother, lay broken on the ground outside the car. It's hard to say if this was from memory or simply her imagination. The car wreck that had killed her parents had happened so long ago.
The car door opened and Sammi remembers the cold blue of the woman's eyes.
“It's okay Rosalyn. I found you. I'm going to take care of you. These people stole you from me and now Mama made them pay for it.”
Sammi's hearing returned to normal and the sound of her mother screaming and fire truck sirens were all she could hear. The woman was bleeding from her head. Sammi desperately fought the woman.
Within minutes Firefighters were dragging the woman back and another cut the seat belt holding Sammi hostage in the car. An ambulance arrives and immediately checks on her. Upon looking at her father they check for a pulse but it's obvious he was dead right away.
“My little girl...” The woman screams as she's restrained in the back of a police car. The firefighter brings her to her mother, unable to walk or do much.
Sammi's voice seems dubbed, her three-year-old & twenty-one-year-old voices overlapping as she cries out.
“Mommy! Mommy the ambu.. ambu... the doctors will fix you.”
Sammi curls into her mother, despite the gore of her, bloodied clothes or the fact that Emilia Jackson was missing a leg from the knee down. Emilia knows, though. As a nurse, she knew that she was on borrowed time.
“I love you, my sweet girl.”
Sammi's duel voices cry and in both the dream and in real life strong arms wrap around her tightly. She sobs violently as her eyes open to reality and the arms she's in are not those of the firefighter that tried to help but of her trainer and friend, Matt Reece.
He holds her tightly as the tears soak the front of his tight t-shirt.
“It's okay Sam, it's the nightmare again, isn't it?”
Sammi can only nod. It seemed to be a trend, at least a few times since staying with Matt she had woken up like this. Her sobbing over the nightmare of her parent's death but when Matt asked her to tell him details, she could never remember them, but the familiar feel of the dream had her waking with the distinctness of Deja vu.
He only holds her tightly in an intimate embrace as a response, one large hand on the small of her back, the other lightly holding the back of her head. After a few minutes she looks up at him and Matt moves in to steal a kiss from her trembling lips. She goes stiff, pushing at his chest to get some distance.
“I’m sorry...” He sits up in her bed as she takes it one step further, getting to her feet and crossing her arms over her chest. A chest that Sammi often felt was too large and cumbersome for the sport she decided to pursue.
“Matt.” She sighs, moving one hand to wipe away a lingering tear from her cheek. “You know that I appreciate everything you've done for me. Appreciate your friendship and your kindness but this...”
She quickly moves a hand between the pair rapidly.
“I can't help but feel like the only reason you're making advances is because of Zach.”
Matt doesn't hide his reaction, in fact, the remorse in his eyes gives it all away.
“That's partially true Sam. But if you think me caring about you and my attraction are sudden, that's not the truth. The truth is, I wanted to do more but I was afraid of damaging you, you're so fucking innocent and I just couldn't stand to be the one to disappoint you if it didn't work out, but then Zach Knight with his cocky arrogance just moves right in and I knew I could be better than him. You deserve better than that for your first real relationship.”
Sammi's lip quivers
“But I gave you the opportunity. Back in September at your birthday lunch. I asked you and you said I wasn't your type.”
He nods
“You aren't, I am quick to fall for the type of girl that is your complete opposite but everything about you is endearing and sweet. Was I reading your signals wrong? Did you not really have a thing for me?”
She sits on the bed now.
“No... I did.”
Her voice is softer, almost defeated
“Did? As in don't anymore?” He asks, lifting her chin so that her brown, red-rimmed eyes, are looking directly into his ocean blue ones.
“I made myself start to get over you, then you asked me on a real date and I was excited but after you kissed me, it just didn't have that spark that I feel with Zach. I don't want to hurt you Matt, but I owe it to you, to be honest.”
He nods. “Just... Let me try one thing and if you still don't get that feeling then I’ll back off.”
Sammi nods. Still holding her chin, he descends on her lips again. It heats up a little but the spark Sammi got, the butterflies that took flight in her stomach when doing the same with Zach just weren't the same. She knows she has to be the one to pull back first. Matt watches her face and waits but it's obvious he knows the answer.
“I’m sorry Matt.”
He nods, standing.
“I can go and stay with Chelly. I don't want...”
He interrupts her. “No, no. I want you to stay. I'm leaving in a few days for Toronto anyway. You are welcome to use the condo for as long as you need.”
He moves towards the bedroom door, but stops, his hand on the handle.
“Just know that if he hurts you, Sam... I will break him into a million fucking pieces. I mean that.”
He pulls the door open, walking out and pulling the door softly closed behind him. Sammi sighs deeply. He had lied to her a month ago and tonight she had done the same to him. It was true that she felt more of a connection to Zach on many levels but she felt just as many butterflies with Matt kissing her as she did with Zach, but she worried she wasn't going to be enough for Matt and indeed she would end up with a broken heart. Whoever managed to tie Matt down would have to be a very special girl.
***
Matt doesn't stop on the other side of the door. He goes right to his study and picks up his phone. Although it's the middle of the night he scrolls through his list stopping on a name he knows well and opens a text.
‘Hey Vic, you up for a night cap? I’ve missed your beautiful face’
He presses send. He gets a response in seconds. Victoria Davenport was actually the last woman he wanted to see but right now, it was better than drinking himself stupid.
***
