She landed in a something and started sinking. Yanking a hand out of the mess, she held it to her face- it was blood. There was blood on her, and around her, and under her. It was coming from the ground, and from the skies above, and from her hands. She found herself sobbing silently, as always, staring up at the clouds. And there again, the figure was standing on the horizon, waving. She could never quite make her out, but she always knew it was her, disappearing in the rain.
And then she would try to stand up again, but find herself sinking in the sea of red and black. She would try to shout again and again, feeling air painfully rushing through her lungs without making a sound. Just when it seemed all hope was lost, she managed a scream- she always did- and abruptly sat up in bed.
The room was silent, and dark. Silent, but for Stanley's gentle snoring. She took one shuddering breath after another, feeling her pulse beat achingly through her entire body. There were tears on her face, she could tell, just as every time this happened. The window was open, and a soft breeze billowed the curtains. She couldn't stop shaking.
She glanced down at Stanley's still form. His head was lolling back, an awkward angle from the pillow. His mouth was open, and she could see he was drooling slightly. He didn't look completely peaceful, though he slept on. His brow was furrowed.
She wanted, so badly, to lie down against him, lean her head against his chest, and pull his arms around her. But, just as she did every time, she forced herself to get up from the bed instead. She carefully crossed the cool floor and went over to the window. The breeze hit her face directly and she felt ice where the tears had travelled down her cheeks. She leaned her arms on the sill, staring out at the night, trying to slow her breathing.
Stanley couldn't know. Not after everything he had done just to be sleeping soundly in his bed right now. She would have to take care of this herself, just as she'd done those first nights in the Med. Center, and every night since. She tried to focus, staring outside at what she imagined was the truck in the yard. It was really too dark to see. She shut her eyes.
She opened them again quickly. It had all come back, in a flash. Not a surprise, it felt like it was never really gone, just flitting around in her peripheral vision. She instead tried another trick that used to work for her- calculating prime numbers in her head. She could barely make it past nine-hundred-ninety-seven tonight, however. The numbers spun in her brain, agitating her more. Instead of finding stillness, she felt the tremors in her arms and legs grow worse. She glanced desperately around the room. There was nothing to do in here- she couldn't sit in the armchair, she couldn't crawl back under the sheets, she couldn't lean against the closet door. She took one last look at Stanley, whose back was now to her as he had rolled onto his side, and quickly ran out of the room.
The hall was darker than the room had been, with no outside light during the day or after the moon rose. The soles of her feet pressed against the cold of the wooden floor as she stepped down the stairs. Taking a quick breath and trying not to picture it in her head, she ran through the kitchen, past the dark hole she knew was the pantry, and out the back door.
She let her bare feet lead her across the porch. She went right past the chair, knowing she couldn't let her body, shaking with electricity, sink into it. She wasn't aware of what she was doing. Was she going to keep walking, through the grass, the dirt, the fields? To where? She didn't know, and she didn't have control anyway.
Her feet stopped at the edge of the porch. She found herself gripping the post with her arms, finally steadying them. She held her entire body straight against the wooden column, afraid if she let go it would spasm out of control again. She expelled a breath she must have been holding.
They had said it would be like this. People had warned her. Some of them had thought they were both insane. She was sure Kenchy would have committed her, if she hadn't pleaded with him. The ones who had understood had done whatever they could to help. They had put them up in their own homes as long as they could keep them from here, shared stories they'd obviously meant as encouragement, donated food, and even clothes. She knew that they'd spent days cleaning up the house- trying to erase what had happened from the floors and the walls. There was new glass on the window, and someone had painstakingly re-papered the living room, in between survival training and feverish town hall meetings. Wasting their time and resources, because it would never be erased.
During the daylight, she was adamant that this was what she wanted. They both were. Not that it hadn't taken them some time to come to this decision. She had spent many sleepless nights in that big house in the Pines. She hadn't liked the days there either. She'd wanted to come back here, but she hadn't thought he would. He'd surprised her when he finally brought it up, one night as they sat in Emily's impeccably decorated living room. She should have known. Ravenwood couldn't keep either of the Richmonds away from their house the first time.
They had announced their intentions, the cleanup crew had volunteered, and now they were once again under the roof his grandfather had built. During the day, she was proud. She could sit on the porch, put her clothes away in the bedroom, even eat at the table. It was these nights, though. She wasn't sure if she would survive them in the long term.
Just as her breathing seemed to show signs of slowing, she was startled by his shouting.
“Mimi! MIMI!”
She considered calling, but as in her dreams, couldn't find her voice. She could hear his thunderous steps coming closer. He flung open the door, barreling outside with a wild expression on his face. He searched around, a crazed look in his eyes, and it took him a few moments to notice her standing still against the post.
He stood there, staring at her, in his faded and badly stretched Jericho High gym t-shirt and boxers. His hair stuck up all around his head and his hands were in fists at his sides. She looked him up and down- and started laughing.
He stared with a slowly intensifying scowl, and she laughed louder and more hysterically. She didn't know why- it was hardly appropriate and she could see him glaring- but it was just as hard to stop as the tremors had been.
“You think something's funny?” he asked in a quiet, hard voice.
“No,” she said weakly through giggles. They didn't even sound like her.
“God, Mimi, I woke up and you weren't there, and I just-” he was puffing now, unable to put the words together.
The laughing was getting dangerous now, turning into something else. She shook her head rapidly, blinking furiously, “No, no, it's not, it's-” She felt the sounds changing. A terrible sound she hated. The breaths she let out were sobs. She clung tightly to the post again. “Sorry,” she finally managed. “I didn't- didn't want to worry you.”
Stanley shook his head, with the softer expression she knew was his look of feigned annoyance. “Good chance of that happening.”
She laughed now, a small sarcastic laugh, wiping at her face. She turned her head. They weren't looking at each other, but across the yard.
“Nice night,” he said.
She stared ahead. “I was dreaming.”
He crossed his arms. Shifted his bare feet on the wooden porch.
“I'm so tired Stanley,” she said distractedly. She could see him nod in the corner of her eye.
“I'm just so angry. In the daytime, I want to make everything right, but when I try to sleep, I just keep realizing how angry I am. I wish there was something I could do.” She frowned, her eyebrows knit tightly together. “Everyone I could blame is gone.”
She turned to look at him. He was giving her that look he always gave her- believing whatever she said even when she sounded crazy to herself. “You know who's always the only one left in my dreams? It's me. I'm the one who can't do it, I'm the one who can't get up.” She swallowed painfully. “He's not there. She's not there. I'm the only one there is to fight.”
He was watching her, with that look that made her want to kiss him, under everything else running through her mind this moment. He walked around her, so that he was on the other side of the post, and leaned his elbows on the railing, looking out into the night. “You know, I used to dream she was dead.”
She turned her head to look at him. It was her turn to believe what he said.
He looked down at his knuckles. “Every night after the accident- I never dreamed about the car. It was weird. I dreamt about things like going on a picnic, or taking her to the lake, or the fair. She'd run over a hill, or go down to the water, or over to the Ferris wheel, and she just wouldn't come back. I'd be running everywhere, yelling her name, and she'd never hear me. I'd never find her. I'd wake up and I'd think she was dead. I'd run into her room and there she'd be, asleep in her bed. Once I made the mistake of waking her up. I just wanted to see her open her eyes. I couldn't get her to go back to sleep all night. We had to watch all these movies about mermaids and talking cats.”
He smiled to himself. "It was hard to get her to sleep those days. We used to sit together in that rocking chair in the living room. Sometimes I think I fell asleep before she did. I'd wake up in the middle of the night with her asleep in my lap, and a pain in my neck.” He looked over at her, and she smiled. He was serious again in an instant, looking away. “I wish I dreamt about her now. It'd be better.”
She wanted to ask him, but was careful about making his shoulders hunch over even more. “Better?”
“It's not her I keep dreaming about. I could live with it, if it was just her in my dreams.” His face was set. She reached out, laying a hand on his arm. His grip on the railing loosened. She moved past the post so that she was right beside him, their hips and elbows touching.
“I'm sorry, Stanley,” she whispered.
He turned his face to her, trying to give her a grin. “Don't be, just don't make me freak out in the middle of the night. Leave a note or something.”
She chuckled softly, and for the first time, genuinely. “I'll try to remember.” She leaned against him, taking his arm in her hand as it draped across her.
“Is it too hard?” he asked. She raised an eyebrow. “This? If you're not happy here-”
“It's hard everywhere. This is where I want to be,” she said. “Unless you-”
He shook his head. She smirked. “You're always going to try to out-stubborn me, aren't you?”
He nodded. “Match you, at least.” He brushed his hand along her arm. “You have goosebumps. Why did you come out here in that?” He nodded his head at her over-sized nightshirt.
Tugging on his wrist, she leaned back to look him up and down. “Says the guy who came out here in his underwear?”
He rolled his eyes, with a grudging smile. “Want to go in?” he asked.
She paused a moment before answering. “I want to stay out here for awhile. You can go back in if you want, I don't want you to freeze because of-”
“No, I want to stay out,” he cut in. They looked at each other, at faces they knew well enough to see in the darkness. “But I'm gonna have to get a blanket,” he said with a shiver.
She laughed as he hopped towards the house and through the door- a laugh that turned into a big sigh. Now, standing on the solid wood of the porch and knowing Stanley was on the other side of the door, she let herself think back to the figure in the dream. She had never really seen it, but she was sure it wasn't John Goetz, nor was it any random face- her boss in D.C., Dr. Kenchy, Mary Bailey or Mayor Green. Why did the figure stay so far away, then? It was so infuriating.
Stanley was back, with two blankets. He dragged the heavy wooden chair over to the end of the porch, laying the scratchy yellow blanket from the upstairs closet across the seat. He held out the softer green blanket- the one she had adopted when she first moved in- and he raised his eyebrows at her. She stepped over, and wordlessly, they arranged themselves on the chair, between the two blankets. She leaned back against him, resting her head against his. They sat in the quiet of the night, neither saying anything. She listened to his breathing, and banished everything else.
She didn't dream the dream again for two days. When it came back, it was in muted colours. It still hurt, but it wasn't as sharp as before. She still struggled to speak, but this time, she stopped trying to scream. She stared through the rain, at the figure. Instead of trying to use her voice, she spoke her name in her head. Bonnie.
She felt like she could almost see her this time. Her face was coming into view. Faded, like an old photograph, but recognizable to her. And then she was there beside her. Raising her eyebrows as she always had, as if to say What's wrong with you?
She felt that she would be crying, if she were awake, but now she just looked up at her and asked, with her mind and not her voice, Why are you always so hard to see?
She smiled down at her, that way she had that always made Mimi feel silly for not seeing the obvious. Why do you always make it rain?
She woke slower, wiping her cheeks. Looking around the room, adjusting to her surroundings once more, she went through her nightly list of reasons she wanted to stay.
She turned her head to the side. Stanley still slept. She pulled herself closer to him, and pulled the sheets over both of them once more. She stared up at the ceiling, listening to him breathe.