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Her words bounce in my head.Focus.
Such a simple word. A word that has my stomach in knots and my mind whirling. And I can focus, but I am focused on one thing.
Finding Raelyn.
Chapter Nine
RAELYN
“Areyou ever going to share what happened?” Ronnie pushes. “You can’t hide in yourself forever, and I can’t help you if you don’t ever tell me what happened.”
I stare at her, unsure of what to say. My hands twist in my lap as we sit at a table at a Denny’s on the strip. Our Everyday Value Slam sits in front of us. The smell of the pancakes and sausage instantly makes my stomach grumble in hunger.
Watching the butter melt on the fluffy stacks in front of me, I let out a long breath. “I wish I could remember. I wish I knew what happened, but I only get bits and pieces. Things seem real but dreamlike at the same time. I… I don’t even really remember myself, if that makes sense.”
She hums and nods. “Well, yes and no. Eat. While you talk, you need to eat,” Ronnie says as she bites into her scrambled eggs that she doused in ketchup.
I stab one of the sausages with my fork and slowly lift it to my mouth. Biting down, the juices explode in my mouth, and I let out a small moan when I finally swallow it down. This is a treat for us. We have been stealing things from conveniencestores to get us by, but we decided to splurge a bit this morning on breakfast.
Ronnie won’t tell me how she gets the money; she just says the money comes from side jobs. I don’t push or question it. Because right now, I’m enjoying pancakes with that money she makes.
I take a deep breath and move the scrambled eggs around my plate with my fork. “All I know for sure is when I was in that house. And even then, a lot of it is missing. He would drug me. Often. I remember waking up, feeling sore and dirty. Parts of me would hurt.” Tears start to blur my vision. “But I can’t remember who I am. Like, I have these images that flash in my mind, but I don’t know what is true and what isn’t. For fuck’s sake, I thought I got away.”
“What do you mean you thought you got away?” She frowns as she lifts her orange juice to her lips, peering at me over the rim of the glass.
“Before I woke up in the hospital, I thought I had run away. That a man ra—” I choke back on my tears and have to steady myself. “A man did horrible things to me, and that he left the door open, and I escaped. But then I woke up in a hospital, and I was told I was rescued from a fire.”
Ronnie’s mouth drops open. “Holy shit balls.”
“And it felt so real. I could feel the guy on top of me. The smell of his breath.” I gag at the memory. “I could feel the ground under my feet as I ran. But it was all a dream of some sort.”
She nods, “So, how can you know what you are seeing is truth or a hallucination?” It’s clearly a rhetorical question.
“Exactly.” I cut into the pancakes and take a small bite, savoring the buttery, fluffy food on my tongue. This pancake could be a hallucination for all I know.
“Um, are you eating pancakes without syrup?” Ronnie scrunches her face as she judges my eating habits.
“Yeah, syrup is sticky. Hard pass.” I wrinkle my nose.
“You are a strange duck.” She takes a bite of her eggs and chews for a moment. “So, you have no idea who this guy is who had you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “If I hadn’t been told I was in that fire, I would probably question if I was really there. I kinda question if the guy was real or if who I saw was real. I just don’t know. I don’t know if anything in that house was real. These images…” I trail off.
“And these images or things you see, what are they exactly? Besides the escape.”
I look around at the people sitting at their tables, talking amongst themselves. They laugh and eat as if there isn’t a worry in their world. Like evil doesn’t truly exist.
“I… I just see these black shadows. Their eyes. They are all looking at me.” I shake my head as my mind replays what it remembers of visions. “They hover over me. There’s a murmuring, but I can’t understand it. I don’t know. It all goes fuzzy.”
Ronnie stares at me, her face giving away nothing.
“What about the one you had at the shelter?” she asks.
My mind tries to replay the images from my sleep. Except I can’t remember all of it. “I remember I couldn’t move, that everything felt heavy. There was blackness, but that’s all I can remember.” I chug my water, my throat feeling dry and scratchy.
“Damn. Well, look, you need to talk to me if you get a flashback or something. Maybe I can help piece together what is going on. I don’t want you suffering alone. You aren’t alone anymore, Raelyn. You’ve got me. Which, I know you haven’t known me for too long, but I’m kinda cool and all.” She smiles at me.
“I just don’t know where I belong. I don’t know where I fit. Everything I know or think I know, I can’t even be sure is factual. It could be my head playing games with me.” I frown and take a sip of my milk.