37 The Chase

I pulled my hands out of his quickly. Why did my heart race when he held my hand? Were these palpitations or was it because of him? What was wrong with me? Why was I feeling like this? I yanked my hand out of his and cleared my throat.

"Alright, I kept my word, now you do the same. How did you know my card?"

"I peeked at which card you picked while I was shuffling."

"You what? You rat bastard! That's cheating!"

"All is fair in love and war?"

"All is fair you say? Alright come here and I'll show you what's fair in love and war."

I stood up and started stalking towards him planning on swatting him. Sensing my intent, he scrambled to his feet and walked backwards as he tried to talk me down.

"Now hold on. You said that you wanted to know how I did the magic trick and I told you. I did nothing wrong."

"That was cheating."

"Was not." He turned around for a second and I used the opportunity to come at him. Right as I'm about to swat his bicep, he suddenly grabbed my wrist. Damn he's fast.

"Now that I think about it …"

Uh oh.

"Why am I running from you? After all, I am bigger than you and I am stronger than you."

Shoot he realized that he has the advantage.

He shrank down to look at me at eye level. With a playful smirk on his lips, he looked like a panther getting ready to play with it's prey. I weighed my options and thought of how to get out of his grasp. Now that I thought about it he's a really good looking guy. In fact he's just my type. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm damaged goods I might even give myself the hope that he liked me. Moving fast, I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down to me. I leaned in close as if I'm about to kiss him. He closed his eyes waiting for it to come, but at the last second I changed course. Breathily, I whispered in his ear.

"All is fair in love and war, right?"

Before he could realize what I'm doing, I yanked my wrist off of his hand and ran away. Turning so I jogged backwards, I decided to taunt him.

"You thought!"

Before I could blink, he gave chase. We laughed as he chased me around the beach. He's definitely more athletic than me and was catching up quickly. Not paying attention to my footing while I watched him chase me, my foot sinked too deep into the sand. Panicking, I reached out to him and grabbed his hand to stop the fall. He's not prepared and fell on top of me. Our noses touch, we're so close to one another. The christmas lights on the palm trees and volleyball nets illuminate his face. His rock hard body on top of mine. He's large everywhere including his. Oh my.

Looking at those christmas lights in Amethyst's office brings a nostalgic smile to my face. Remembering I'm still in therapy, I stop thinking of Alexi and focus on the task at hand.

"When I think of Alexi, I feel a lot of feelings. Nostalgia, joy, sadness, longing, and confusion."

"It makes sense that you feel so confused when your feelings are so conflicted."

"I miss him. I really do, but after what he did I don't know if I can trust him. Or even forgive him for that matter. What he did. It really hurt. He doesn't even know what he did wrong. And you would think that that's the worst part, but it's not. The worst part is, I think he still cares for me and I think I still care for him. And that scares me. I'm not sure I one hundred percent trust anyone anymore. Not after what happened to me. I tried with Alexi, I really did but in the end he just proved me right. It's safer to trust no one. I'm sorry, can we talk about something else?"

"Sure. What would you like to talk about?"

"My nightmares. I thought they were gone but they're back."

"Damn, I was really hoping they were gone. What happened in these nightmares?"

"Well in one, I was in a dark labyrinth like hallway being chased and he caught me?"

"Who caught you?"

"A monster."

"That sounds like it's related to your PTSD."

"I think so too. The meaning of the dream was pretty easy to understand. My other nightmare was just as terrifying, but I don't understand what it means."

"Do you want to tell me what happened in this dream?

"I was driving down the mountain and there was this man who looked insane. He had this crazy look in his eyes. He was so angry and full of rage. In his hand he had this bat that had nails driven through it, like he had planned this out or something. He stepped into the road and looked me in the eye. I remember him looking me in the eye and knowing that this man was going to kill me. I tried to stop the car, but I was going too fast for the brakes to work and he chucked the bat at my head and through the windshield."

"These are both terrifying dreams. What do you think the second one means?"

"I'm not sure. The two things that really stood out to me was how crazy he was and the bat he had. He drove nails through it. Like he took time to create this weapon. He really wanted to cause me pain when he tried to kill me."

"I can't tell you what your dreams mean since it's your mind that makes the dream. But when we can't work on things during the day because it strains our minds too much, our brain works on them at night during our dreams. It sounds like there's a few things that are unresolved in your life that your brain is trying to work on at night. Can you think of anything that those might be?"