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This is all I have come up with so far. It's a work in progress.

As I plopped down on the cold concrete of my driveway, I looked up at the moon. It was partially hidden, an endearing red sliver. I thought to myself, I wish I could sit on the moon and see life from above.

“I can take you there.” Adam said, reading my mind.

Adam and I had been dating for three months and every moment was a constant struggle between his schizophrenia and his habitual substance abuse. Sometimes, I even wondered why I bothered with him, but the simple truth was I loved that man. There was one moment in the car when I thought we would break-up. My cousin, Joe, friend Brittany, Adam and I were driving down the road listening to Bohemian Rhapsody as loud as the speakers would allow and he didn’t know the lyrics!

“How can you take me to the moon?” I asked then.

“Dreams,” is all he said back.

That was the night I began to have nightmares. They always consisted of Adam strangling me and throwing me against a wall, his eyes pitch black as he stared at me in a feral way. Every time I would wake up screaming and drenched in sweat. They had gotten worse when I found out that Adam died one cold December night; his body found in a ditch along Route 79. The coroner said he had overdosed on methamphetamine; they were still unsure how he landed in the ditch. After Adam and I had broken up I began dating a guy named Bryson. He was very sweet and we had a lot in common. The first time I spent the night at his place I had a nightmare. I had accidentally waked him up with my screaming. He almost jumped out of bed, startled.

“Are you ok!?” He exclaimed.

“Yes, I just had a nightmare.” I said, breathless from my vivid, intense dream. Bryson was sympathetic but didn’t think anything of it until it was an every night routine.

“You should go see someone about it.” He had said.

I shrugged it off until it was a whole month that I hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest. I had dark circles under my eyes and was yawning during class. After the last horrible dream I had where Adam stood in the corner of my living room rumbling in tongues. He wasn’t responding to my calling his name so I slowly approached him. He had on the same clothes he was found dead in and looked like he had been raised by wolves; sticks stuck out of his blonde shaggy hair and he had blood and dirt caked on his clothes and under his fingernails. As soon as I was standing inches from him, staring, stuck to the floor and motionless, he lunged at me and started screaming inaudibly, scratching me, punching hard, I decided it was time to make an appointment with a shrink. It was the last thing I had wanted to do but it was necessary. I was always waking Bryson up at all hours of the night and had felt terrible every time and every time he said, ‘it’s not your fault; I’m just worried about you.’ After my abusive relationship with Adam I was so lucky to have a great guy like Bryson.

The first meeting with my therapist was inconclusive, although I knew it wouldn’t be an immediate fix, I was discouraged as the nightmares kept coming night after night. The same pain inducing nightmares swept over my dreams"Adam wrapping his long lanky fingers around my throat, me struggling to release him. I had told Dr. Kaufman my dreams and she nodded, scribbling notes on her legal pad in her lap. Her legs crossed at her ankles. It annoyed me, for some reason, how neatly pressed her grey pencil skirt was. She pursed her lips at everything I said, it made me feel like I was the worst possible patient of hers and I didn’t doubt that I was, not for a single moment. I told her about my abusive past with Adam and how he had died. I didn’t want to bring up those old memories I had so long tried to force out of my mind, but it was necessary for her to help me resolve these underlying issues I had and exile these nightmares from my nightly routine. She suggested that I keep a diary of feelings every time I had a nightmare or horrifying thought of Adam. Bryson never snooped in it, he never looked over my shoulder as I wrote and he never once asked me what I wrote. He was very supportive of everything I did or wanted to do. Sometimes I felt as though most of it was pity but then I thought, why was I complaining? No one had anyone like him and they surely wished they did. But, every time he was super sweet, the more I pushed him away.

The months passed and so did the nightmares. I had finally come to terms with Adam’s death. I began to actually have good dreams of him, us lying in bed laughing together like we used to; him and I cuddling and racing each other down the beach towards the ocean. Every dream ended with him apologizing for hurting me, kissing my forehead and vanishing.

It was October 12^th, I woke up and my forehead was warm from his kiss in my dream and my lips were swollen from a heavy make out session with him. I began to think I was going crazy. How can you make out with someone in a dream? Was I making out with Bryson in my sleep? Questioning my sanity, I arrived at Dr. Kaufman’s office and began telling her what happened that night.

“I was lying in bed with him,” I began. “He brushed my hair away from my eyes as he explained how sorry he was. I didn’t want to believe him at first but his tone was too sincere.”

“So you forgave him?” She asked.

“Yes, well, sort of.”

“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying or doing anymore. I’m just really confused, do I trust him again? Do I forgive him? Can I forgive him? The biggest question I have is, how do you trust someone who is dead?”

“The fact that he’s no longer with us should not hinder your trust or forgiveness toward him. You have to forgive yourself before you can forgive him and once you have forgiven him then you can trust him. He will always have your heart even in death.”

I walked away from her office that day with a whole new outlook on the situation. I was to forgive myself for allowing Adam to treat me the way he did and then I will forgive him for all the bad things he had done to me. I could trust him, even in my dreams but could I trust myself to not fall back in love with him? My first class of the day was beginning and I was not willing to pay attention with so many things on my mind. I was allowing Adam to control my life again and that was something I promised myself I would not do. I sat back in my chair and started to write a page in my journal.

Adam,

You will not control my life again, I will not let you.

I can forgive you for all the things you have done to me in the past,

But I will never forgive myself for making you my everything.

I can never trust you with my heart again.

You are a significant gust of wind in my life and

Every day that you are gone I will always remember you.

But, you will NOT control me any longer.

 

I put my pen down and took a deep breath. I felt a burden lifted off my shoulders and I could finally enjoy my life again now that I had gotten rid of the burden of dreadful memories and austere feelings toward him.

Reviews

[Namaa Hammond]

Wow this was a profound piece, so sad yet victorious. But I think if the main character forgives it would be the best way for Adam to leave her dreams alone and perhaps it is his unfinished business-he wouldn't go on until she forgives him so he can rest in peace.

[Britney N.]

Thank you Nama!

[WizardsAffliction]

I think you should add some more space between paragraphs so it's a little easier on the eyes. It can get difficult to read with all that information bunched up together.

"It was a partially hidden red silver of a crescent." ---this line doesn't seem to flow as well. It's too polysyllabic. Maybe try shortening it or rewriting it to make it flow more like a river and less like a mudslide?

I love your prose, though. You have a strong writing voice for sure. Some of the word choice, however, doesn't seem like it fits the character, like at the end: "....that I had gotten rid of the burden of dreadful memories and austere feelings toward him."

Also: "I put my pen down and took a deep breath." ---maybe "take" instead of "took"?

"I felt a burden lifted off my shoulders..." ---maybe "lift" instead of "lifted" to keep up with the tense?

Besides all this, well done and I look forward to reading more of your work.

Hope this helps and happy trails! :D

[Britney N.]

Thank you, that really helps! I'll be sure to fix it and post more writing today :)