I wake up with a jerk.

“Damn it!” I growl. My eyes go to the clock that tells me it’s midnight. I don’t need this tonight.

My body is covered in sweat, and I feel yucky. The covers are pulled up off the bed and wrapped around me so much that it takes me several minutes just to get loose of them. I push my hair away from my face, it’s so wet it goes back easily.

These dreams are killing me. They’re not of my new neighbor, and as much as those have been making me want to scream—for a different reason—I’d prefer them to these.

What I just had wasn’t a dream… It was a nightmare.

That’s not exactly right. It was memories. Memories of a past I left behind and memories of a life I hated.

A life I escaped.

My cell vibrates against my nightstand causing it to slap against the wood and I jump before I can stop myself. My heart seems to freeze in my throat. I look at the number and it doesn’t look familiar. I start not to answer, but I’m still alive because I face things head on. I can’t stick my head in the sand—not about my past. I have to stay alert.

“Hello?”

“Can’t sleep?”

Noah’s deep voice comes across the line and I feel hot and flushed for another reason.

“I could probably sleep if someone wasn’t calling at midnight,” I grumble, flipping on the bedside lamp because the shadows in the room hide monsters—I’ve learned that the hard way.

“Liar. I heard you moving around.”

“How did you get my number, anyway? And what do you mean you heard me?”

“In my line of work, it’s pretty easy to track down cell numbers, Cupcake. In answer to your second question, the walls between our rooms are paper thin, haven’t you noticed?” he asks.

“What kind of work do you do?” I ask, wondering if he’s a cop or something. He doesn’t seem like it and he’s always home. I just figured he worked from home. He’s grouchy so it made sense he’d be one of those annoying bill collectors—though as hot as he looks it didn’t exactly fit with my imagination.

“You don’t want to know that,” he says.

“I think I do,” I retort and his silence is his answer. Maybe he’s an undercover Fed or something. “Whatever,” I huff when it becomes clear he’s not going to answer. “You’re lying about hearing me, though. I never hear you when I’m in here. If the walls were really that thin, I would have before now,” I grumble, praying I’m right.

“Don’t do much in here except sleep, Cupcake. Not much to hear. What was your nightmare about?”

“Oh God, you really can hear me,” I whisper, immediately feeling shame move over me, because I know what he probably heard.

“Every delicious drop.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, holding my mouth away from the phone.

“I know what’s going through your mind, Rory.”

“I doubt that.”

“I do and we’ll discuss it later. For now, tell me about your nightmare.”

“Why would I tell you about my nightmare?”

“Because I’m here to listen,” he says easily.

I stare up at the ceiling and I try to process everything, but I’m too tired and way too emotionally spent.

“I’m going to go,” I finally tell him. I’m too on edge to keep my head in a conversation with my irritating neighbor.

“Talk to me, Gorgeous. It’s the only way to get rid of old demons.”

“How do you know it’s about old demons?” I ask him, not really bothering to deny it.

“Because I have them too. We all do in some form or another.”

“Does talking about them help get rid of yours?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“I have way too many for it to work,” he tells me, his voice void of any emotion.

“Maybe I do too,” I whisper into the phone, my hand tightening on it in reflex.

“Never know until you try.”

“You realize the fact that we don’t like each other makes it hard to talk to you.”

“I think you really like me and I feel the same so—”

“I don’t—”

“Remember I hear you in your bedroom, Rory.”

“I don’t—”

“I hear everything.”

“I hate you,” I mutter and my breath stalls when I hear Noah laugh.

It’s quiet, but it’s full and with his voice low like it has been… it’s sexy. It causes me to feel flushed and I find myself smiling. Considering where my thoughts have been since I woke up, that’s a miracle.

“Tell me about Tony.”

“Who?” I ask and I wince as I hear the panic in my voice. That warm feeling I had at hearing Noah’s laughter is completely gone now. In its place, is this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I look around the room waiting for him to jump out from the dark.

“You were screaming his name and not in the ways that I plan on making you scream. So, tell me, Rory. Who is Tony?”

I sigh. I don’t know why I do, but I decide to tell him. Maybe he’s right and it will help.

“Tony is an asshole.”

“Did you call him F.A. too?” Diesel murmurs and if I wasn’t lost in my past I know I’d smile.

That’s impossible right now, however.

“No, he was a different kind of an asshole.”

“I’m listening,” he says. I stop for a second. I guess I thought he’d say something to piss me off, but he’s listening and he seems to understand this is hard for me. I don’t know why that should make me feel better—but it does.

“He wasn’t cocky. Tony was something else. He was cold. Things were his way and if they weren’t he’d make them his way.”

“Make them how?”

“Any means necessary,” I tell him, using one of Tony’s favorite sayings.

“He hurt you.”

“Yeah,” I confirm, closing my eyes as the shame hits me.

“He hit you?”

“Oh, yeah,” I answer, and this time I do laugh—only there’s no joy in my laughter. It’s full of the dark bile that lives inside of me.

“Fuck,” Noah whispers and for some strange reason, I get the feeling that my answer bothers him. I’m not stupid enough to think he truly cares, but he’s bothered by it. Up until now, no one has much cared. Wasn’t it my own brother who told me that I needed to fall into line?

God, I hate my brother.

“It’s not the hitting that sticks with you, you know,” I whisper to him, my voice sounding dead even to my own ears.

“It’s not?”

“It’s the verbal blows that really hit the target. You can hit someone, but the bruises fade, the memories begin to distort the past over time and you allow yourself to forget—at least a little, but words… they open holes inside of you and they turn to poison, Noah. Poison that can destroy you from the inside out.”

“How long were you with him?” he asks, his voice sounding more intense now.

“Too damn long.”

“Why?” he asks and if he only knew how many times I asked myself that exact question. I could tell him everything, but I’m not proud of the person I was back then, so I don’t. Instead, I give him the truth—at least a portion of it.

“I had to find myself again.”

“Glad you found yourself, Rory,” he says.

“Me too,” I tell him, but I don’t tell him that there are times when I feel like I’m still lost.

“You think you can sleep now?”

“I’m not sure,” I answer.

“Then tell me something else,” he replies and I frown.

“Like what?”

“Give me your favorite memory, one Tony doesn’t live in.”

“Why?”

“Because if you remember good, when you go to sleep, the good will follow you.”

“Is this a proven fact?” I ask and oddly enough I do it smiling.

“Try it,” he dares me.

I have very few good memories, but there are a few I keep buried. I probably shouldn’t, but for some reason, I curl into my covers and I tell Noah about my grandmother. I tell him about living with her, making cookies with her and the way she used to brush my hair at night and tell me stories—beautiful stories that make me smile and just telling Noah about them helps me remember what it felt like to be cared for.

I fall asleep telling Noah about those stories, clutching the phone in my hand, holding it close to my ear and smiling…