Six years almost to the day.

The visceral memories — the musty smell, the damp heat, Daryl’s pallor skin in the moonlight — I bury them with a palmful of prescribed meds I take every morning.

I click the cabinet door closed and lower my gaze to the sink instead of the mirror. I know what to expect to see in the reflection after an hour of sleep and I don’t want to be reminded of my exhaustion.

The beige and coral-colored pills form a small pile in my hand. I dry swallow them with well-rehearsed ease. Reminiscing on the burial of my father is the base state of my stream of consciousness, a song I hate playing on never-ending repeat. The pills help turn the volume down a little.

Time has allowed me to admit to eighteen-year-old Landon being wrong about the pain in my life ending that night. It didn’t. Then again, we were naïve and too hopeful for better circumstances. I don’t blame him for believing that ridding me of my father and of himself would solve all my problems. Still, through the wickedness and darkness my father brewed I rationalize that I’d rather have endured his wrath than have to deal with my present mental state. This guilt I carry is debilitating. I seek closure I’ll never find. I wander around in limbo, my present life just one big fat consequence.

I move from my bathroom into my tiny studio that looks out off the west cliff of Baddock National Park.

Northern California. The place I now called home… Through my back door, I see the morning blanketed with a dense marine layer that blocks my usual view of the ocean, or any other view beyond the redwoods in my backyard.

“Another day in paradise, hey handsome?” I say to my landlords’ overweight black cat, Babeen. I’ve come to accept he must enjoy my company to theirs considering how much time he spends here. I appreciate the companionship. Then again, maybe he just likes being fed.

My stomach croaks emptily as it digests my medicine. Babeen mews.

“Yeah, yeah. Alright, we should eat something.”

I crack open a can of tuna for Babeen and try ease my own grumbles with a banana. It isn’t long before he’s finished and makes his way to the couch… I’ve barely taken my first bite as I follow him.

“Mind scooting over?” Babeen lazily lifts his yellow eyes to me then returns to staring out the window. “Someone’s touchy today. What’s up little buddy?”

I sidle in beside his big furry mass that takes up half of the sofa while attempting to swallow a few more bites of banana. Babeen mews again and narrows his eyes.

“Well, it is my sofa technically, y’know?” He sits up, stretches, then clumsily climbs over to sit upon my lap.

“Oh, now you want some love, huh?”

I can’t explain how helpful it is to have another presence in the house, even of the feline variety. I consider Babeen somewhat of a confidant in the matters of my life. I tell him almost everything — my boy problems to my work frustration to my deepest hopes and desires — but I still don’t mention that night… Not even to a cat.

While we rest in silence, the sound of his purring lulls me. My eyes grow heavy with the warmth of Babeen’s weight and I drift to sleep.

An abrupt creak.

I jolt violently to the sound of my front door opening. My palm presses to my heart. Babeen leaps from me, scattering away through the back door.

“It’s only me.” I spin to stare wide-eyed at the figure in the doorway. It’s Billie, my landlord slash best friend…

Of the people in my life, this amazing woman would serve as the best soundboard for my woes but I’ve already built our relationship on an unstable foundation of mistruths. The town of Baddock know me as Lucy, but I’m far from the Lucy I’ve tricked them into thinking I am. I did it to protect myself. I long to tell Billie the whole story, especially when she warms me up with a few glasses of red. I wish I could tell her that I live in a state of paranoia. About how I still wait for the police to show up on my doorstep. I want to tell her about my recurring nightmares and that I can’t sleep longer than three hours a night. I want to tell her that I’m alone in this world. I want to tell her that I’m not who she thinks I am….

And I want to tell her how hard every day is that goes by without Landon in it.

But Landon doesn’t exist in New Lucy’s world.

“Everything okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I was just having a little nap,” I say.

Billie rests the back of her hand to my forehead. “Aw, honey. What’s goin’ on? You feelin’ okay? You do look a little pale.”

I suck my teeth. My truths that I keep bottled up in me have reached a critical mass when someone pries. The secrets that I used to keep so easily are batting at their cages.

“I’ve been having a hard time sleeping.”

“Night terrors again?”

“Mm-hmm. Sleep paralysis. I lay there wanting to scream but…I can’t. And I can’t move and…yeah, I’m exhausted.”

“You sure you wanna work today then?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Billie takes one of my coats from a hook and rests it around my shoulders.

“We’ll get you better.” She squeezes me in for a hug. “Do you remember anything specific about them though? I mean, I used to be into studying the meaning of dreams and all that. I read a lot o’ books on them.” Her heavily make-up’ed face beams. Any chance Billie gets to relay her pseudo-spiritual wisdom on me is a chance she’ll take.

I smile to her. “They’re silly, B. I’m sure they mean nothing. Probably hormones or whatever messing with my mind.”

Billie sashays over to the corner of my studio that is aptly also my makeshift artist studio. The walls are littered with inspirational drawings, my own chicken-scratch sketches and paintings, and various nature-sourced relics I’ve collected from the forest floor during my hikes like pine cones, desert flowers and rodent skulls.

Billie’s fingers float over the curves of my latest oil piece that sits on my easel.

“Lucy Rivers, you talented girl, you,” she says, turning to me with eyebrows raised. “This is incredible. Dark, definitely, but incredible.”

“It’s nowhere near finished but thank you.”

“It looks stunning, baby girl.” She cups my face in her over-accessorized hands. “Though, gotta say your nightmares and producing…this? Well, I’m thinking there’s a past life of yours embedded in this one. Our bodies do that, you know? They’ve done research.”

“Oh, really?” I give a puckered smile to humor her.

“Really, really. They say trauma and fears from past lives lock into our DNA and stay with us.”

“They do, do they?”

“Look it up on your Google. Our ancestors imprinted us with their pain. Isn’t that incredible?”

“Sounds shitty to me, to be honest. Can’t that pain just die with them? And, besides, the painting doesn’t mean anything. I’m just…Drawn to darker tones right now. It’s seasonal.”

“Nightmares, or night terrors, and this kind of work being borne from someone as sweet and innocent as you just doesn’t make much sense, Lucy, y’know?” I think she’s onto me for a minute but then she gives me a hearty giggle and a toss of her over-bleached hair.

I tilt my head to examine the woman in the painting…

She was birthed in a dream of mine. She’s naked, half-bent over and reaching for a single fibre sprouting from the charcoal earth. The colors of mustard, storm grays and crimson swirl psychedelically around her disfigured body. While I stare at her, I suddenly feel she’s too revealing. There’s this lingering itch that if I let Billie analyze her too long she’ll soon know the truth— That I’m not who she thinks I am.

“We should go,” I say and push her out the door.

“Alright, alright. I can’t hold it in any longer,” Billie says. We finish our walk to The Baddock Tavern and General Store— One of only twenty businesses spread across the town. “I have a little bitty confession to make.”

“Spill.”

“Weeell,” she says, “you know that new guy at the post office?”

“Oh. With the…”

“Yes, yes. The one with the lazy eye who I made fun of the other day. Yes.”

She turns the key in the front door and we walk inside. The entire building is made of wood and slate stones which leaves the room freezing in the mornings.

“Yeah.”

“Well, over-the-hill Billie here might have herself a date on Friday night.” My mouth falls open and my eyes widen.

“Aw, Billie. That’s adorable!”

“Yep, a real date where we’re getting dressed up and heading to a restaurant out of town.”

“Ooh, very continental,” I reply, doing my best to be in high spirits. My excitement for my best friend should show more than it is but the happiness is seeming harder to produce today.

“Come on.” Billie’s eyes catch mine and she lets her whole body sigh and her lower lip pout forward. “Are you actually sick? Because I’m sending you home if you’re sick!”

“No, I’m fine. Tell me all about him. I wanna hear.”

Billie continues despite reading the signs that my mind is elsewhere today. She rants on about their cute dealings with each other the past few days, how they keep bumping into each other, how he’s also twice divorced.

“Oh! And he’s got this bucket list item of traveling across the country on a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He even said I should go along with him when he’s saved up the money, Luce. Can you imagine how romantic and sexy that would be? We’d be like Bonnie and Clyde.”

“That’d be…a dream come true, Billie.” My mind clouds with Landon as soon as that dream — that all too familiar dream— is mentioned. He had a map with a line in red marker for the roads we’d take, and a magazine page of the exact bike he wanted— The 2002 Harley Davidson V-Rod, if I remember correctly. Our silly little escape plan that never came to be… He’d already half filled a mason jar with odd coins and dollar bills to go towards the goal. I don’t know where that jar is now.

“You’re coming with me,” Landon had told me as we cuddled up on his single bed.

“Can Mom come too?”

Instead of answering me, he took the red pen and drew on the magazine page. I took it from him to see he’d drawn a side-car just for Mom.

“Lucy?” Billie’s voice brings me back to reality.

“I’m sorry. That’s…That’s so great! Billie, he sounds perfect for you. Truly.”

“Hmm, I do recall you referring to him as dull and homely so I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment.”

“Hey now. That isn’t what I meant. You know that,” I plead with a creased brow. “Come on.”

Billie raises both her eyebrows as she folds up some dish cloths. “It’s OK. I know I’m no Grace Kelly.”

“Billie, you’re beautiful.” And I mean it, despite her choice of attire and Botox showing quite clearly that she’s having a hard time embracing her late thirties.

“Quit making me blush. Always such a sweetheart to me aren’t you? I’m too lucky to have you around here.”

“Why?” I laugh.

“You have it all going for you, baby girl. You’re young, gorgeous, talented and kind. Why would you choose to end up in this place? You should be running around the world right now with some Italian hottie. Heck, you should be running the world. You were born with potential, Lucy. People like you have purpose for this lifetime. You shouldn’t squander it here.”

“Okay, Mom,” I tease.

“Yeah, make fun of me but you are squandering your gifts. You and Todd should go on a trip somewhere, perhaps.” Todd. I hadn’t even thought about him today. “I think you should take a couple weeks off to explore. You said you’d never been to another state before, right?”

“I think it’s a bit soon for a trip. You know we’re not exactly together yet.”

Billie’s right though. I haven’t been outside California and have no plans to now that Baddock offers me the sanctuary — or, rather, purgatory — I sought when I ran away. The idea of leaving this place gives me chills.

The bell on the door twinkles brightly and in walks Todd. He’s wearing his navy NYC baseball cap that he wears everyday, a tight gray tee that shows off his figure, and is already smiling at me by the time I see him. I forget to smile back.

“Ladies, how are we today?”

He meets me behind the bar, holds his hand to my hip, and gives me a friendly peck on the cheek. Over his shoulder, I can see Billie making an excited face and trying to coax me to hug him.

“Morning,” I say. “How are you?”

“I’m great. Crazy night last night, dude. Super busy, Billie. Looks like you might be able to give us those raises after all.”

“Todd, my darling,” Billie yells from the door of the general store at other side of the tavern, “those raises only come when you all actually do your jobs properly. You forgot to put the mop away in here last night. I’ve told you enough times that it makes the place smell like absolute shit. Come and smell this.”

Todd and I laugh to one another. I’m still not sure where he and I stand relationship-wise. He seems into this, more than I am… I’m not looking for anything serious…For now, it’s all very fresh and I appreciate having him around.

When we reach the door, a small breeze of the mop smell that Billie mentioned hits my face. I recoil off of Todd and gag loudly, shoving my mouth and nose into my elbow. That smell. The smell.

“Y’alright there?” Todd says as I try fan away the nightmare again.

“I’m fine.”

We continue on our day of serving customers consisting of both Baddock locals and outside campers coming to find the solitude we in this town pride ourselves on. Pints of beer, plates of pub grub, loud conversations, and giggling children all make up the ambience of the place that I love. It’s loud, boisterous, friendly and distracting.

“How was your day off? I tried visiting after my shifts but you weren’t home.” Todd rejoins me at the bar. He took over serving in the general store. I knew I couldn’t bear even a waft of that smell again so made up a lie that Billie said I had to stay at the bar.

“Really? Sorry. I was out all day hiking and swimming. Maybe you missed me on the way back.”

“Todd, my boy. How’s the Chevvy coming along?”

“Not bad, Ralphy. Got a few more parts to save for but she should be ready soon.” Todd serves Ralph Clinton, the only cop in town. “But, that’s dope, babe. Did you manage to do any more work on that naked chick painting?”

I squint at his referring to the piece in such a vulgar way. The woman in the painting has become somewhat of a living creature in my world. There’s an urge to protect her, to keep her safe from the opinions and judgements of others.

“Um…Yeah. The naked chick— That I’ve poured my soul into by the way.” I smile to ease the tension but hope I got my point across. Though I wish to call Todd out more, it’s not worth the argument.

“It looks really good so far,” he says, sidling in behind me. “I can’t wait to see it finished.”

“That is if I actually do finish it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s my baby. I don’t know if she’ll ever be done.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I wake up every day and know I need to improve her somehow or make sure I’ve expressed correctly. It’s like she evolves with me. But at the same time, I do feel a little uninspired in working on her right now for the same reason.”

“You’re uninspired?”

“Well, yeah.”

“How?”

“What do you mean? I just…Don’t have the motivation to work on her.”

“You poor, poor thing. I mean, yeah, your life is definitely super uninspiring.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Living off the grid, in perfect weather, under redwoods with no sign of urban life to be found for miles. Life is just sooo hard for poor Lucy.”

“Um, yes?” I say accidentally until I realize my life might seem perfect to an outsider.

I knock him playfully in his arm to regain some composure. Most of the time, his sarcasm’s fine but, as with Billie, I don’t have the patience for much today.

“Inspiration doesn’t just come from nature and calm.”

“So, where do you think you’d find it?”

I take a beat to ponder the question. I haven’t thought about where I’d seek it lately. My nightly hikes of late have revolved around me debating my existence rather than my art. I used to return from the trails, my hair damp from a swim in the waterfall, and I would immediately be at my easel lost in my work. Now, though, I return home and collapse on the sofa. There, I fall into a depressing nap before the sound of the nocturnal creatures or Babeen wake me up again only to toss and turn until sunrise.

“So?” he asks again.

“In time,” I decide to say.

“In time?” Todd laughs at my response and slides a pint to the next customer. “You’re adorable.”

“Right.”

“Hey,” he says when he realizes my mood’s shifted. “I’m just playing around, Lucy. Hopefully you’ll find that time soon. You’re talented. You’ll find it again.”