Riley Mackenzie - Beautifully Awake

“Chase!” He was still asleep. Dreaming. His lids were closed, but I could see his eyes pinballing back and forth. “Chase!” I shook his shoulder a little harder. He was ice cold and clammy. “You’re dreaming, baby, please wake up, please wake up. Chase, you’re dreaming.” I couldn’t wake him up.

He continued to shout, “No, no … stop.”

I ran to the bathroom and soaked a washcloth with cold water. I wiped his forehead and shook him hard. “Chase, please, you’re scaring me, please wake up.” His eyes flipped open, and I watched his body continue to tremble from head to toe.

“Fuck.” He looked terrified. His eyes were so wide I thought they might pop out. “Blue.”

“I’m right here, Chase,” my voice cracked.

“Fuck, I scared you.”

He had. I was trembling. He reached for me and I instinctively backed away slightly. I needed a minute, or maybe an hour, or a day, or a year, or maybe a lifetime. Confusion pummeled through me like a two-ton truck. Was I the cause of all of his demons resurfacing? We had slept together so many times and never had he had a dream like this. Maybe the combination of everything we both suffered through was not going to work.

“Um ... I’m ... um ... I’m just gonna go for a run,” I stuttered, climbing off the bed. I fumbled in the dim light for my sports bra and shorts, slipped on my sneakers and left.

“Lili, please, baby, come back.” I heard his voice from the other side of the door. It was tense, he was pleading.

I hit the beach and started running. I wasn’t even sure what time it was, but it had to be very early. The sun was just coming up over the horizon. The pink and yellow hues should have been beautiful, but all I saw was grey. Every shade of grey flashed before my eyes. The looming black hole in sight. I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t go back to a world of no color. Chase gave me color and I wanted to keep it that way. What was I running from?

Sweat beaded at the nape of my neck and dripped down my back. I ran harder and faster. The spray from the crashing ocean waves was not cooling my inferno. My calves were beginning to cramp from gripping the uneven sand, and my lungs were burning. I didn’t care. I pushed through the pain. If pain was what I needed to feel, so be it. I never wanted numb and empty again.

Those weeks after I was raped, hell, the years after I was raped … hell, up until a mere six weeks ago, I felt nothing. And I hated it. And now after finding someone worth loving and knowing what it felt like to be loved, or so I hoped, I was questioning it. I thought back to a book my dad read to me as a kid ... sometimes when you love something so much you have to let it free. Was that what I needed to do? Maybe I couldn’t handle Chase and the nightmare that had him thrashing around in a cold sweat? Or was it that I couldn’t handle that I just might be the reason for his nightmare? I feared our combined heartaches were just too much. I clutched my sides as a sharp stabbing pain shook me. Was love supposed to have this much turmoil?

The resort was a mere speck in the far distance when I finally stopped running and laid my back in the sand. My calf felt like a pit bull had gnawed through my muscle. I attempted to massage the tightening knot, while gasping to expand my burning lungs. What the fuck was I doing? I finally loved someone for the first time in my life and I was running away like I had for the past three years. What was I so afraid of?

A muffled voice came from the distance. I would know that voice anywhere. “Fuck, Blue. Are you training for a marathon?”

He came for me.

How long was I gone? No doubt my body was going to be pissed tomorrow after the damage I just inflicted upon myself. The sun was up now, and at the sound of his voice, the reds and yellows bounced around under my lids. I took a deep soothing breath. He really was my color. How could I not fight for us? Yes, I was scared. But scared was something, a feeling. Scared was better than feeling nothing.

“Baby, you ran for-fucking-ever.” He was getting closer. “You scared the hell out of me, I could barely see you. Those damn rock jettings were in the way.” He collapsed next to me, immediately pulling me against his chest. His heart was pounding as fast as mine. “You’re crying?”

I forgot I was crying. But it was okay, because my mind was a tornado swirling with emotions. Emotions he was responsible for bringing back to me.

His breath was forced and ragged from running. “Fuck. Don’t do this, baby, please. I need you. Don’t shut down, not now. Talk to me. Fuck, Lili, look at me.” His heart slammed against his drenched chest. “Tell me what I need to do.”

I sat up and opened my eyes, squinting against the sun, wishing it were that simple. His disheveled wet hair looked almost black against his perfectly tanned skin. His bare rippled chest reflected the sun, accentuating the dark ink down his taut ribcage. His eyes were wide open. The intense softness behind them told me without a doubt, this man would never intentionally harm me. Guilt rippled through me when I remembered how I withdrew when he asked if he scared me. I wished I could take that back, erase that part of the scene.

Chase ran his warm fingers under my puffy lids, wiping away the last of my tears. His touch calmed me from the inside out. Our eyes locked, and suddenly, the last thing I ever wanted to do again was run. I had been running away for three years. Shit, I’d been sleep running if such a thing existed. After that bastard violated me, I tucked my heart and soul to bed and ran away from any place or anyone that threatened to wake that part of me up. Until this beautiful man panting in front of me charged into my life.

“I don’t want to run anymore, I’m just so tired of sleep running.” It was all I could say. It was true. I was tired of running. Tired. I wanted to stop. I wanted to stay awake. I didn’t want to run away from any more of my life. I just wanted to feel. If that meant not always feeling happy, not always feeling comfortable, if it meant suffering through times of worry, times that made me scared, times of sadness and heartache, then I was in. I wanted all in. If love was my only constant, then nothing else mattered.

“I want you to be my constant. When I open my eyes in the morning I never ever want to wonder where you are, if you ran away from us. The thought that I was the reason for your nightmare this morning scared the shit out of me. You’ve been through so much, and I’m so scared that our combined heartaches are just going to be too much.”

“Baby…”

I hushed him because he needed to hear me out.

“Until I met you, Chase, I was drifting in a sea of nothing. I walked around in a world of grey. I literally built a shield, blocking out every penetrable emotion. I didn’t let anything through. And then you came along and crumbled my wall.”

“Baby, first of all, you did not cause my nightmare. I’ve had them for years, but less frequently lately. They’re the reason I never slept with a woman ... before you.” My eyes widened. Confused. “Not that you want to hear this and not that I’m proud of it, but I’ve never been one to share my bed, uh-um, after ... until I met you. Now I can’t imagine sleeping without you tucked by my side. But maybe you’re right, maybe me telling you about Kimi brought shit back to the surface. I’m so sorry I scared you, but what scared me more was you running out the door. So sitting here listening to you tell me you don’t want to run anymore, you don’t want to sleep run, fuck, Blue, you just made me the happiest man alive.” He tenderly ran his hand down my cheeks and tucked the loose strands that fell from my ponytail behind my ears.

“Just promise me you won’t walk away again. I’m tired of living my life like a bad movie. I don’t want anymore pauses ... no more rewinds. I want our life to play out live. You woke me up, Chase. You brought color back to my life. The only time I ever want to see grey again is when I’m looking in your eyes.”

His tender lips claimed mine as he leaned me back onto the sand. “I’m not going anywhere, baby. I want you awake and I definitely want our life playing out live because I don’t want to miss a fucking second of it.”

The last layer of my barrier evaporated into thin air. I closed my eyes and saw nothing but bright vibrant colors. I gripped him tighter. If I could have climbed inside him I would have. I wanted this, I wanted all in, even the fucked up parts.

I winced when Chase finally let go of me, wanting the moment to never end. “Come on we have a baby shower to get ready for. I don’t think getting you there late will score me any points with your best friend.”

“You’re probably right, but you could score some serious points with me,” I said suggestively.

Chase responded with a smile that reached his eyes. “Mmm. I missed that sassy little mouth.” His lips brushed the tip of my nose. “Hop on, sweetness.” He motioned for me to jump on his back.

“You can’t be serious? You can’t carry me all the way back.”

“First of all, you just sprinted a half marathon. I found you rubbing your calf like a banshee. You’re not walking back. Second. Yes, I can.”

You’d think I would have learned by now.

The baby shower was ... a baby shower. No matter how you dressed it up, changed the location or added testosterone to the guest list, showers were showers. But Sierra looked radiantly happy rocking her mini black and pink paisley halter sundress that boasted a neckline that plunged to meet the empire waist, accentuating her girls, as she liked to call them these days. She even insisted on keeping with the theme and highlighted her short pixie haircut with chunky pink streaks. But my personal favorite was her skinny little feet in my four-inch camel colored Louboutins. Probably the first time in our friendship, Sierra asked to borrow something out of my closet. She made eight months of pregnancy look glamorous, and Dodd, her husband of two years couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Adoration consumed his gaze, like she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and he was proud that she was going to be the mother of his children. No one deserved it more.