Page 39 of Charmed By the Next-Door Neighbor
I stop, my throat closing up. Her hand comes up to rest on my chest, right over my heart. Grounding me.
"I have nightmares," I continue. "Most nights. I wake up at three a.m. thinking I'm back in a burning building. Sometimes I can't tell what's real for a few minutes. Sometimes I—"
"Sometimes what?"
"Sometimes I need to be alone." I force myself to meet her eyes. "I need space to deal with it. It's not about you. It's never about whoever I'm with. It's just… I can't be around people when it gets bad. Can't stand to be touched or talked to until it passes."
She's still looking at me with those big brown eyes, and I can't read her expression.
"I'm fucked up, Claire. I'm scarred inside and out and I'm old and I'm—"
"You're not old," she interrupts.
"I'm seventeen years older than you."
"So?"
"So that matters. I've lived a whole life already. I'm retired. My body's held together with scar tissue and stubbornness. You should be with someone who—"
"Stop." Her voice is firm. "Stop telling me what I should want."
I close my mouth.
"You think I don't have issues?" she asks. "You think I'm some perfect girl with no baggage? Nash, I moved to the middle of nowhere because I couldn't handle living near my parents anymore. I have anxiety that makes me check the locks threetimes before bed. I cry at insurance commercials. I stress-eat entire bags of chips and then feel guilty about it for days. I'm a mess too."
"That's not the same."
"Why not?"
"Because your issues don't include waking up in the middle of the night thinking the house is on fire. Don't include flinching when someone comes up behind you too fast. Don't include—"
"PTSD," she says quietly.
I flinch at the words.
"You have PTSD," she says again, not a question this time. "From the job."
"Never got diagnosed. Never saw anyone about it."
"But you know that's what it is."
"Yeah." The admission costs me. "I know."
She's quiet for a long moment, and I brace myself for her to pull away. To realize this is too much. That I'm too much. Instead, she shifts in my lap, getting more comfortable, and wraps her arms around my neck.
"Okay," she says.
I stare at her. "Okay?"
"Okay. You have PTSD. You have nightmares. You need space sometimes. I can work with that."
"Claire—"
"Do you get violent? When you wake up from nightmares?"
"No. Never."
"Do you take it out on people around you?"
