Chapter 47: Sometimes There Just Aren't Words

You know how at the end of a bad day you just can't wait to get to bed so you can make a fresh, new start the next morning? I hope it works better for you than it does for me.

Allison and I woke together in the glade. I checked my ring automatically and verified it was hers this time.

I love waking up with Allison, it doesn't matter if it's in a dream or in reality, it just feels so nice waking up with her cuddled to my side.

"We need to talk," Jamie said. Something in her tone suggested that this was not going to be good news.

"Oh, that can't be good," I said softly.

"What's that?" Allison asked.

"Jamie just said those four words guys hate to hear."

"Really," she said, sitting up and ticking off points on her fingers. "Let's see, 'Fine' is one word. 'I'm pregnant' is two. 'Size doesn't matter' is three, so it has to be, 'We need to talk'. How did I do?"

"Sometimes you scare me," I said. Then I just asked, "What's up, Jamie?"

She stood up out of me and started pacing. I could see there were tears in her eyes. Allison gave me a concerned look and stood up to intercept her.

"Hey! Whoa there," Allison said, stopping her and looking into her eyes. "What's the matter?"

Immediately Jamie hugged her, burying her face in Allison's shoulder and weeping so softly that if it hadn't been for the shaking of her shoulders I wouldn't have known that's what was going on. Actually, the body language would have said something was wrong, the tears just said how bad it was. I mean, this was Jamie we're talking about, tears just aren't her thing. I stood up, moved beside Allison and pulled Jamie away from her and into my arms instead.

"Hey, come on now, it can't be that bad?" I said, kissing her forehead and stroking her hair as she just transferred the hug from Allison to me.

She sniffed and sobbed once and said, "Yes it can. Oh, Jimmy, I couldn't tell you before because you were at school and I knew what would happen."

I pushed her back so I could look at her face. I waited for her to look at me and then gave her a questioning look as I dabbed at her tears with a fresh handkerchief. "Whenever you're ready."

She gave a little coughing laugh and took the hanky from me. "You're not going to like it," she said, dabbing at her own eyes. Finally she just threw it away and said, "Oh, this is ridiculous!" The tears were suddenly gone, her eyes dry, and bright again, but I had been watching and I could still see the hurt hiding deep inside. Still, I waited for her to tell me in her own time.

"You remember what happened at break?"

It took me a second but understanding finally dawned. "Yes, I asked you about it and you said you'd tell me later. Is this late enough?"

"Yes. You know something was bothering Susan; I mean it was pretty obvious, right?"

"Yeah, I'd say it was pretty obvious."

"Jimmy, I swear I wasn't peeking, but she was kind of stuck in this loop of daydream and suddenly I could see it."

"And?"

She didn't answer but suddenly a familiar scene started playing around us; a scene featuring an all too familiar little girl hiding in a closet.

Allison caught it just as fast as I did. "Oh my God," she whispered softly.

Even as the last word passed her lips a loud voice boomed through the house, "Susan!"

The scene faded and I found myself trapped between two extremes. Allison, who was now clutching at my shoulder, crying, and Jamie, who looked like she was ready to burn down the gates to hell itself. Now that she had shared it, her pain had turned to something she could use. From the look on her face, I'd say she really wanted to use it. I reached for her to pull her into the hug with us and she started to draw back from my hand, but I cocked my head and stared into her eyes for a second, and finally she moved forward into my embrace.

I needed the hug just as much as either of them, but more than anything, I didn't want Jamie just sitting on all that emotion with nowhere to let it go. Maybe it's because she's me, I don't know, but I could sort of feel her anger draining away through me. Finally I pulled back a little and they got the message, stepping back so I could talk to them.

"We can fix this," I said.

"How can you be so calm?" Jamie asked. "He knew! All this time, he knew, and he didn't say anything. You know what this means?"

"Yes," I said calmly. "It means we can trust him to keep his word and not betray our secrets, even if he thinks it's for our own good."

Wow! That stopped her in her tracks.

"He's right, Jamie," Allison said, wiping at the last of her own tears. "He couldn't tell us. No matter how much he wanted to. Looking back I think I can see a couple hints that he may have dropped; one in particular."

"Which one's that?" I asked.

"I can't be real specific but I remember him once saying..." She snapped her fingers, "Got it! It was when you were first telling him about meeting Rebecca; he pointed out that what you were seeing was memories and that you couldn't really affect them anyway, but that if you ever found that you could, to tell him right away because it could be very beneficial as a treatment tool. That is what you have in mind, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I'm still not going to be altering memories or anything, all I need to do is recreate the memory as a dream and run it from there."

"Ooh," she said, "good idea! So what did you have in mind?"

"First things first," I said, pulling out my phone. "Bob," I said when he answered, "We need to talk."

He paused for a second, probably digesting my tone. "Oh-kay," he said. "Just send me a door."

"We'll meet you in your office." I closed the phone and turned back to the girls.

"There is a good chance he won't talk about this in front of you."

"No," Allison corrected me. "There is a good chance he won't want to talk about it in front of me. Jamie he won't think twice about because she's still you, but me he may have a problem with." The last line was spoken as we entered Bob's office.

"Why would I have a problem with you?" Bob asked.

Allison did something I'm not sure she had ever done before; she crossed to his desk, hugged him around the neck and kissed his cheek, "Hello, Mr. Shelby. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, hugging her back and looking even more confused than when we walked in. "Are you going to tell me what you're thanking me for?"

"No, you'll figure that out on your own when Jimmy tells you why we're here. Then you'll decide if I'm a problem or not. Either way, I want you to know I understand and I'm okay with it."

"Something happened today," I said.

"You mean besides the fight at the meet?" he asked. "Which I want to talk to you about, by the way. In fact, let me get that out of the way now so I don't forget. Jimmy, what I did today was a formality; you and Byron are going to be just fine. We have to go through the motions so it doesn't appear that we condone student violence but that's all. What Byron did was a very brave thing, a very stupid thing in today's world, but brave nonetheless. There was a time not so long ago that practically any man in America would have done the same thing. I think it says a lot about what we've lost that that's no longer true, but that's not the point. They're not going to punish him for doing a good deed. Just like they're not going to punish you for making sure he didn't regret doing it. It was obvious you were going after him and not after them so no one can accuse you of starting a fight. They had already struck the first blow before you arrived so it was clearly you defending Byron. You'll be out of school tomorrow pending their decision but you won't miss anything. Any tests that any of your teachers had scheduled will miraculously be re-scheduled for the following day, by which time you will both be back in school. Trust me; it's going to be fine. I'm sorry I had to come off the way I did but..."

"I understand, but thanks for clearing it up. Susan is the little girl in the closet." I started to make it a question but at the last decided not to.

He looked at me for a moment, then at Jamie and Allison, obviously trying to decide whether he could or should say more in front of all of us. Finally he came to a decision.

"About time you figured it out. I knew you were close when you started getting sound in the dream. I thought the timing would have given it away."

I thought about what he had said. "You mean because I didn't dream about her all summer but then as soon as school started, the dreams started again? Yeah, I guess I should have seen that. I should have seen a lot of things, but I was so convinced that there was nothing I could do, and so sick of watching it ... I should have paid more attention. I probably could have stopped it, or at least tried to stop it, a long time ago."

"How?" he asked. "Jimmy, it's still just a memory. Unless you've made some kind of breakthrough you still couldn't affect anything."

"Yes and no. I probably can't affect the memory itself, which is a good thing, but I don't need to change it to use it. If I recreate it as a real dream I can then do anything I want with it. The only question now is how to use it to get the desired results -- that being to end the cycle. So you're okay with discussing this in front of everyone?"

"Yes, you already know the truth so I'm not violating any confidence. Bear in mind, though, that I am still limited in that I can't tell you more than you already know. Now tell me, how does knowing the truth change anything? You still don't know the circumstances behind it, or why she seems to cling to it. You understand that she's been holding back the truth as much as possible?"

"Yes," I said. "I mean, I hadn't really thought about it until you said it, but yes, I understand. That's why when it changed at the beginning of the year I could hear her but not him. She's still denying that it's happening to her. The truth is that it's bothering her more and more, and that's why the details are getting clearer."

"Very good. So what do you propose to do about it?"

"Force her to confront it. Show her that she can in fact stop it. Then try to get her to move on."

"That all sounds nice, Jimmy, but I've been trying to help her do exactly that for some time now."

"I understand that, but I have tools available that you don't. How would you feel about helping me fine-tune a scenario that I have in mind for her? I'm just not qualified -- not by a long shot, to do this on my own. I don't want to just wade in and start messing with people's minds or problems. There's too much chance I'd just make things worse."

"I love working with mature, thoughtful, intelligent people," he said with a smile.

"And yet you still work with all of us," Allison said. "That's big of you, Bob, really."

"Very funny. Jimmy, I've been waiting for this day ever since the first dream you had of her. I was hoping, even back then, that you would find something to tell you who she was; something you could bring to me on your own that would allow me to try and use your gift to help her. I would love to help any way I can. The question is do we have time for this right now? I mean, with everything else that's going on, do you have room for another project right now?"

"Well, unless something breaks with Rebecca's case, nothing else I have going on is that critical. Amber is doing very well; so well that we now have the problem of what to do with her until it's time to send her to school. Vegas is kind of in a holding pattern; we're still working on gathering information on all the players, large and small. We're also waiting to see what kind of fallout we might get over what happened to the cops they sent after Roxy. Besides, I don't know about you, but I don't see Susan's problem getting fixed in one visit. It's been going on too long; it's a part of her life. Changing that is going to be a process, not an action. Personally, I don't think we can start soon enough. By my estimate, I'm almost nine months behind already just because it never occurred to me to try this approach. I feel like I've let her down."

"Jimmy, don't think like that," Jamie said. "It's not your fault."

I started to answer but Bob intervened, "She's right, Jimmy. Don't dwell on it; in fact, don't even think about it. There is no guarantee that this will work, so trying it six months ago wouldn't have helped. Not only that, but six months ago you didn't know you could do half the stuff you're doing now. You may, or may not, have been able to then, but since there is no way to know, there is no point in beating yourself up over it. Besides, you don't realize it yet, but you have motivational tools available now that you didn't have before. We'll talk about that later. What did you have in mind?"

I gave him the basics on what I had in mind. Most of it was just taking what they had been trying to do in the past, to the next level. You can talk about doing something, plan it out and role-play the scenarios all you want, but it doesn't mean you'll be ready, or able, to pull it off when the situation arises. For Susan, or anyone else in similar circumstances, this wasn't something you could practice. Many counselors, in situations like this one -- where the abuse came in childhood and lasted for an extended period, would recommend confronting the abuser; using the encounter as an empowerment step. The victim confronting the abuser to say that they no longer feared them, and that they would never let them hurt them again. Apparently that wasn't an option here either.

This was going to be a new experience in dream management for me. I'd taken over or invaded other people's dreams for various reasons. My first attempt at therapy of any kind had been young Bobby, last Halloween night -- and it had worked out pretty well, but that had just been me taking over an existing dream and making some minor changes. Even what I had done with Mikkelson was really just forcing him to relive someone else's memories.

Talking with Bob, I realized that what I had done with Ray Parry came the closest to what I wanted to attempt. Drawing off of a particular memory for my basic framework, then changing it to fit my need. But Parry had been a short memory of a one-time event that I had reshaped. This ... this was a recurring nightmare that had been going on for years; one the dreamer was so familiar with that the slightest variation would be noticed as out of place. My recreation had to be, up to a point at least, perfect. And my point of deviation was well into the sequence, I had to let the original run long enough to be accepted as the normal dream sequence, only then...

In the dream, as in so many before, Susan found herself hiding in the darkness of her father's closet, a frightened little girl praying that tonight would be different...

"Today is going to be different," she'd told herself. Today she would hide in the closet and when he couldn't find her he would just go into the living room and kick off his big boots, put his feet up on the coffee table and eventually pass out when he had drunk enough beer.

She caught her breath as she heard the door slam and the tread of heavy work boots making their way down the hall.

"Suuusaaan!" he called. "Get out here girl." She held her breath and didn't answer.

"Susan!" he called again. "Where are you honey-bunch? Daddy's home! Come here and give your daddy a kiss."

The footsteps drew closer until finally his shadow flickered past her hiding place as he entered the room. She held her breath as he stopped in front of the closet doors. Looking down through the slats she could see his booted feet. She had carefully closed the doors behind her to the same gap that had been there before.

Her eyes pressed shut and her lips moved in silent prayer, "Please go, please go, please, please, ple-eeek!" The last came out loudly as a hand shot into the darkness and landed on her head. Meaty fingers twined in her blonde hair, and a strong arm yanked her towards the light. One of the doors was knocked loose from the track as she slammed into it.

The tears started with the first slap.

He was careful not to slap her too hard; he didn't want to leave any marks that some nosey-ass teacher might spot. Most of the pain was from her hair being pulled as he shook her.

"What are you doing in there? Are you hiding from you daddy? Don't you love your daddy? Your daddy who feeds you and puts a roof over your head. Didn't daddy buy you that pretty dress you're wearing? And now you're gonna go and hide from your daddy? Get that dress off! Now, girl! Don't you make me tell you twice."

"Please daddy, I don't..."

"Take it off!"

With shaking fingers she began unbuttoning the sundress she was wearing. As quickly as she could she stepped out of it to stand in just her white cotton panties.

"Come here," he commanded.

Taking tiny steps, she moved closer. Head down -- fighting the urge to cover her nakedness with her hands because she knew what he would do -- she slunk closer.

"Come on, Baby," he crooned at her. "You know what daddy wants."

"Please, Daddy. I don't want to..." A meaty hand stung her cheek and then he shoved her to her knees.

"You open that mouth again it better not be to talk, now get to it."

Fresh tears falling from her eyes she bent to her task, reaching out her hand she guided him toward her mouth.

Just before her lips touched the swollen head a strange voice said, "Susan, this is ridiculous."

She turned toward the sound to find a strange boy watching her. Strange, yet somehow familiar. She started to answer but he turned away and shouted at the ceiling.

"Susan, stop this! You're not a little girl any more; you don't have to do this. It's not even real. Come on, Susan, haven't you had enough?"

She was still kneeling and staring at him when he finally turned back around.

"Geez! What does it take?" Without warning he stalked toward her, glanced at her daddy, "Put your dick away, asshole, before I rip it off and feed it to you." The strange boy reached down and grabbed her by the arm, painfully hauling her to her feet, and dragging her towards the bathroom. Behind her, her daddy stood as stiff as a statue. When they reached the bathroom, the boy stood her in front of the mirror.

"Look at yourself," he said, indicating her reflection. "Susan, this isn't you."

Suddenly the image in the mirror began to change, growing taller, the body developing, but you couldn't really tell since early in the process a t-shirt had appeared to cover her. In moments, a mature woman looking somewhere in her late twenties, stood before her.

"This is what you look like, Susan. You're twenty-nine years old; you're a teacher, one of the best I've ever met. You graduated top of your class. You need to stop running away from stuff that happened forever ago, things you had no control over and couldn't have stopped if you wanted to. You lived through it. You're a great teacher with a bright future. People look up to you. Get over it and move on. Stop dragging yourself through this. There is no possible purpose to be served. Anything you could have learned from this, you learned a long time ago."

Suddenly she knew who she was, and who he was. Embarrassment set in shortly after.

"Jimmy, I ... I..." she stammered.

"Relax, it's not real. I'm not who I look like. I'm what Bob calls a representation. You created me to help you move past this. It's been bothering you a lot lately. Probably due to the recent changes in your domestic situation, which have triggered significant changes, including a serious kick in the maternal instincts. You're worried about your ability to protect Phoebe, and this... ," I indicated the scene around us, "... is the reason."

"Roxanne, her name is..."

"No lies here, Susan. How are you going to protect her when you can't even stop this?" He took her arm again, turning her back toward the other room.

There in the other room, she saw herself again as a young girl, on her knees, doing ... she turned away.

"No," he said. "No more turning away, it's not going to go away because you ignore it. You have to stop it." He turned her back to face what was happening. The girl was struggling; her father, now aroused to the point he was gripping her head with both hands and thrusting himself into her mouth harder and deeper with every stroke.

"Stop it Susan, you're not a little girl any more, you don't have to do this. If you won't do it for yourself..." Suddenly the image changed and instead of Susan's younger self, sweet, innocent Phoebe, knelt before Susan's father, both of her hands trapped in one of his, tears streaming down her face, desperately trying not to do what he wanted her to.

"No, please. I can't. I don't want to, it's dirty. Ow!" she cried out in pain as he released his grip on her hair and slapped her hard.

"Do it!" he demanded. "You ungrateful little bitch, open your god-damned mouth." He slapped her again and then pinched her nose closed so she couldn't breathe, placing the head of his cock against her lips, waiting for her to finally take that gasping breath for the air she desperately needed. She squirmed and struggled as best she could but his grip was too strong. Finally, she couldn't hold her breath any longer and tried to sneak a little air. As soon as her lips parted he forced himself roughly into her mouth. Releasing his grip he grabbed her head with both hands and forced her mouth further down.

She coughed and struggled, slapping at his legs and trying to pull his hands off of her head, finally biting down on his intruding flesh. With a cry he pulled himself back and slapped her to the floor.

"You little bitch!" Reaching down he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her screaming to her feet, then threw her roughly onto the bed.

"Stop him, Susan. Are you going to stand here and let him do this to that poor innocent little girl? You know what comes next, what he's going to do to her. You're supposed to be protecting her, keeping her safe. How can you just stand here and watch him do this to her?"

He was on the bed with her now, slapping her again as she tried to get away. One hand pinning her to the bed as the other ripped her panties, the last barrier she had left, from her body.

"No!" Susan shrieked, launching herself at the bed. "Stop it! Leave her alone! Daddy, stop it! No more!" She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away from the struggling girl. As she did they both disappeared, and Susan, seeing them disappear, fell sobbing on to the bed. The young boy from school walked over, calmly sat down beside her and stroked her hair.

"See? That's all it takes, Susan. You just have to say no, if not for yourself, then for the next girl that might get hurt. You did good. It will be easier next time, I promise."