Entangled In You

Fell apart

Lilah POV

Three years ago, when I’d turned eighteen and been freed from the system, I fell apart.

Literally, everything that I thought I had going for me went to s**t.

I stopped going to school. I stopped reaching out to family. I stopped being me.

My therapist suggested a support group. The kind where you go into the basement of a church, and ten other people from all walks of life spill their guts about past traumas, and you spill yours, trying to find familiarity in each other’s shared pain.

The idea terrified me, but I didn’t want to live like that anymore, so I gave it a shot.

Cue the first story of a mother whose child cut contact with them because they wouldn’t give them space and I up and walked out.

Those people couldn’t understand what it was like.

How was I supposed to sympathize with her when she was the reason her child left? If she’d just given them space, they wouldn’t have cut contact. And clearly she didn’t feel sorry for what she’d done because she sat there and blamed her child for the mistakes she’d made.

She reminded me too much of my own mother.

My mother tried to kill me, and almost succeeded. She did succeed in removing herself from my life, so there was that. But I hadn’t wanted that, and I sure as hell didn’t want to live with the reminder that my mother hated me so much she wanted me dead.

Her actions caused a trickle effect, and my father drank himself into an early grave. Wrong way drunk driving accident caused by him. He tried to numb the pain, and I suppose he found a way to forever.

The family in the other car didn’t make it.

They both left me here to live with the repercussions of their actions.

I did my research and found online chat rooms for teenagers and young adults who have experienced some of the worst life could offer.

Maybe my incident wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. I’d seen horror stories in the online chat, shared around like they were talking about what they’d eat for breakfast, but I finally felt like I had found a safe space.

That’s where I met CerealKiller1224.

He’d lurked for a long time, liking my posts and poetry, but never directly messaging me. I felt safe sharing the deepest parts of my mind knowing that I was anonymous. No one to see my identity or read the emotion on my face.

Eventually, likes turned to comments, and then direct messages.

He was fifteen when he killed his father in self-defense on Christmas Eve. His father had grown tired of the fact that his mother no longer cried when she got beat, so he moved on to beating his only son.

We shared parental trauma.

When we finally decided to direct message, he had ground rules, and I was one hundred percent okay with that. No names. No looking up the other’s case. No photos. Just two people bonding over their trauma.

I knew he was a he and he knew I was a she, but that was where our identities began and ended.

“And may Krampus not come for your naughty ass next month,” I responded as IceQueen03.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” his text popped through almost immediately, accompanied by a winking emoji.

Bubbles popped up as I heard another shout from down the hall followed by the crashing of a controller against wood.

“Why are you up, btw? Nightmares again?” he texted.

“Nah, Pilates.”

He responded with a GIF of a woman dressed in a highlighter yellow leotard and knee-high socks kicking repeatedly in the air.

I snorted out a giggle.

“That’s aerobics.”

“Tomato. Toematoe…. Or however that saying goes….” his text came through, and I giggled again.

“Thanks for the laugh. Goodnight, CK.”

Bubbles popped up, and then disappeared, and popped up again, and disappeared again before he finally responded, “Anytime. Night IQ”

I frowned at the screen for a moment, wondering if something else was on his mind. I was beat, and the nightmare had taken a lot out of me, but usually when he needed me, he wasn’t afraid to tell me, so I left it.

“What are you doing up?” Issac’s brows pinched together, flipping on the light as he walked into the bedroom.

Issac and I had been together for a little over a year. We’d met at a coffee shop after he walked into me, thankfully with an iced coffee and not a hot one, spilling it down the front of my body. He wasted no time, shrugging off his suit jacket, and draping it over my shoulders, apologizing profusely.

At the time, he was an intern at the local district attorney’s office, and in the pocket of the suit jacket was his wallet and key card. I found him on his cell in the lobby, and when he saw me, the realization dawned on him that the wallet was in the jacket pocket.

He asked me out on a date, and one thing led to another, and we became exclusive.

I watched him stalk into the room, rolling his neck as he rummaged around his drawers for his vitamins. I didn’t tell him about the nightmares anymore. He’d told me after the first few times I woke him in a panic that I should just start taking my anxiety meds before bed because waking him up every night was too much. I took them sometimes, but the following day would be a blur, and I hated living like that.

They didn’t happen that often, but I stopped burdening him with it.

I knew personally how frustrating and annoying the nightmares had become. They’d plagued me regularly for years.

“Had to pee,” I forced a smile.

Issac and I had a decent relationship in the beginning. He made me smile and took me on dates where we laughed and enjoyed our evenings together. But with time came complacency, and now more often than not, I find myself alone in bed or spending evenings binge-watching shows by myself with a glass of wine.

I didn’t mind space, especially since we moved in together, but he’d grown distant, and there was a difference.

“I try to tell you not to keep a water bottle next to the bed, but you never listen to me,” he chuckled, tossing his shirt off and climbing into bed in just his boxers. His dirty blonde hair was a mess from his gaming headset, and the stubble on his chin had grown slightly past a five o’clock shadow.

Hazel eyes stared at me for a moment before he leaned forward, pressing a kiss on my forehead, “Get some sleep, Lyles.”

I felt warm when he used my nickname. It made me feel loved, and for a moment, all of the distance felt minuscule.

“Love you,” I whispered, snuggling up to his side and reveling in his body heat.

“You too,” his sleepy voice muttered before soft snores filled the room.