Locking-Chapter 1

I'm screaming, pounding on horizontal metal bars, thrashing around. My mind flickers with pictures of my father, memories. His infectious happiness and belly laughter. They surround me, swallow me whole. "Love you now and forever girls." he would always say. But then the slide show of my memories is falling through a crack in the cement jail cell I'm stuck in. It's like every waking moment of my life is being sucked away, pulled from me, held at a distance. "Tess!!!" Nate shakes me awake. I'm engulfed in his blue bed spread. "It's just a dream String Bean, wake up. I'm right here. I'm not leaving." He's towering over my sleeping body and whispering things I can barely understand. "Come on Tessa wake up." he pushes a hand through my hair, over and over again. I carefully slide my eyes open to reveal his concerned expression close to my face in the darkness. My mind rattles and I can't speak so I grab his hand, the one that's tangled up in my hair. He immediately sighs and interlocks his fingers around mine. "It was just a dream. I'm not leaving. I'll never leave." *** If your whole life turns out to be a life, will you ever learn to trust again?