Мелисса Марр – Love is Hell (страница 1)
CONTENTS
And noticing the ache in my wrist.
I click the reading lamp on and look down at the spot. Another soon-to-be bruise—a giant red welt that covers the front of my wrist and wraps around to the underside. So I grab the pen on my bedside table and add another point to the tally I’ve been keeping for the past two weeks since we moved here—to mark the sixth time this has happened.
Six times that I’ve woken up with a sore spot on my body.
Six times that I’ve found myself lying awake in my bed, too terrified to fall back asleep.
Because of the voice that haunts my dreams.
Ever since we moved here, I’ve been having these weird nightmares. In them, I hear a male voice. I never see his face. It’s just his voice, whispering things that I don’t want to hear—that ghosts exist, that I need to listen to him, that he won’t let me rest until I do.
Luckily, I’m able to force myself awake. But that’s when he grips me—so hard that it leaves a mark.
I know it sounds completely crazy and at first I tried to find some logical explanation—maybe I had twisted my arm the wrong way during the night; maybe I had banged my leg on the corner of my bed or rolled over into an awkward position.
I tried to tell myself that the dreams were the result of stress—of having to move halfway across the country; of changing high schools and leaving all my friends behind. I mean, there’s bound to be a period of adjustment, right?
But now I know that it’s more than stress. Because, between the bruising and the aching, and the growing sacks underneath my eyes from lack of sleep, I feel like things are getting worse.
“Brenda?” my mother asks, standing by my bedroom door. “What are you doing up?”