A New Dream [Dreams: 1] Read Online Free PDF Page A

she'd grab him the bottle. He felt guilty because it was simply his fault she was gone.
    The fact she didn’t suffer was no comfort. She had drifted into a coma and never woke up. The physical pain was nothing compared to the void, the gaping hole in his chest her death had left.
    After the funeral, mostly organized by his in-laws, everything had changed. He'd had to find his way around his new life, driving the kids to school, doing the laundry, food shopping and cooking alone. All of it had been excruciating. He admitted now, at the time, he had placed a lot on his children’s shoulders as he slowly sank into depression.
    He would sit there, his mind blank, not knowing what he was about to do. Post traumatic depression? Yeah, you bet… he was in shock. Numb. He didn’t feel or want anything.  When his brother-in-law had wanted to drag him to a shrink, he had refused. He had buried his pain and suffering and went back to work. And when he would finally come home at night, he would fall asleep on his wife’s side of the bed and cry as silently as he could. Eventually, he managed to enter their bedroom without crying too much, but, he could no longer bear to sleep in the bed that had seen so much of their life, he'd had to buy a new one.
    His children had been terrific; maybe a little too perfect. He missed the smiles on their faces so much. They acted as if he was a piece of china and would break at the faintest sound of music or the slightest laugh. The house became more and more silent as laughter no longer filled the rooms. David stopped going out. Jules set up a studio above the garage and Jenny had an independent entrance to reach her room upstairs. They lived together but hardly ever saw each other. They were a broken family because he had wanted to drink a fucking bottle of water.
    Caught up in his dark thoughts, David didn’t notice the time had flown by and it was almost time to land.
    James hadn’t uttered another word since the incident with the Ice Queen. From time to time, David had felt his gaze on his back but he hadn’t made any more moves. Maybe he had felt it was going too fast for David?
    He heard the pilot give the weather condition and start to descent to Boston.
    He was on the edge of a new life.
     

 
    C hapter 4 – J ames:
Taxi!
     
     
    D uring the remainder of the flight, James had looked at him, not duped for a moment by his false sleep. When he had opened his eyes, James had watched the tears rolling down David’s cheeks, tears David hadn’t seemed to notice. He looked like he was lost in a waking nightmare, eyes wide open as he gazed out the window, barely blinking.
    James had his own nightmares, his own wretched thoughts, but they hadn’t reappeared during the day in ages. The shadows liked to submerge him at night, when his subconscious rose. His long lost memories would come to him, haunting him with images of the past. He would see the frail silhouette of his mother, her pale skin, her too thin features, yet her eyes filled with love for her children. It would be followed with a rapid succession of flashbacks. His mother, standing in front of the sink with the water running, her gaze vacantly looking through the window. Then, terror on her face, hands before her to protect herself as she walked backwards to escape his father’s tantrums. Lastly, his father’s rat face with his red-rimmed eyes, a knife covered in blood in his hand, looking directly into James’ eyes.
    Without fail, the concluding image would arouse him from his slumber, sweating and panting heavily.
    The atrocities he had seen while fighting for his country hadn’t overcome his terrible childhood memories. Nothing was worse than what happened to your own family. He had seen some of his brothers-in-arms losing it after fucked up ops but James would always stay calm and steady. Most of his friends had a hard time understanding how he could keep his distance, Bo had been the only one to know the entire