Name: kay_brooke
Story: Unusual Florida
Colors: Gold #18 (money can’t buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy), Octarine #11 (a marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads
Word Count: 541
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Karen has a nightmare.
Note: Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM. Last Octarine, finally.


She woke up covered in cold sweat, her hands fisting in the sheets while a scream died in her throat. And Kevin was there, looming over her, but for a second she thought it was him, that he had extracted himself from her nightmares and now his pale, spindly fingers were reaching for her throat…

“Karen!” Kevin said, grabbing her hands as she flailed wildly at him. “Karen, wake up!”

She was out of bed and standing before she even realized she had moved, her heart pounding so hard and so fast she felt like her whole body was vibrating. “What are you doing?” she gasped out. “Why are you attacking me?”

Kevin sat in their bed, coverlet pooled around his knees, his undershirt askew and riding up his back. She could only see him in silhouette, stark against the sheer curtains overlooking the garage and the yellow light in the driveway. “You attacked me,” he said. “You woke up screaming. You hit me. You were having a nightmare.”

He wasn’t accusing her of anything, Karen could see that. He wouldn’t hold her accountable for what a night terror had made her do. But the words were out before she could stop them, as if even admitting to having bad dreams was the same as admitting what was in them. “I didn’t have a nightmare.”

“That’s what it looked like to me,” said Kevin. “You were screaming, Karen. I’m surprised none of the kids woke up.”

“I wasn’t,” she insisted. And in return for his compassion, she accused him: “You woke me up. You always hog the blankets.”

“Karen,” he said softly. “This isn’t a joke. I know you’ve been having nightmares for a while. They’re not usually this bad. Is there something going on I need to know about?”

“Stress,” she could have said. “Maybe it’s a symptom of menopause,” she could have said, since she was about at that age. Or even just, “I don’t know.” But she stubbornly insisted, “I do not have nightmares. I have never had nightmares. And whatever just happened right now, it was something you did.” In her mind she saw his shadow growing larger, his fingers reaching for her, and as his face slid into the light he was Robert.

Kevin shifted, moved toward her. She couldn’t see his face. She took a step back. “I don’t know what I did to make you angry, but I’m sorry. Please come back to bed.”

“You didn’t do anything to make me angry,” she said, even as she risked grabbing her pillow. “I’m going to one of the guest rooms.”

“If you’re not mad, then why are you leaving?”

She couldn’t sleep with him, not when at any moment he could become Robert, could grab her by the throat and then steal her children, and that it would be her fault because she had been the one foolish enough to befriend Robert in the first place. And why? Because he’d been kind. Because he’d helped make them rich. Because he had manipulated her.

But in the end it was all her fault.

So she shook her head and said, “I told you, you hog all the blankets.”