Ruined her innocence

FALLON

I'm strolling hastily through Central Park, slowly sipping on my still warm caramel cappuccino to go. It's only a thirty-minute walk from my penthouse on the east side of Manhattan to the west side where Greg's gallery stands, but it will take me less to get there. And I still have plenty of time ahead.

I'm turning around the whole time as I walk.

That feeling like someone has been following me, stalking me, is back again. I'm doing my best not to succumb to that fear. But my legs don't listen to my mind. The same goes for my heart, disobediently skipping every beat.

Crossing over the Triplets Bridge, I know I'm almost there. The tube dangles against my back over a thick strap attached to it as I carry it across my body. I don't feel much of its weight as only my canvases lie nicely rolled inside of it. Greg will frame them.

My chaotic thoughts wander freely inside my crazed mind. It's Wednesday, mid-afternoon, and I'm already so confused and shaken up, feeling beyond exhausted from all that insomnia.

That fucking nightmare woke me up again this morning, too early like every previous day. And again, I couldn't retrieve the slightest memory of what it was that kept on haunting me, starting three months ago. Like something dark and dangerous is repeatedly blocking my mind from recovering those images.

But I know it is nothing remotely pleasant because there are these impressions, building castles and towers of unknown terror inside me, cold shivers running up and down my spine, tingles crawling all over my skin.

Each time, my heartbeat goes erratic, my breathing becomes ragged, and my body starts to quiver in fear and panic. My blood freezes into the strings of red, icy beads over and over again upon waking up. Something awful and misty can't stop wrapping itself around my soul, never letting me see what it is. It makes me feel so helpless, exposed, and dead broken every time upon opening my eyes. And all that happens without any logical reason.

So, the first thing I did after waking up was to look around the room as usual. Then, under my bed and outside of the window, searching for monsters. But I found nothing today, just as before, sighing in relief.

And add that feeling of someone stalking me during the broad daylight, plus my foggy memories to that, and it all together scares the shit out of me.

What the hell is happening to me? Am I going nuts? Paranoid? Schizophrenic?

I slide the tinted glass gallery's door open, finding the tall blonde guy behind it, hanging and adjusting paintings across the walls. He does it so effortlessly. Hearing me enter, he turns around, opening his arms to greet me, striding in my direction.

"Hi, Greg!" I kiss my cousin's cheek as I leap into his soft embrace, and he kisses me back, taking the tube containing paintings off my body