A Little Harmless Addiction: A Harmless World Novel (The Original Harmless Five Book 5) by Melissa Schroeder

Author:Melissa Schroeder [Schroeder, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781956633429
Publisher: Harmless Publishing
Published: 2024-02-01T18:30:00+00:00

nine

Jocelyn came awake on a gasp. She gulped in deep breaths of air as she tried to calm her heart. Sweat dripped down her spine as she shivered. It had been bad, so vivid. It had been weeks since she’d dreamed of the attack. She rubbed her arms, trying to push away the memory of what it had felt like when Greg had griped them, leaving marks.

“Just a dream, Jocelyn.” The words came out as if a prayer. She closed her eyes, pulled in a deep breath, then released it as she opened her eyes again.

She swung her legs over to the side of the bed. With more strength than she thought she had, she pushed out of bed and padded barefoot to the bathroom. She turned on the light and winced as the bright light pierced her eyes. Damn. She couldn’t go without light. It was a moonless night, and she didn’t know the house well enough yet. She rubbed her temples as her head started to pound. Of course, a headache. Just what she needed. Not that she’d had a wonderful evening to begin with. First her embarrassment with Kai, then her dream.

She opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed some aspirin. She dropped two into her hand, then placed the bottle back on the shelf. It sat next to the prescribed meds. One was to make her happy, to forget everything and just float through life without any worries. She had been on them until recently, until she’d convinced her doctor she hadn’t needed them anymore.

Maybe she did. But she couldn’t take going through life in slow motion. She hadn’t had any panic attacks while on them, but she hadn’t felt anything else. She would rather live in terror than exist like that.

She filled a cup with water as she thought about the sleeping medication also in her cabinet. She could take it tonight, but it would make it impossible for her to make it to work tomorrow. She needed a good eight hours of sleep before they wore off. And she didn’t want to take something that made it hard to wake up. She didn’t want to exist in that dream.

While staring at the bottles, she tossed the aspirin in her mouth and then drank the water. It was a tiny bit of defiance, or maybe she was trying to test her resolve. She would not succumb to them. Not tonight.

She turned off the light and walked back into her bedroom. A glance at the clock told her she wouldn’t be getting much more sleep, so she went into the kitchen to start coffee.

She waited at the counter and thought about her embarrassing behavior. What the hell had she been thinking? She hadn’t been.

The problem was she felt smothered. Everyone was mothering her, handling her with kid gloves. It had fit her when she was on the drugs. It hadn’t bothered her at all. Hell, she couldn’t feel a damn thing on them. So what was a little overbearing from well-meaning friends? And she had needed it if she were honest with herself.

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