Unwanted Memories

                                    

                                          

It wasn't the first time Damien witnessed her crying in her sleep, and it definitely wasn't the second. Her screaming was heard by him almost every night for the month and a half she stayed. They were loud and terrifying, begging to be heard.
They were heard all right. He simply never mentioned it because he figured she would have a hard time believing him and he was right.
Lavender was this tough, fearless, badass superwoman at day but this empty, shattered, vulnerable girl at night. The woman was just too caught up in her bubble of being a strong woman all the time, that she didn't even realize it. 
The fact that Lavender never let her problems get the best of her was so admiring yet equally frightening.
He knew what pretending to be okay felt like. He lived that experience his whole life and it permanently damaged him. 
Damien was born to be lucky. 
Lucky because he could get whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. But Damien actually considered that as bad luck, because it made his parents think that all the materialistic things in the world could surrogate for things money couldn't buy. 
Unlike him, Lavender didn't have everything handed to her on a silver platter so she had to get her own. She had to fight for whatever she needed.
The last time Damien fought for what he really wanted, he only managed to add a few more unwanted scars to his body.
There was one thing that Damien so desperately wanted. Something that money couldn't buy. Something that his looks couldn't charm. He wanted that something--that one thing from since he was a little boy, but his parents never bothered giving it to him. 
They decided that giving him every last materialistic thing in the book was enough to make him happy. His parents didn't give him that something, so he gave that something to Jacob. Damien didn't want Jacob to experience what he went through. God, that would've eaten him alive. 
Good thing, Lavender had a chance to experience that something but lost it.
The night Damien couldn't sleep again, because the thought of Isaac haunted him. The lights were on again, but that still didn't help him to sleep. He even popped several of those sleeping pills down his throat, but they took too long to kick into his system. That's why he went to drink down the unwanted memories with a cold glass of orange juice, but on his way back to his room he heard it again. 
The screaming, hiccuping, and whimpering. 
Lavender never locked her room door as if she always expected someone, so Damien opened the door and slipped in. 
Tonight was no different from the other nights as she cried baldly, pulling out her hair and beating up the bed. Good thing this time he brought the proof that he promised her.
 He tapped on the red button, leaning his phone on the lampstand so that it wouldn't fall. 
"Now do you believe me?" he asked, looking at the phone before going over to Lavender.
After cradling her she calmed down. Damien mentally scolded himself for doing the things that he found out of the line for others acceptable for her. 
When did he start ever cradling someone? 
He was about to leave, but she gripped his arm as if her life depended on it. "Stay."
He glared at her with clenched jaws. She wasn't going to remember any of this in the morning, so why stay so she can accuse him of doing something that Damien would never do in a million years no matter how much he loved sex? 
The same way she never remembered many of the night's he slept next to her. It was like she was high on the nightmares and when she woke up all things were wiped out. 
"Please."
Damien gave in because he looked her in the eye and saw her vulnerability being exposed to him. That was him years back, but whenever he called out please no one heard him, and those that did never stayed. And the worst of it all was those that actually stayed couldn't help him.
He went to the bathroom got a cloth and dipped it in some warm water. Everything was always done for him, but he could certainly treat a scrape here and there because he watched his many scars get treated way too many times to not learn anything at all.
Lavender scarcely winced which made it easy to wipe off the dried blood that smelt like old pennies off her knuckles. He kissed them and she just stared with wide eyes. With a smile, he wrapped her knuckles again and wiped her face that had tear tracks. He pulled her up close and began drifting to sleep because the pills were beginning to kick in. 
Before he fully fell asleep, Damien vowed to get out before she woke up, because he was shirtless. He didn't want her to see his scars again. She may have not asked questions yesterday, but she was going to ask soon. 
He didn't want her to search for answers that he wasn't ready to tell, but the pills magic were on full speed now, and he was too numb all over to move. So he broke off into a comfortable deep slumber before he knew it.