Free NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) by Courtney Cole

because hello. I’m so not better than he
deserves.   My subconscious mind must
be on drugs, but regardless of that, my dreams are heaven.     
    I shower and make my way downstairs for a
late breakfast/ early lunch.   The
pickings are slim in the pantry.
    “We’re out of lemons for lemonade,” I
tell my dad as we munch on cereal.   “We’re also out of sandwich meat, spaghetti sauce, bread, milk…
basically anything we can use to make dinner.”    He nods, unconcerned and I
sigh.  
    I feel like he’s been slipping.   Like he cares less and less about real
life issues every day, and more on his grief about mom. He cares about his job,
of course.   But that’s nothing
new.   He’s always been a workaholic.
In fact, that’s where he was the night mom died.   In town, picking up a
body.  
    I force my attention from that, onto
anything but that.
    “I’ll go to the store today,” I tell him,
getting up and stretching.   “Do you
know where Finn is?”
    My father keeps his face buried in his
newspaper, but still pulls out his wallet and hands it to me. “No.”
    I sigh again.   “Ok.   Well, if you see him, tell him I’ll be
back later.”
    I take his wallet and slip out the door,
grateful for a chance to be away from his blank expression.   I know we all cope in different ways,
but Jesus.
    The mid-day sun gleams on the wet road as
I steer my car down the mountain.   The birds are chirping in the trees, and I roll my windows down to let
the brisk air in.   I take a deep
breath, then dance in my seat as a happy song comes on
the radio.  
    Thank
you, God, I whisper in
my head. Happiness, in any form, is hard to come by these days and I’ll take it
where I can get it.   Reaching down,
I roll the volume dial up, pumping up the music, filling my car so that
happiness is all I hear and all I feel.  
    I only look away from the road for a
second.  
    For one brief moment.  
    When I look back up, a tiny animal is
sitting in the middle of the road. It happens so fast that I only see two green
eyes looking at me, and gray fur, and I yank the wheel hard to avoid hitting
it.  
    My car rumbles off the road and I slam on
the brakes, my wheels skidding in the dirty gravel on the shoulder.
    I skid to a stop, at least a foot from
the edge, but still, I’m horrified and frozen.   I can’t breathe as I sit still, as I eye
the edge and suddenly, it seems very close to me.   Like I could’ve plunged over the side,
just like my mom.  
    My breath comes in heavy gasps, my heart
flutters in my chest as I hear her screaming, as I see the rain from that
night, the steam rising from the road, the sound of her shrieking tires in my
ear.   It all swirls around me like
stuttered pictures from a movie, re-living itself in ways I can’t stop.   I put my hands over my ears to block out
the screaming, and my chest contracts and contracts.
    I’m
having a heart attack.  
    But I’m not.  
    It has to be a panic attack.  
    I’m panicking.  
    I can’t breathe.  
    I throw open the car door and the roar of
it is loud.   I scramble out, and
bend over, trying like hell to breathe, and failing miserably, my hands on my
knees, my mouth open, gasping impotently.   
    “Stand up,” a calm voice says
quickly.   “If you can’t breathe,
stand up.”
    I do, arching my back with my hands on my
hips, my face turned up to the sun.  
    One.
    Two.
    Three.
    Four.  
    By five, I can breathe a small breath.
    By six, I take a large one.  
    By seven, I’m able to move my head, to
look and see who is with me.
    Dare stands in front of me, concern
swimming in his dark eyes, his lithe form hovering by my car.   It’s like he’s afraid to approach me,
afraid that I’m a wild animal poised to attack.  
    “I’m sorry,” I tell him, my lungs still
feeling fluttery. “I don’t know what happened.”
    He takes a step, his eyes wary and
concerned. “Are you okay?”
    Am I?
    I look around, at my car, at my open car
door, at