But Inside I'm Screaming

“Isabel, come on! Try to catch me!” Alex is smiling, calling out over his shoulder, his jog turning into a sprint. “We’ll finish sooner! Think bagels! Come on, Isabel!” His words are carried to her by the wind.

I can’t keep up, Alex. Wait up.

“Isabel?”

Alex!

“Isabel?”

Where am I?

Isabel squints up at the ceiling.

San Francisco? Did we already get the bagels?

“Isabel? Isabel, are you awake?”

Oh.

Above her Dr. Seidler is smiling, her head distorted. Her lips seem huge to Isabel.

“That must’ve been some dream!”

It was just a dream.

“Um, yeah. Where am I?” Isabel feels completely disoriented.

“Three Breezes, Isabel. You’re in Three Breezes Hospital. Do you know who I am?”

It feels like Alex is in this room. Where did he go?

“What?”

“It’s Dr. Seidler,” Isabel’s therapist answers. “It’s time to meet, Isabel. Do you feel up to it? You still seem pretty groggy. Would you rather rest some more?”

“I’m okay, I guess. Can I just throw on some sweatpants, though?” Isabel tries to move her arm and feels sore, as if she has just finished a kick-boxing class.

“Of course. My office, five minutes.” Dr. Seidler leaves Isabel to get dressed.

God, I miss him. I miss him so much it hurts.

Isabel pushes her aching body up and leans back against the edge of the bed and cries so hard the bed shakes, knocking the headboard against the wall.

Alex. I don’t know why…but I miss you.

“Are you feeling okay?” Dr. Seidler is scrutinizing Isabel and scribbles something on her notepad while Isabel slowly eases into the chair facing her therapist.

“It feels like I’ve been asleep for days,” Isabel tentatively answers.

“You’ve been sleeping for the past sixteen hours or so. That’s completely normal,” Dr. Seidler explains. “You may feel tired for the next few mornings. After electroshock therapy a lot of patients feel groggy. It helps if you just succumb to it and sleep as much as you can. Think of it as your brain repairing itself.”

“I actually feel pretty well rested.”

“Isabel, let me ask you a question. Just now when I woke you up—do you remember what you were dreaming about?”

“Alex. I was dreaming about Alex.” The dream was so lifelike that Isabel felt as if she’d just come from running on Chrissy Field along San Francisco’s marina. “It was really bright, very sunny. And we were doing the run we did every weekend. We used to drive to the marina and park and run on the beach out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Usually the wind was coming toward us so the run out to the bridge was hard. But in this dream, I remember, it was coming from behind. It was kind of pushing me. Anyway, that was my dream. Pretty boring, when you think about it.”

“Not at all. Not to me. Can you think of what the dream may mean?”

Isabel studies her hands in her lap. They look shriveled and foreign to her. Then she remembers the question.

“I don’t know. I think I was just dreaming about the past. A good memory of Alex. Of the Alex who was kind, not abusive. When he was happy I always felt elated…like nothing could touch us. That’s why it felt like a good dream. What do you think it means?”

“You said the wind was pushing you along. The wind is a primal force. Something we cannot control. And in the dream it was pushing you. And you noted that that was exactly opposite to what really happened when you went running along the beach. In reality, the wind pattern was opposite of what you dreamed. Do you think that maybe Alex was opposite what he seemed at first? Certainly, from what you’ve told me, he was a force that was at times out of control.”

“Yes!”

“And yet control is at the core of what your issues tend to be about. Alex was too controlling of you, certainly. But in the beginning, maybe you were comforted by his control of situations, since your father so lacked it—probably because of his drinking. It seems to mean something. I didn’t mention this to you when I first asked because I didn’t want it to color what you remembered, but typically, immediately following electroshock therapy, patients report dreaming about the incidents or people that have affected them the deepest. I find it interesting that, out of everything you’ve experienced, your subconscious chose Alex. What do you make of that?”

“I don’t know.” Isabel still feels dreamy and soft from sleep. “I just know that it was nice to remember something good about Alex since he’s so scary these days.”

Thirty-Seven

“Hurricane Charlie ripped through this tiny town of 877 and obliterated it. In less than an hour it was wiped off the map. But authorities are calling this a success story. Why? Because there were no casualties. None. Look around you and all you’ll find is debris. Where houses once stood, there are piles of brick, stone and rotting wood. Where there were once businesses, broken glass and concrete are twisted together with metal. But folks here are happy today. The early-warning system they installed a year ago saved the town’s entire population.”

Isabel Murphy, ANN News, Puerto Rico.

“Tom, I’m going to go call John and check in,” Isabel called over to the photographer while hunting through her purse for her cell phone. “But you know what we need—a wide shot of the main street, closeups of those people over there walking on that debris pile, blah, blah, blah.”

“Roger that.” Tom was distracted, searching for a blank tape in his gear bag. “We’ll have liftoff in T-minus five minutes.”

“You’re mixing metaphors.”

“Copy that. But right now I have to locate a Texas Arthur Peter Elvis. Aha! Have located said target and will now execute your orders, Sergeant.”

“Whatever.”

Tom straightened back up, tape in hand, eyes locked on something—someone—in the distance. “Incoming.” His voice softened so only Isabel could hear him.

Isabel looked up and then followed his line of sight.

“Oh, my God.”

Tom stepped in front of her.

“Were you expecting company?” he asked over his shoulder, still locked on his target.

“No.” Isabel could not believe who she saw through the tangled mess of a tropical town.

“I’ve got it covered.”

“Tom, it’s okay.” Isabel halfheartedly tried to shake her fear off and rein in her friend.

“No way, man. No way.”

“Well, well, well,” Alex said through his Cheshire cat grin, his whitened teeth fluorescent against his tan. “Look who we have here.” He sauntered up to them.

“What’re you doing here, man?” Tom asked in a belligerent tone.

Alex ignored him, although it must’ve been hard since Tom was twice his size and blocking his path to