Waking From a Nightmare

"It could be a bit of both except. . . "

"Go on." She wondered at my hesitation.

"It's Mel. I know that if it wasn't for her I wouldn't be in the position that I am today, but quite frankly she scares me."

"How?"

"I've known her since, well since she was a kid. She and I flirted outrageously all the time, but for me that was all it was, I was going with Rachel and there was never any doubt in my mind that Rachel and I would be with each other for the rest of our lives. I now find out that to Mel it was more than flirting, much more. She claims that she was in love with me right from the first time we met, and that she and Rachel had talked about this. When she realised that it was Rachel that I loved, she relented and gave us her blessing. Unfortunately it seems that it didn't end there for her, she never gave up on her hope that one day she could have me for herself. Now that she has, now that she has helped me to get to where I am now physically and to some extent emotionally, I'm beginning to have doubts, I'm beginning to think that she is not the woman for me. There is something about her that scares me, and that if I try to break up with her, I'm afraid that she'll do something bad to me."

"Do you really think that she would be capable of harming you in some way?"

"Yes, I do. What can I do?"

"I suggest that you behave as if you have no doubts about your relationship, at least for the time being. What I would like to do is for you to bring her to your next appointment and I will have a private word with her after your appointment, I will tell her that it is so that I can give her ideas as to how she can best manage your recuperation. Shall we say this time next week?"

"Yeah, sure."

She buzzed the receptionist. "Trudi, would you schedule a double slot for Mr Robinson for this time next week?" She came around the desk to help me into my chair. I could smell her perfume as she bent over me, it was a sort of florally, musky fragrance that caused a reaction down there. This didn't altogether come as a surprise, during previous visits I got the feeling that she was somehow more gentle with me, more coaxing with me, but then it could have been my vivid imagination. But the hand on my shoulder as she stood behind me while I shuffled sideways to my chair, told me that my imagination may not be so vivid, it was soft and her fingers brushed my face. This can't be happening, it was totally unprofessional, but it was. She took her hand from my shoulder and grabbed the handles while I lowered myself into the chair, then, as she bent forward to push it, her breasts pressed into the back of my head. I had not lost any feeling up there, I definitely felt them so I reached up and placed a hand on one of hers. She made no effort to remove it until we had reached the reception area. "I'll see you next week then." She waved good-bye as I wheeled myself towards the car park.

Fucking hell what a mess I'm in, not only do I have a lover who has helped me physically, but who scares me to death, but I have a woman who has been responsible for much of my emotional healing, and who it now appears, has feelings for me outside the boundaries of a doctor/patient relationship.

After I'd settled into my car and the chair had been stowed, I rang Stanford, I needed to be brought up to speed about the investigation.

His secretary ushered me into his office. "Something's happened to you, not bad I hope."

"That depends on how you look at it. I'm having second thoughts about my relationship with Mel."

"Not cold feet is it?"

"No, it's something deeper than that. I get the feeling that I'll find myself trapped in a relationship with a woman that, quite frankly, scares me to death. She is so intense and volatile that I'm afraid for my safety if anything should go wrong between us. She has this propensity to violence, I've seen it in her, especially when we're talking about Wayne, and she has even said that she could quite happily kill him. At first I laughed it off, but lately there just seems to be a depth to her feelings that frightens me."

"It's funny that you should say that."

"Why would that be?"

"Something has emerged during Wayne's evidence to this new inquiry. You know that, before you came back to town he was seeing Mel don't you?"

"No I didn't."

"Since you've come back she broke it off with him and he has taken it just as badly as he did when you and Rachel hooked up. I believe, and I have no proof for this yet, but I believe that Mel may have been the catalyst that encouraged him to arrange for the mysterious truck driver to deliberately run into your car. He did mention that it was she that had given him your address so that he could stalk her. He hasn't gone as far as tell us that she told him to arrange for the accident, but a competent Psychiatrist would probably say that, by telling him where you were living caused him to take the actions that he did."

"This is so unreal, but then I can believe it, I can believe that she could manipulate him to doing what he did. Now of course I'm going to have to be doubly careful. If I upset her she's likely to do something stupid and set him against me again. The fact that he is under investigation won't enter into his thinking, and it wouldn't surprise me if she didn't tip off the police in time to save me and have him arrested. She will probably see this as sending me a message to never upset her. This is really scary."

"Unfortunately I have no proof of this and this is one of those situations where the police will have to wait until after the event before they can act on the information."

"I haven't told her yet, but I've arranged for her to come with me to see my shrink next week. The excuse is so that she can discuss with Mel what needs to be done to further advance my recovery. The real reason is that I discussed the fact that I was scared of Mel and she wants to assess her and see how dangerous the threat is."

"That's a good idea, just make sure that you take care for the next week. In the mean time I think that I'll put someone on Mel to see what she's doing."

I tried, and I think that I succeeded in behaving as if there was nothing bothering me. There was a slight speed bump when I told Mel about the appointment with Cecelia, I didn't mention her by name, I'm not that stupid, and once she accepted that this was in my best interests she calmed down. The rest of the week went by in the, now usual, way she would drive to work and I would go down later, after her Hydrotherapy classes, so that I could receive personal therapy. This was all above board, no fooling around, that happened after she got home, yes she had officially moved in. After dinner, we sat and watched the TV and chatted with Mum and Dad, and then it was off to the bedroom for my therapeutic massages. After an hour or so of this we crawled into bed for a different therapy and then to sleep.

If anyone tries to tell you that lightening doesn't strike the same place twice, you can tell them that is total and utter bullshit. I drove into the swim centre car park to find it alive with police vehicles and flashing lights. I was met at the door by a senior officer. "Mr Robinson, would you come this way please."

"Why, what's going on?"

"It's your girlfriend Mel, I'm afraid that she's dead."

"What? How? Why?"

"It was Wayne that did it. He was seen entering the building and walking towards the locker rooms. There was the sound of two people arguing, the last thing anyone heard was him yelling, 'If I go down for this I'm taking you with me,' and then two shots. By the time one of the other staff got there it was too late, he had shot her in the head at close range and then turned his gun on himself. I'm sorry, but we'll need to talk to you to see if we can establish a reason why he did this."

"I think I might know. I can't prove any of this, it's just a gut feeling, but I believe that they had been lovers before my return to town, and that she dumped him for me. This is the second time that he has lost out to me when it came to women, the first time he was never in with a chance, but if he and Mel had been an item then I can understand that he would be angry enough to do something like this. The fact that she was with me during the recent court case wouldn't have helped."

"Yes, we were aware of that, just as we are now aware that he was less than professional with his original report. You were put through a great deal and I will support any claim that you might make for compensation. The investigation into his involvement in that accident report has just reached the stage where we were about to dismiss him, and he knew that. That in itself would have been enough to trigger some sort of response and this is why we had him under observation. If he had got too close to you he would have been arrested."

"Bloody hell." It had just hit me that my world had come to an end yet again and I slumped to the floor.

"Can someone get an Ambo in here, now!" He yelled at no-one in particular. This was followed within seconds by the sound of running feet. I didn't hear this, I was off with the fairies. I came around in hospital with Mum and Dad hovering over me with worried looks on their faces.

I muttered something to them and even I realised that I wasn't making any sense. "Don't worry Son, we've contacted your Psychiatrist, she's coming in tomorrow to see you. You're to stay here at least until then." Dad said.

"Sand shoe." That was as near as I could get to 'thank you'.

A doctor bustled in and carried out a series of tests. "You'll survive, there doesn't seem to be any physical damage, your lower extremity reflexes as still functioning as well as can be expected given the progress of your recovery, we'll keep you under observation for the time being and kick you out as soon as we can."

Donald and Beth walked in, worried looks clouding their usually happy faces. "How are you Gavin?" Beth asked. I tried unsuccessfully to answer.

"My god lad, you must think that you're a jinx to have lost two women in your life in such a short time." He broke down and wept.

Dad comforted him. "We understand, we don't know the full story but we can sympathise with your loss. It's going to be hard on all of us, just getting through this, so, if you need any help, even if it's just to sit on the back porch, chatting over a cold beer."

"Thanks for that, I know that it's difficult to work out why this has happened, and I hope the full story, when it comes out, doesn't cause any more trouble for us, all of us." They had a group hug. I saw them and smiled. Life as I knew it hadn't come to a screeching halt, I would somehow get through this, with their help.

Cecelia came in the next day with my chair. "Come on lazy-bones, we're going for a walk." She helped me into the chair and I wheeled myself out into the courtyard and sunlight. She sat on a bench and held my hand. "Gavin, I heard what happened to Mel, I'm sorry. I want you to remember that I'm here for you if you need me."

"Thank you for this, and yes I need you, I need you to tell me why this is happening to me? What have I done to deserve this?"

"You've done nothing. I have gone through the initial reports on the deaths and what led to them and I can tell you that none of this was your fault. This was the work of a couple of very twisted minds distorted by one of the most basic of urges, jealousy. Both Wayne and Mel were jealous of you and Rachel, and Mel used Wayne's jealousy to get Rachel out of the way. What she wasn't counting on was your injuries, and she blamed Wayne for that. Then she dumps him just when he thought that it was all going well between them, it wasn't of course, it never was but he didn't know that, and this caused him to react in the way that he did. If he couldn't have her then no-one could, his hatred of her was greater than his hatred of you because he had come to realise that she had used him all along, and now that you were back on the scene, he was surplus to requirements. Almost anyone would have flipped over that."

"I'm beginning to understand that I'll never understand women."

"We're not all that complicated." She leant over and kissed me in a most unprofessional way. "You'll see."

I was confused. I was not unhappy with my confusion, of the two of them I would have chosen Cecelia over Mel any day.

"Now let's get the hell out of this hospital, I'll take you home. I want to have a chat with your parents. In my professional opinion you should get right away from here, this place has been the source of a great deal of hurt for you. I think that you should have a holiday and I also think that you should have someone with you that can look after your emotional needs." She had a smile on her face when she said that.

"And I suppose that you're going to volunteer for the job?"

"How did you guess? I know that this is unprofessional of me, but I am after all human, and not a robot. I have feelings along with everyone else, and I need a holiday myself. Did you know that Psychiatrists were the most likely members of the Medical profession to commit suicide?"

"I suppose that you're asking me to stop you from ending it all."

"See, we're not that complicated at all, you saw right through my scheme."

For the second time in my life I had found myself in the middle of a nightmare, and for the second time I have woken from it to find myself in a better place.