Post by Hellokitty on Aug 19, 2006 8:52:41 GMT -5
Falling Book 2: Finding Marlena – Chapter 8
“Crazy Julie, such a little foolie,” Channing Owens taunted Marlena as he bent his head down and kissed her neck.
“Get away from me now,” she said as she struggled against him. “You’re dead…you’re not really here.”
“Am I?”
“STOP,” Marlena screamed out hysterically, abruptly sitting up on the floor of the boat. “STOP,” she screamed again as she grabbed her head. “STOP,” she screamed over and over, unable to stop herself.
“Marlena….” John tried to interrupt, alarmed at her hysteria. She was gasping for air and trembling and yelling the word stop over and over again.
“STOP,” she screamed again.
“Doc,” John said as he pulled her into his strong arms and held her tight. “You’re safe… You’re safe… It’s me John…It’s John….I love you baby, please come back to me.”
“John,” she whispered as she turned toward the direction of his voice. “John?”
“Doc.”
“John…are you really here?” she asked in disbelief as the tears of terror that she had been holding in freely flowed. “Are you really here or is it another cruel trick of my mind?” Pulling out of his arms, she sat back on her heels at stared at him. Was he really there? Slowly she reached out to touch him but stopped short inches from his face not wanting this to be another illusion.
“It’s me pretty lady…It’s me….don’t you know that I’ll always be here for you?”
Marlena closed her eyes tightly as an image of Maxwell Owens approaching her, malice in his eyes, flashed in her head. Reaching out his hand he tried to touch her.
Swallowing hard to shake the image from her mind knowing that it wasn’t real, Marlena tried to explain to John what she was seeing. “It was all so real…Channing and my father were trying to convince me that you didn’t love me,” Marlena said as she tried to dodge his hand. She had been touched too many times, in too many ways and wasn’t ready for that kind of contact with John.
John quickly dropped his hand, understanding that she wasn’t ready for human contact at this time, but seeing so many tears uncontrollably flow down her face was too much for him. “Honey, you know that could never happen….no matter what…you’re stuck with me,” John said as he tenderly wiped the tears from her cheeks. He was comforted by the fact that she didn’t rebuff his attempt at comfort.
Faster and faster pictures from her past flashed in her head in a random order. She saw herself as a small child with pigtails in her hair swinging on a worn out frayed tire. “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down,” she sang out in a sing song voice. She saw herself running down a daisy filled meadow hair blowing in the breeze, laughing as she was being chased by someone she couldn’t see. She saw herself being held prisoner by Stefano in his guilded cage, watching her every moment, desperately waiting for her to give herself willingly to him.
“I need to get out of here,” Marlena said abruptly as she tried to stand up. The walls she’d created in her mind were closing in on her. She knew that this was John, her loving and wonderful ex-husband, but couldn’t deal with his nearness and her nightmare about Channing and her father. It was simply too much, too soon.
“We’re in the middle of an ocean Doc,” John told her, alarmed by the sudden change in her demeanor. He watched her from a distance, noticing that she was furiously rubbing her arms where he’d seen the gashes before.
Leaning against the railing she tried to catch her breath. “I feel like the walls are closing in around me,” she admitted as she tried to breathe in deeply through her nose to ward off another panic attack. “I can’t breathe…I need to get off this boat.”
“Give me a couple minutes and I’ll pull it onto the beach,” John suggested, getting up from where he was kneeling and walking to the back of the boat.
“No, now.”
“Two minutes Doc,” John said as he pulled the cover off the outboard motor and inspected it. He prayed that Marlena could hold on long enough for him to get the boat started and headed to shore. Although it was still too dark to safely approach the beach, he didn’t see that they had a choice. Either get her to shore quickly or risk a major panic attack.
“No, I can’t be here John…I need to get off this boat right now,” she said as she started trembling. Suddenly dropping to the floor of the boat, Marlena broke down sobbing, covering her head with her hands. “I can’t do this…. I’m not strong enough to do this.”
“Doc, you’re going to be okay,” John said as he dropped the cover and ran to the front of the boat kneeling down in front of Marlena, wanting desperately to take her into his arms.
“No I’m not. Something is wrong with me John….something is wrong…I feel like someone is crawling under my skin….I don’t want to be here…Something is wrong,” Marlena managed to tell John between gasps. The more she talked to him, the more confined she felt. Something was wrong. Grabbing her wrist, she rubbed the wounds on her arms furiously, causing them to bleed.
“Tell me what you are feeling,” John innocently suggested, thinking that if he could get her to talk about her dream, it may calm her down. He was alarmed at her hysteria but at a loss for what to do.
“Nooooooooooooooooo,” Marlena moaned as she grabbed her head. “Noooooooooooooooo…I don’t want to remember….I don’t want these images in my head……I just want to be Marlena….Just Marlena…..Not Julie.”
“Doc…..”
“Make it stop John….make these memories stop…..please help me,” Marlena pleaded with him, the desperation in her voice bringing John to tears.
“Doc, breathe in,” John commanded as he ran to the back of the boat, taking hold of the outboard motor and starting it up. When he stole the boat from the tiny Italian seaside village, John hadn’t actually thought they were going to get away and didn’t salvage either anchor in his escape attempt. He was now thankful for that decision as it allowed him to be more responsive to Marlena in her moment of need.
“Oh god…of god,” Marlena said as the smell of gasoline permeated her nostrils. She was going to be sick. “I need off this boat now, John,” she muttered to him before dropping her blanket and climbing onto the railing of the boat.
Seeing what she was about to do, John cut the engine and ran to Marlena, holding onto her tightly. “Doc….Doc…Doc…Doc,” he whispered repeatedly into her ear as he held her tight.
“Let me go,” Marlena warned him as she started dry heaving.
“You can’t get in the water Doc…you can’t…I’ll give you space on the boat and help you in any way I can, but I won’t allow you to get into the water,” John said tenderly as he rubbed her back, trying to be supportive as she leaned over the railing of the boat trying to expel what little there was in her stomach.
“I need to get off this boat now….I don’t want to be here John.”
“I know that baby… I know that…let me help you.”
“You can’t… No one can… What’s wrong with me,” Marlena said as she stood up and faced John, dumbfounded that she was questioning her own sanity. “I thought that by remembering my past it would make things better but its just making things worse. I can’t be here… I can’t be on this boat… HELP ME DAMMIT.”
“I want to help you, but you need to tell me how,” John said as he tried to take her into his arms to comfort her.
“DON’T TOUCH ME,” she screamed as she backed away from John. Seeing the look of shock and devastation on John’s face as he backed away from her, Marlena reached out touch him, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry….I’m so sorry…I’m sorry.”
John stood before her silent, concerned and confused. He had dealt with Marlena and her panic attacks in the past but this was different. Thinking back to the medical training he received while employed as Stefano’s mercenary he recognized her behavior for what it was, someone on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.
“I’m so sorry John….forgive me,” Marlena said, tears streaming down her face, as she put one leg over the railing of the boat and climbed overboard jumping into the black sea below.
“Marlena,” John yelled as he jumped into the water behind her. “Holy shit,” he muttered at the coldness of the water once he surfaced. Scanning the ocean surface around him he spotted Marlena struggling in the water twenty feet away from him. “Fuck,” he muttered as he took off after her hoping for once that the fates were on his side and that the boat wouldn’t drift too much.
Quickly swimming to where she was, John pulled her into his arms. “Don’t you ever do something stupid like that again,” he sternly warned her, annoyed that she was putting both of their lives at risk.
“Let me go.”
“No, not until we get back to the boat.”
“I don’t want to go back… let me go…I don’t want to be here,” Marlena cried out as she kicked her legs and arms furiously against John, trying to escape his firm but painful grasp. Marlena had resigned herself to her fate at the bottom of the abyss, but Julie was a fighter, not willing to give up so easily. As hard as Marlena tried to stop struggling, Julie wouldn’t let her.
“The hell if I will lady,” John replied as he shifted Marlena against her will onto her back and pulled her up against him. Placing one arm securely around her chest he swam backwards to the boat dragging her with him.
“Let me go,” Marlena cried out as she struggled against him.
Ignoring Marlena’s protests and attempts to escape his grasp he slowly pulled her toward the boat. Grabbing her around the waist he forced her into the boat.
“I’m gonna jump,” she threatened him, seeing the anger in his eyes as he approached her.
“No you’re not,” John said as he grabbed Marlena by the arm and drug her down below to the galley. Finding the flashlight that he had located earlier, John picked it up and turned it on.
“Please let me go….I’ll be good,” Marlena pleaded with him in a child like voice, seeing not John before her but Channing Owens.
Pointing the beam of light towards the small bunk John told her, “Get in there now.”
“No…please….No,” Marlena cried out as she tried to back away from John.
John was at a loss of what to do. Marlena was clearly in the midst of a breakdown that he was helpless and unprepared to stop. If he left her alone, she might attempt to jump overboard again. If he left the boat unattended they might crash into the rocks and any attempt at leaving the island would be forever dashed.
“Get on the bed now,” John demanded, knowing that he needed to get back up on deck and move the boat to safer waters.
“No, I’ll be good,” Marlena cried out trying to reason with him. “Please no,” she said, looking down at her feet, not wanting to see the disappointment in his eyes once again.
“Mar sweetheart, I need you down here so I can try to motor the boat towards the shore… then you can get off,” John said as he physically moved her the last few remaining feet to the bed and sat her down. Marlena instinctively crawled to the wall and sat with her back against it, drawing her legs up against her body.
“I’m sorry,” Marlena cried as she put her head down on her legs and sobbed.
John felt the sudden rocking of the boat and knew the boat had drifted into more shallow water. “Fuck,” he muttered as he ran up the small set of stairs to the deck of the boat, inadvertently leaving Marlena alone in the dark.
“I’ll be good…I’ll be good,” she muttered as she clenched her eyes shut, not wanting to see what was before her. She felt the hum of the motor as it came to life and the boat started moving.
“Julie, you should have drowned yourself when you had the chance,” her father said as he sat down on the bed beside her.
“You’re not real…you’re not real,” Marlena said further shrinking down on the bed, trying to be as little and unnoticeable as possible. “You’re not real…You’re in my head.”
“Am I?” he laughed as Marlena felt him grab at her arms and reopen the wounds.
“Stop,” she whispered as she struggled to pull her arms out of his grasp.
“I’ll always be a part of you,” he said seductively as he grabbed her wrist and his tongue tentatively touched the bleeding flesh.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” he laughed as he bit down on her wrist.
“Not going to cry….not going to cry….you’re not real,” she told herself outloud as she rocked back and forth along with the boat in the bunk. “I’m strong…I’m strong….John says I’m strong….you’re not real…you’re all in my head,” she repeated over and over as the sensation of her father biting her wrist was omnipresent.
Suddenly the engine of the boat cut off. Marlena struggled to get out of the bunk but found herself being stopped and pushed back down on the bed.
“No…I’ll be good…,” she muttered again.
“Wait Marlena,” John interrupted, alarmed by Marlena’s mental condition. Reaching out his hand to her, he nodded for her to take it. “Trust me.”
Slowly taking his hand he helped her off the bed. “I’d never hurt you sweetheart,” John said quietly to Marlena as he led her to the deck of the small boat.
“Look,” he said motioning to the nearby beach. “If you still want to get off the boat now you can.”
Marlena dropped his hand and walked to the bow on the boat and looked at the beach before her. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked him, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Not for a second,” John replied as he stood behind her and looked down at her tussled blonde hair. “Not for a second….you’re just going through a hard time, much like I did years ago when I tried to remember my past.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t try to remember?”
“That’s always an option,” he told her knowing that it wasn’t. If she didn’t remember her past and why Maxwell Owens and company were after her they could be on the run for the rest of their lives.
“As a psychiatrist I’m failing miserably and going against every piece of advice I’ve ever given a patient and against everything I’ve studied… I don’t get why this is so hard for me John.”
“Is it the memories that are effecting you or the process of remembering?”
“I don’t know…maybe both?”
“Is there anything I can do to help you through this?”
“Just knowing that you are here by my side is more than enough.”
“I’ll always be here for you, you know that…there is nothing you can’t tell me….I hope you know that.”
“I do and I so appreciate it, more than you’ll ever know… I think part of my problem is that I’m trying too hard to change how I feel about myself, hoping that along the way I’ll change who I am….the harder I try to find who I am, who Marlena is, the more I feel like Julie. I’m tired of feeling like a victim, because I’m not one….yet I can’t seem to stop myself. The more I remember, the worse it feels, the worse I feel about myself,” Marlena said as she turned around and faced John, sitting on the railing. “Everything in my head is a mess. I can’t stop my dreams even though I want to so badly. I don’t know how to explain to you what I am dreaming…If there was a way I would, but there isn’t….none of it makes sense to me…Channing and my father keep talking to me…I don’t know to explain it…. It doesn’t make any sense, I know that rationally it can’t have happened John, but I know what I felt and I know what I saw.” The tears in her eyes and the obvious pain on her face pained John. Looking at her he felt a tightening in his chest and lump in his throat. Taking her face tenderly in his hands, John looked up in the sky for guidance. There was nothing he could say to make things better for her. There was no one there; everything was in her head.
“Try to explain to me what you’re seeing? What are Channing and your father saying?”
“I can’t.” she said as she grabbed her hair and roughly pulled on it. “I don’t understand it myself. I don’t know where to start…I keep seeing pictures and can’t get them to stop. I thought I was okay….everything was behind me and in the past and now it won’t seem to let me go John.” “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?” she screamed loudly. “WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY WHY?”
“Honey, its going to be okay,” John said as he took her into his arms and slowly rubbed small circles into her back. “Maybe by taking each image piece by piece and talking about it will help.”
“It won’t John…you wouldn’t understand what I’m seeing,” she said as she hung her head down in shame. Closing her eyes an image of her father popped in her head. Wearing a tuxedo, he looked as dashing as ever. Slowly she approached him, the pale blue silk of her dress rustling with each small step she took. Smiling up at her he said, “We made it.”
“No,” she moaned as she shook her head furiously and pulled out of John’s embrace.
“Doc what is it now? What did you just see?”
“My father,” she whispered as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. She reached up to wipe it away but John got to it first. Tenderly he ran his thumb across her cheek, capturing the silent tear.
“Tell me about him.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Try,” John suggested as he put his arm around her, trying to encourage her to continue.
Marlena lifted her arm and wiped her nose on the sleeve on shirt. “Just thinking about him, thinking about my past hurts too much John.” Holding the sleeve over her mouth, she felt comfortable enough to continue. “I don’t want to think about him. I just want him and that part of my past gone.”
“Nothing is that simple.”
“I don’t want simple. I don’t want him in my head anymore. Every time I close my eyes and try to forget it just gets worse.”
“Gets worse? What do you mean? Are you remembering more?”
Marlena slowly shook her head yes and she put her index finger in her mouth and bit down on it. “I don’t want to remember…I don’t.”
“I know its scary baby, but the answers are in your head. In your sleep you called out some more numbers 25, 68, 99…”
“Really?” Marlena interrupted.
“Do you remember what you were dreaming?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Marlena admitted as she pulled her shirt tightly around herself, the images of her dream flashing in her mind.
“No secrets Doc,” John whispered as he reached out and took her hand in his, kissing it gently.
“I was dreaming about you and you and Channing and my father,” she admitted, eyes downcast. “I don’t remember what the number means only that its something that Channing told me before he died.” Swallowing deeply, Marlena tried to lubricate her throat to keep it from swelling, not wanting to breakdown in front of John again.
“Well that’s a start,” John said as he tipped her chin up and gazed deep into her hazel eyes. “What is it sweetheart?” he asked, her eyes glassy from the tears yet to fall.
“I remembered something else….about Al….about Al….about Al….I can’t do this,” Marlena said as she sought solace in John’s arms, sobbing. “I can’t do this….it can’t be right.”
“What are you remembering?” John asked. “Please tell me…I want to help you….Was it about Alex North.”
Nodding her head yes, Marlena held onto John tightly, nestling her head into his neck. Whispering she told him, “He sent the man to attack me.” As the memories of being attacked and raped in the parking garage bathroom came to the surface of her subconscious Marlena held onto John tightly for support unable to control the flood of emotions that the memory evoked.
“I’m going to kill the bastard,” John promised Marlena as he held her sobbing frame tight to him. “Once I find him, he will pay.”
“Crazy Julie, such a little foolie,” Channing Owens taunted Marlena as he bent his head down and kissed her neck.
“Get away from me now,” she said as she struggled against him. “You’re dead…you’re not really here.”
“Am I?”
“STOP,” Marlena screamed out hysterically, abruptly sitting up on the floor of the boat. “STOP,” she screamed again as she grabbed her head. “STOP,” she screamed over and over, unable to stop herself.
“Marlena….” John tried to interrupt, alarmed at her hysteria. She was gasping for air and trembling and yelling the word stop over and over again.
“STOP,” she screamed again.
“Doc,” John said as he pulled her into his strong arms and held her tight. “You’re safe… You’re safe… It’s me John…It’s John….I love you baby, please come back to me.”
“John,” she whispered as she turned toward the direction of his voice. “John?”
“Doc.”
“John…are you really here?” she asked in disbelief as the tears of terror that she had been holding in freely flowed. “Are you really here or is it another cruel trick of my mind?” Pulling out of his arms, she sat back on her heels at stared at him. Was he really there? Slowly she reached out to touch him but stopped short inches from his face not wanting this to be another illusion.
“It’s me pretty lady…It’s me….don’t you know that I’ll always be here for you?”
Marlena closed her eyes tightly as an image of Maxwell Owens approaching her, malice in his eyes, flashed in her head. Reaching out his hand he tried to touch her.
Swallowing hard to shake the image from her mind knowing that it wasn’t real, Marlena tried to explain to John what she was seeing. “It was all so real…Channing and my father were trying to convince me that you didn’t love me,” Marlena said as she tried to dodge his hand. She had been touched too many times, in too many ways and wasn’t ready for that kind of contact with John.
John quickly dropped his hand, understanding that she wasn’t ready for human contact at this time, but seeing so many tears uncontrollably flow down her face was too much for him. “Honey, you know that could never happen….no matter what…you’re stuck with me,” John said as he tenderly wiped the tears from her cheeks. He was comforted by the fact that she didn’t rebuff his attempt at comfort.
Faster and faster pictures from her past flashed in her head in a random order. She saw herself as a small child with pigtails in her hair swinging on a worn out frayed tire. “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies, ashes ashes we all fall down,” she sang out in a sing song voice. She saw herself running down a daisy filled meadow hair blowing in the breeze, laughing as she was being chased by someone she couldn’t see. She saw herself being held prisoner by Stefano in his guilded cage, watching her every moment, desperately waiting for her to give herself willingly to him.
“I need to get out of here,” Marlena said abruptly as she tried to stand up. The walls she’d created in her mind were closing in on her. She knew that this was John, her loving and wonderful ex-husband, but couldn’t deal with his nearness and her nightmare about Channing and her father. It was simply too much, too soon.
“We’re in the middle of an ocean Doc,” John told her, alarmed by the sudden change in her demeanor. He watched her from a distance, noticing that she was furiously rubbing her arms where he’d seen the gashes before.
Leaning against the railing she tried to catch her breath. “I feel like the walls are closing in around me,” she admitted as she tried to breathe in deeply through her nose to ward off another panic attack. “I can’t breathe…I need to get off this boat.”
“Give me a couple minutes and I’ll pull it onto the beach,” John suggested, getting up from where he was kneeling and walking to the back of the boat.
“No, now.”
“Two minutes Doc,” John said as he pulled the cover off the outboard motor and inspected it. He prayed that Marlena could hold on long enough for him to get the boat started and headed to shore. Although it was still too dark to safely approach the beach, he didn’t see that they had a choice. Either get her to shore quickly or risk a major panic attack.
“No, I can’t be here John…I need to get off this boat right now,” she said as she started trembling. Suddenly dropping to the floor of the boat, Marlena broke down sobbing, covering her head with her hands. “I can’t do this…. I’m not strong enough to do this.”
“Doc, you’re going to be okay,” John said as he dropped the cover and ran to the front of the boat kneeling down in front of Marlena, wanting desperately to take her into his arms.
“No I’m not. Something is wrong with me John….something is wrong…I feel like someone is crawling under my skin….I don’t want to be here…Something is wrong,” Marlena managed to tell John between gasps. The more she talked to him, the more confined she felt. Something was wrong. Grabbing her wrist, she rubbed the wounds on her arms furiously, causing them to bleed.
“Tell me what you are feeling,” John innocently suggested, thinking that if he could get her to talk about her dream, it may calm her down. He was alarmed at her hysteria but at a loss for what to do.
“Nooooooooooooooooo,” Marlena moaned as she grabbed her head. “Noooooooooooooooo…I don’t want to remember….I don’t want these images in my head……I just want to be Marlena….Just Marlena…..Not Julie.”
“Doc…..”
“Make it stop John….make these memories stop…..please help me,” Marlena pleaded with him, the desperation in her voice bringing John to tears.
“Doc, breathe in,” John commanded as he ran to the back of the boat, taking hold of the outboard motor and starting it up. When he stole the boat from the tiny Italian seaside village, John hadn’t actually thought they were going to get away and didn’t salvage either anchor in his escape attempt. He was now thankful for that decision as it allowed him to be more responsive to Marlena in her moment of need.
“Oh god…of god,” Marlena said as the smell of gasoline permeated her nostrils. She was going to be sick. “I need off this boat now, John,” she muttered to him before dropping her blanket and climbing onto the railing of the boat.
Seeing what she was about to do, John cut the engine and ran to Marlena, holding onto her tightly. “Doc….Doc…Doc…Doc,” he whispered repeatedly into her ear as he held her tight.
“Let me go,” Marlena warned him as she started dry heaving.
“You can’t get in the water Doc…you can’t…I’ll give you space on the boat and help you in any way I can, but I won’t allow you to get into the water,” John said tenderly as he rubbed her back, trying to be supportive as she leaned over the railing of the boat trying to expel what little there was in her stomach.
“I need to get off this boat now….I don’t want to be here John.”
“I know that baby… I know that…let me help you.”
“You can’t… No one can… What’s wrong with me,” Marlena said as she stood up and faced John, dumbfounded that she was questioning her own sanity. “I thought that by remembering my past it would make things better but its just making things worse. I can’t be here… I can’t be on this boat… HELP ME DAMMIT.”
“I want to help you, but you need to tell me how,” John said as he tried to take her into his arms to comfort her.
“DON’T TOUCH ME,” she screamed as she backed away from John. Seeing the look of shock and devastation on John’s face as he backed away from her, Marlena reached out touch him, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry….I’m so sorry…I’m sorry.”
John stood before her silent, concerned and confused. He had dealt with Marlena and her panic attacks in the past but this was different. Thinking back to the medical training he received while employed as Stefano’s mercenary he recognized her behavior for what it was, someone on the verge of having a nervous breakdown.
“I’m so sorry John….forgive me,” Marlena said, tears streaming down her face, as she put one leg over the railing of the boat and climbed overboard jumping into the black sea below.
“Marlena,” John yelled as he jumped into the water behind her. “Holy shit,” he muttered at the coldness of the water once he surfaced. Scanning the ocean surface around him he spotted Marlena struggling in the water twenty feet away from him. “Fuck,” he muttered as he took off after her hoping for once that the fates were on his side and that the boat wouldn’t drift too much.
Quickly swimming to where she was, John pulled her into his arms. “Don’t you ever do something stupid like that again,” he sternly warned her, annoyed that she was putting both of their lives at risk.
“Let me go.”
“No, not until we get back to the boat.”
“I don’t want to go back… let me go…I don’t want to be here,” Marlena cried out as she kicked her legs and arms furiously against John, trying to escape his firm but painful grasp. Marlena had resigned herself to her fate at the bottom of the abyss, but Julie was a fighter, not willing to give up so easily. As hard as Marlena tried to stop struggling, Julie wouldn’t let her.
“The hell if I will lady,” John replied as he shifted Marlena against her will onto her back and pulled her up against him. Placing one arm securely around her chest he swam backwards to the boat dragging her with him.
“Let me go,” Marlena cried out as she struggled against him.
Ignoring Marlena’s protests and attempts to escape his grasp he slowly pulled her toward the boat. Grabbing her around the waist he forced her into the boat.
“I’m gonna jump,” she threatened him, seeing the anger in his eyes as he approached her.
“No you’re not,” John said as he grabbed Marlena by the arm and drug her down below to the galley. Finding the flashlight that he had located earlier, John picked it up and turned it on.
“Please let me go….I’ll be good,” Marlena pleaded with him in a child like voice, seeing not John before her but Channing Owens.
Pointing the beam of light towards the small bunk John told her, “Get in there now.”
“No…please….No,” Marlena cried out as she tried to back away from John.
John was at a loss of what to do. Marlena was clearly in the midst of a breakdown that he was helpless and unprepared to stop. If he left her alone, she might attempt to jump overboard again. If he left the boat unattended they might crash into the rocks and any attempt at leaving the island would be forever dashed.
“Get on the bed now,” John demanded, knowing that he needed to get back up on deck and move the boat to safer waters.
“No, I’ll be good,” Marlena cried out trying to reason with him. “Please no,” she said, looking down at her feet, not wanting to see the disappointment in his eyes once again.
“Mar sweetheart, I need you down here so I can try to motor the boat towards the shore… then you can get off,” John said as he physically moved her the last few remaining feet to the bed and sat her down. Marlena instinctively crawled to the wall and sat with her back against it, drawing her legs up against her body.
“I’m sorry,” Marlena cried as she put her head down on her legs and sobbed.
John felt the sudden rocking of the boat and knew the boat had drifted into more shallow water. “Fuck,” he muttered as he ran up the small set of stairs to the deck of the boat, inadvertently leaving Marlena alone in the dark.
“I’ll be good…I’ll be good,” she muttered as she clenched her eyes shut, not wanting to see what was before her. She felt the hum of the motor as it came to life and the boat started moving.
“Julie, you should have drowned yourself when you had the chance,” her father said as he sat down on the bed beside her.
“You’re not real…you’re not real,” Marlena said further shrinking down on the bed, trying to be as little and unnoticeable as possible. “You’re not real…You’re in my head.”
“Am I?” he laughed as Marlena felt him grab at her arms and reopen the wounds.
“Stop,” she whispered as she struggled to pull her arms out of his grasp.
“I’ll always be a part of you,” he said seductively as he grabbed her wrist and his tongue tentatively touched the bleeding flesh.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” he laughed as he bit down on her wrist.
“Not going to cry….not going to cry….you’re not real,” she told herself outloud as she rocked back and forth along with the boat in the bunk. “I’m strong…I’m strong….John says I’m strong….you’re not real…you’re all in my head,” she repeated over and over as the sensation of her father biting her wrist was omnipresent.
Suddenly the engine of the boat cut off. Marlena struggled to get out of the bunk but found herself being stopped and pushed back down on the bed.
“No…I’ll be good…,” she muttered again.
“Wait Marlena,” John interrupted, alarmed by Marlena’s mental condition. Reaching out his hand to her, he nodded for her to take it. “Trust me.”
Slowly taking his hand he helped her off the bed. “I’d never hurt you sweetheart,” John said quietly to Marlena as he led her to the deck of the small boat.
“Look,” he said motioning to the nearby beach. “If you still want to get off the boat now you can.”
Marlena dropped his hand and walked to the bow on the boat and looked at the beach before her. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked him, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Not for a second,” John replied as he stood behind her and looked down at her tussled blonde hair. “Not for a second….you’re just going through a hard time, much like I did years ago when I tried to remember my past.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t try to remember?”
“That’s always an option,” he told her knowing that it wasn’t. If she didn’t remember her past and why Maxwell Owens and company were after her they could be on the run for the rest of their lives.
“As a psychiatrist I’m failing miserably and going against every piece of advice I’ve ever given a patient and against everything I’ve studied… I don’t get why this is so hard for me John.”
“Is it the memories that are effecting you or the process of remembering?”
“I don’t know…maybe both?”
“Is there anything I can do to help you through this?”
“Just knowing that you are here by my side is more than enough.”
“I’ll always be here for you, you know that…there is nothing you can’t tell me….I hope you know that.”
“I do and I so appreciate it, more than you’ll ever know… I think part of my problem is that I’m trying too hard to change how I feel about myself, hoping that along the way I’ll change who I am….the harder I try to find who I am, who Marlena is, the more I feel like Julie. I’m tired of feeling like a victim, because I’m not one….yet I can’t seem to stop myself. The more I remember, the worse it feels, the worse I feel about myself,” Marlena said as she turned around and faced John, sitting on the railing. “Everything in my head is a mess. I can’t stop my dreams even though I want to so badly. I don’t know how to explain to you what I am dreaming…If there was a way I would, but there isn’t….none of it makes sense to me…Channing and my father keep talking to me…I don’t know to explain it…. It doesn’t make any sense, I know that rationally it can’t have happened John, but I know what I felt and I know what I saw.” The tears in her eyes and the obvious pain on her face pained John. Looking at her he felt a tightening in his chest and lump in his throat. Taking her face tenderly in his hands, John looked up in the sky for guidance. There was nothing he could say to make things better for her. There was no one there; everything was in her head.
“Try to explain to me what you’re seeing? What are Channing and your father saying?”
“I can’t.” she said as she grabbed her hair and roughly pulled on it. “I don’t understand it myself. I don’t know where to start…I keep seeing pictures and can’t get them to stop. I thought I was okay….everything was behind me and in the past and now it won’t seem to let me go John.” “WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?” she screamed loudly. “WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY WHY?”
“Honey, its going to be okay,” John said as he took her into his arms and slowly rubbed small circles into her back. “Maybe by taking each image piece by piece and talking about it will help.”
“It won’t John…you wouldn’t understand what I’m seeing,” she said as she hung her head down in shame. Closing her eyes an image of her father popped in her head. Wearing a tuxedo, he looked as dashing as ever. Slowly she approached him, the pale blue silk of her dress rustling with each small step she took. Smiling up at her he said, “We made it.”
“No,” she moaned as she shook her head furiously and pulled out of John’s embrace.
“Doc what is it now? What did you just see?”
“My father,” she whispered as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. She reached up to wipe it away but John got to it first. Tenderly he ran his thumb across her cheek, capturing the silent tear.
“Tell me about him.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Try,” John suggested as he put his arm around her, trying to encourage her to continue.
Marlena lifted her arm and wiped her nose on the sleeve on shirt. “Just thinking about him, thinking about my past hurts too much John.” Holding the sleeve over her mouth, she felt comfortable enough to continue. “I don’t want to think about him. I just want him and that part of my past gone.”
“Nothing is that simple.”
“I don’t want simple. I don’t want him in my head anymore. Every time I close my eyes and try to forget it just gets worse.”
“Gets worse? What do you mean? Are you remembering more?”
Marlena slowly shook her head yes and she put her index finger in her mouth and bit down on it. “I don’t want to remember…I don’t.”
“I know its scary baby, but the answers are in your head. In your sleep you called out some more numbers 25, 68, 99…”
“Really?” Marlena interrupted.
“Do you remember what you were dreaming?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Marlena admitted as she pulled her shirt tightly around herself, the images of her dream flashing in her mind.
“No secrets Doc,” John whispered as he reached out and took her hand in his, kissing it gently.
“I was dreaming about you and you and Channing and my father,” she admitted, eyes downcast. “I don’t remember what the number means only that its something that Channing told me before he died.” Swallowing deeply, Marlena tried to lubricate her throat to keep it from swelling, not wanting to breakdown in front of John again.
“Well that’s a start,” John said as he tipped her chin up and gazed deep into her hazel eyes. “What is it sweetheart?” he asked, her eyes glassy from the tears yet to fall.
“I remembered something else….about Al….about Al….about Al….I can’t do this,” Marlena said as she sought solace in John’s arms, sobbing. “I can’t do this….it can’t be right.”
“What are you remembering?” John asked. “Please tell me…I want to help you….Was it about Alex North.”
Nodding her head yes, Marlena held onto John tightly, nestling her head into his neck. Whispering she told him, “He sent the man to attack me.” As the memories of being attacked and raped in the parking garage bathroom came to the surface of her subconscious Marlena held onto John tightly for support unable to control the flood of emotions that the memory evoked.
“I’m going to kill the bastard,” John promised Marlena as he held her sobbing frame tight to him. “Once I find him, he will pay.”