Am I Being Followed? 1.4

**Disclaimer**

Do not distribute or post elsewhere without my approval

This series may contain:

Blood, Gore, Violence, Seeing things, Hearing voices, Dangerous situations, possible crude language and mental breakdowns.

Please read with caution as it is still in progress and as I remember specific parts of this dream it could change what the disclaimer will hold

Tom leads me to the passenger side of the car and helps get me into the seat before getting into the driver seat. He starts heading towards his apartment that’s about a 25 minute drive from my place. This is plenty of time for me to kind of regain myself before getting to his apartment building.

Pulling up to his apartment building I realize I completely forgot to drop off the stuff we bought at the mall and give a deep sigh, “I completely forgot about the stuff we got from the mall. I should have dropped it off while we were at my apartment.” Tom looks at me a bit sad and no doubt concerned that of all things to be worried about I pick that, “Don’t worry about that, I can bring it upstairs. You should go upstairs and rest a bit, I can get this.” He suggests to me. “I should be okay to carry stuff now, so I’ll help get stuff upstairs.” I reply getting out of the car and start slowly loading up with bags. I see Tom wanting to argue about it but knowing I’m too stubborn to not help. We start heading towards the elevator with arms full of bags.

We finally get to his what is supposed to be a 4 Bedroom and 2 Bathroom apartment that is probably about 1400 sqft, but his use for the rooms are a bit different, the first room you walk into is the living room where he entertains several guests at a time which has an open kitchen connected to it, then down the hallway, from left to right, you’ll find his office, then his game/cinema room, the master bedroom with the master bathroom, the guest bathroom and then the guest bedroom.

“Hey! I’m going to put this stuff down in the guest room.” I let him know while motioning with the bags from the mall towards the guest room. “Okay, I still need to get the pizzas out of the car to put in the fridge for later.” He tells me as he puts down the burritos and tacos for before we get settled in for the night. “Okay!” acknowledging that I heard what he said as I walk into the guest room leaving the door cracked open and put the bags into the closet so that I won’t need to move them later when I’m ready for bed.

Still a little shaken, I decide now is as good a time as any to finally change out of my work clothes into a T-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts. As I finish putting my comfy clothes on, I think to myself, slowly pacing around the room while rubbing my thumb against the top side of my other hand, “Would I even be able to sleep later?” knowing that I can still feel the fear and anxiety from earlier. Hopefully I’ll feel better tonight by the time we get to watching movies. I let out a long sigh and then throw myself on the bed landing my stomach and face. I lay there for a moment before I let out another sigh, “Why am I lying to myself?” I feel tears start to well up in my eyes. I can feel the anxiety and self-doubt start to take hold of my confidence in what I really saw. I know that it all happened because my phone is actually broke from dropping it, right? I remember that lady jumping on me clear as day, but with how my brain has been lately it’s hard to really know what is real and what isn’t. I mean I remember taking a vi…Wait!! The video probably still exists!

I jump up in excitement wiping away the tears from my eyes, “TOM!!” I yell as I run out of guest room. He jumps so hard he almost drops the pizzas. “Shit!” He says as he re-stabilizes his pizza holding arm, “What! What? Is everything okay?” He asks in a rush worried that I need to go to the hospital. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, I’m okay. Um… I just remembered something a little important. After we eat can you help me get a video from my phone? I dropped it and want to see if the video is still there.”?” He looks at me for a minute, probably calming himself down, before saying, “Yes, I can help you, just don’t scare me like that, especially while I’m holding food.” He looks at me for a silent moment, you can see he felt bad for getting upset with me, it was painted all over his face while he puts the pizza in the fridge. I walk over to him and give him a hug and at first he isn’t used to me responding like this, but after a couple seconds he relaxes a bit and wraps his arms around my shoulders and rests his head on top of mine.

Being in his arms makes me feel a type of warm I haven’t felt in a long time; the kind of warm where you know you’re safe and feel your broken pieces start fitting together again. I would be happy if I could stay like this all night, feeling his warmth heal me, but that is a little too unrealistic to wish for. I decide to enjoy it while I can and hope for more in later days.

After a few moments, lost in each other’s embrace, we separate and sit down to start eating our burritos. Unlike when we ate at the mall, we are too focused on eating to feel any need to talk. Normally if it were completely quiet I would be really uncomfortable, but whenever I’m with Tom I feel comfort within the silence. Sometimes how safe I feel around him feels dangerous, but I’m sure it is just because of my anxiety and depression that I’ve had untreated for way too long, so I try reminding myself, “It’s okay to feel comfortable, Autumn.” I can hear a faint, “No it’s not!” I force myself to brush it aside and continue eating.

As we finish our food Tom looks at me a little concerned, from what I assume is because of the way I acted leaving the mall earlier today along with the apartment, “Are you really okay? You seem really quiet and that’s unlike you.” I look at him with eyes widened, a little shocked he asked about me being quiet. I take a moment wondering how to respond while he sits there waiting for an answer out of me. I finally decide to try to spit out some truth about how I feel around him before I try hiding within myself again, “Um, well… I’m better, and I’m just a bit quiet today because…well…being around you started feeling a lot more safe and comfortable. It’s…um…relaxing? I think that’s the word I’m looking for.” Letting him know that I am feeling a bit better, just unsure if I worded it properly. But I also know that wasn’t what he meant, so I sigh, “If we are able to get the video I’ll tell you what I saw at the mall.” He gets up from his chair, walks over to me and then squats down so that he could look up to me while holding my hand, “Autumn. All I want is to make you feel comfortable and safe, and if telling me what happened at the mall is too much then you don’t need to tell me what happened. We can always save it for a day. I’m more worried about how it’s affected you, I want to make sure you’re going to be okay.” I leap into his arms to hug him, in the process almost knock him over. I try to keep the tears back and bury my head in the crook of his neck trying to hide my face, just in case I do start crying.

After a moment I give a short giggle and apologize just loud enough for him to hear, “Sorry, for almost knocking you over.” I let go of Tom and look him in the eyes with a hand on his cheek, “Thank you Tom, I really appreciate you worrying about me. I tend to forget that I have someone that cares about me again.” I say as he gently puts his hand on mine. I start to give him a kiss on his cheek, but he turns his head towards me and our lips meet for the first time. I pull back a little from mild shock. I give him another kiss that runs heat deep enough that it starts a fire in my heart bringing it back up to my face. I pull back a little bit, unsure what to say I step back to grab my phone and head to his office while, unsuccessfully, trying to hide the red on my face.

Once I step into the office and notice Tom is still standing in the kitchen, probably a bit stunned, I breathe a sigh of relief hoping that would slow my heart down a bit so I can get back to focusing on getting that video extracted from my phone. Tom walks in shortly after that and hesitates for a moment while looking at me, “Um…Are we going to pretend like that didn’t happen?” I’m a bit stunned by the question and can feel my face getting red again, “I uh…. I mean… umm…” Noticing that I’m a bit unsure on how to respond he stops me, “We can discuss it later, let’s do the video first. If the video is successfully saved to your phone it shouldn’t be too hard to download it to the computer. May I see your phone?” I put my phone in his out stretched hand so he can work his magic.

He walks over to his desk that houses his computer and some files in an uneven pile. After his computer has finished its startup routine, he plugs the phone into a cord that was already connected to one of the USB ports. Within a couple minutes he was able to find the video, “Is this the video?” He asks me. “It should be, I think it’s the only video on there.” He downloads and opens the video but doesn’t start it just yet, “Should we check to be sure?” I contemplate it for a second and let out a small sigh, “Yeah, let’s watch it.” He clicks play, and we watch what I had saw happen at the mall earlier today.

I feel my heart beat and thoughts start to race as I realize that all of it was real. It all really happened! Tears well in my eyes as the fear rises again. “I thought it was all in my head.” My panic begins to take over again, “How could this happen? Why did this happen to me?”

Tom snaps around to look at me directly, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” pointing at the screen confused and angry, “Why didn’t you tell someone? Ask for help?” I try not backing away knowing that he’s yelling because he’s concerned and confused. Just as upset I match his energy “I thought I was just seeing things! How in the HELL was I supposed to know that was real?! I’ve seem similar before but didn’t have evidence! My family told me I was crazy and tried locking me in a fucking loony bin for shit like this! You think I want to go through that again?! HELL NO!!”

Tom sits quietly for a moment as tears start to fill my eyes in realization that I yelled at him when I really didn’t want to. After he collects his thoughts, he gets up and holds me, laying my head on his chest. My eyes frozen open with tears running down my face, I stutter, trying to apologize, “Tom…I…I didn’t mean to yell. I ju…” “Shhh.” He stops me and starts to pet my hair, trying to calm me down. “This isn’t your fault, I’m sorry I got upset with you, you had no control of that situation.” I stand there letting him pet my hair and try letting my body match his breathing patterns.

He gently pulls me away and looks at me straight in the face, wiping my tears away while trying to keep me from seeing that he also wants to cry, “You’ve been through a lot today, lets *Inhales* lets go watch a movie and just relax a bit, yeah?” I nod and he instructs me to go and get one of the hoodies out of his closet before going to the game room to wait for him there. I follow his instructions and just lay on the couch in the game room in a ball, hugging his hoodie, while waiting for what felt like an eternity for Tom to come into the room.

To Be Continued...