Here Comes the Sun

The morning of the wedding, I was a mess.

All night, my mind had been invaded with nightmares full of disturbing images and I hadn’t had just one peaceful moment of sleep. I awakened in a cold sweat, desperately trying to shake the pictures of blood and death from my head.

I’d dreamt of Nick dying plenty of times before, but the nightmare had never been that severe.

I clung to him tightly, sure that I must have been hurting him with my strong grip, but he didn’t complain. He never did when I woke up like that. He just soothed me, muttering words of comfort that I could barely hear over my cries.

As we got dressed for the ceremony, I insisted we pretend like it never happened, like we always did.

“But it’s never been this bad, Kara,” Nick said as he clasped a necklace at the back of my neck. I could hear fear in his voice. “Maybe we should tell my parents.”

I stared into the mirror and found it hard to convince myself I was staring back at my own face. I looked like a different person with my wild, terrified eyes. The images of my nightmare replayed themselves in horrifying sequences in my head as I tried to shake them off.

“It’s okay to ask for help.” Nick tried to reassure me.

I sighed deeply. “I’m not going to turn any attention away from Kevin and Danielle today,” I said, “Plenty of days have been ruined because of me—because of my crazy mind.”

I turned around, but when I looked at his face, I knew it was a mistake. The images of his cold, lifeless body in my mind intertwined with what I was seeing in reality. He looked white with death, and I screamed, throwing my hands over my mouth to muffle the sound.

“Kara, what is it?” he asked me in a rushed, enormously worried voice. I felt his arms wrap around me, but they didn’t feel warm like they normally did. They were ice cold. Like death.
I shut my eyes tightly, trying so hard to make it go away.

“Kara, baby, it’s okay! I’m right here. It’s okay,” I heard him trying to soothe me. Mixed with his real voice, I heard him screaming in pain—the same screams from my dream.

I collapsed to the floor in agony, unable to bear the fact that my nightmare was mixing in with reality. I shook with fear. His face resembled that of Max’s when I’d seen him in the morgue, the first time I’d seen death up close. I couldn’t shake off the memory no matter what I did.

But then suddenly, it was all over.

“Kara?” I heard Nick’s voice again, without the screams this time, “Can you hear me?”
I gasped in rapid, irregular rhythms as I opened my eyes.

His face was back to normal.

I began to cry in shock as he took me into his arms, unsure of how to explain to him what had just happened.

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The wedding had been beautiful. I had smiled in awe as I watched Kevin and Danielle recite their vows and kiss each other for the first time as a married couple. Seeing them so happy made me almost forget my incident that morning.

But just almost.

I couldn’t bear to look at Nick’s face throughout the ceremony, terrified that the images in my mind would make another unwelcome appearance. I knew all along they weren’t real. Nick was alive and well. But they felt and looked so real, I wasn’t strong enough to endure them.

My worst nightmare was Nick dying because of me. At the hands of the one person actually capable of and likely to do it. All because of me.

I couldn’t even escape the nightmare when I was awake.

I couldn’t even enjoy the wedding reception that I’d planned myself. My mind was racing, trying to figure out a way to get those horrifying thoughts out of my mind. I couldn’t even speak coherently to people. All I could picture was Nick’s lifeless face. The numbness that I’d developed as a way of handling everything that had been going on the past few months was slowly disappearing and in its place stood fear. So much fear, I couldn’t even look at Nick anymore.

As I sat at my table at the reception, watching the world go by around me as Kevin and Danielle danced in the center of the dance floor and everyone looked on in adoration, my mind began to wander. The dream was all I was able to think about and that scared me. I came to the realization that the reason why the nightmare was so frightening was that it was possible. Sure, it wasn’t reality, but it could be. There was always that possibility that it could actually happen. Nick could actually die because of me. As long as I was around him and around this family, I brought danger to their lives.

Before I came along with my endless drama, this was a happy family. This was a safe family. The people I saw all around me had once been in no danger. I was the reason for their suffering. I was the reason why Mrs. Jonas stayed up late at night worrying about her boys. I was the reason why Nick and Joe would live with scars all throughout their lives, both physically and mentally. I was the reason why their careers were fading from the spotlight and their dreams were becoming more and more out of reach.

I was ruining this family entirely.

I heard Nick finish up a song he’d written for Kevin and Danielle. His voice had been beautiful and I had closed my eyes, momentarily comforted. But when he was done, I tried to look for him on the stage and couldn’t find him. My eyes searched the room. I skimmed over Mrs. Jonas holding Layla in her arms, introducing her to various guests, and Joe telling jokes to people at the punch bowl, until I found Nick on the dance floor. I remembered he’d asked me to dance with him, and as much as I ached to accept, I declined, not wanting to risk another mental breakdown. He’d looked disappointed, but he hadn’t forced me. After his song, I saw him dancing with another girl—I’d recognized her from one of those stupid magazines, but couldn’t exactly put a name to her face.

For the most part, he looked happy. His eyes met mine a few times to check on me, but I quickly looked away. I suddenly couldn’t breathe and I didn’t understand why all of this was happening at that moment. I didn’t know how to fix it, but I knew I had to. I had to do something so that I wasn’t a danger to this family that I loved so dearly anymore.

The idea of not being in their presence was excruciating, but I had to do something. I realized how wrong I’d been all along. How selfish I’d acted. I knew what I had to do, but I wasn’t sure if I had the strength to do it.

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After the wedding and the reception, after all the nonstop thoughts that had been running through my head all day, Nick and I were finally alone. And for the first time all day, I could actually look at his face.

I watched his face intently as he slept peacefully beside me, his chest rising and falling beneath my hand. It was three in the morning and I was terrified to fall asleep. I felt his heart, my song, beating in a steady rhythm, and I shuddered at the thought of it ever stopping.

I sat up quietly, trying to shake that idea from my mind. I reached for an unopened light pink envelope that had been sitting on my side table since I’d gotten home. Using my cell phone as an amateur flashlight, I read the neatly written message on the card inside:

Kara,

I can’t thank you enough for being such an incredible friend
to me. You are a strong and beautiful person, inside and out.
I’ll always be here for you. See you in a month!

Love always,
Danielle Jonas
(So weird to write that!)

A tiny smile crept up on my face as I thought of how surprised I’d been when she’d handed me the envelope on her way out the door after the reception ceremony. Kevin had insisted on getting started with the honeymoon as soon as possible. We all could guess why, but no one had said anything aloud.

“Are you okay?”

I heard Nick’s groggy voice and jumped suddenly in fear. I had been jumpy all evening.

“Yeah,” I answered him automatically. I looked at him and tried to smile.

He peered at me for a moment with eyes becoming increasingly more focused on my expression.

“No, you’re not,” he said after a while, “I know you better than that, Kara.”

I sighed, throwing the card back on the table and looking away from him. My cell phone backlight went black, leaving the room dark once again.

“What is it?” he asked, moving closer to me, “You’ve been like this all day.”

“Nothing, Nick,” I snapped, “I’m fine.”

I laid flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling, trying my best not to cry. I wanted to tell him exactly how I’d been feeling. I wanted to tell him I was leaving because it was better for him and his family, but I knew I couldn’t even form the words.

“Is it about this morning?” he asked, “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You can talk to me and you know that.”

I remained silent, trying to fight the burning sensation building in my eyes.

“Why are you shutting me out like this?” he began in a quiet voice, “I thought we were in this together. I tell you everything, Kara.”

“Oh, do you? Like that time you told me you were sneaking out in the middle of the night?”
The words came rushing out long before I had the chance to think about them. I shut my eyes tightly, already feeling the guilt.

“I already apologized for that,” he said in a clearly hurt voice.
Again, I remained silent.

“Look, if you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong, that’s fine,” he said after a while, turning away from me, “I’m just trying to help.”

And with that, I couldn’t hold it in anymore and the tears surfaced. I wanted so badly just to turn to him, wrap my arms around his waist, and stay with him forever. But I was a danger. I was instable. I was broken.

He deserved better than that.

I turned around and buried my face in my inner elbow, holding my breath to hide the sounds of my surfacing emotions. Normally, every night, Nick and I fell asleep in each others’ arms, fighting off each others’ nightmares and inner demons.

But that night, we were separated, facing entirely different directions, with a barrier between us that only I could be responsible for creating.

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The next day, Nick and I barely spoke.

The next day, I was in agony because Nick and I barely spoke.

I avoided him and he avoided me. In the rare instances that we desperately needed to speak, like when it came to Layla, only brief, one-word, emotionless answers were used. I knew that he was concerned. Worried. Probably even angry. But I couldn’t change my mind. I was too stubborn, and his life depended on it.

As I stood at the foot of the bed that night, suitcase in hand, tears streamed down my face at the longing I felt in my heart to stay.

And that longing only strengthened as I reluctantly walked out the door.