Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

 

Air rushed into Kate’s lungs in frantic desperation. She inhaled deeply, hands on her chest she focused on each rise and fall of her breasts while trying to slow her racing heart. Eyes opening wide she tried to ascertain where she was. Mind and body suddenly alert, she fought the urge to leap from her bed. Eyes scanning, she began to take in the scene around her. Boxes of every shape and size lay strewn around the room, some gapping open in a dishevelled heap, others still engulfed in a sea of duck tape. Clothes, papers, coffee cups, and half eaten pizza all contributed to the daunting mess around her, as ever so slowly the memories began to remerge. Throwing off the covers she reached for the glass of water at her bedside and gulped it down anxiously. Examining the room again she felt her pulse return to normal as the tendrils of the nightmare slowly begun to drift and fade to less potent dread.

She was home…if she could call it that.

Disgusted she observed the mountain of disaster that had invaded her bedroom as of a few hours ago. Moving into a new space had been a daunting task to say the least with just the essentials, not to mention all the boxes of journals and old manuscripts she couldn’t leave behind. She still remembered Stacy’s expression, buzzed with excitement when she first showed Kate the place. It hadn’t taken much prompting for Kate to give her the go ahead on the paperwork when she begged her to take over her little town house that at the time oozed class, though now it more so resembled a train wreck. Stacy had been one of the only friends she had in high school and now that she was gone to University overseas, this townhouse of catastrophe was now her responsibility.

She glanced over at her alarm clock, five A.M. She huffed. It was way too early to be awake, yet on mornings like this it wasn’t unusual. She buried her face in the pillow beside her in frustration. It was happening again. She had managed to score three full nights this week, yet she knew it was too good to be true. The new meds hadn’t helped, and just like the countless prescriptions from before, she had known it wouldn’t be able to fend off the nightmares. Again and again he kept coming to her in her dreams. The man in the cage…the man who she felt somehow connected. She shuddered. It was always those same white washed walls confining, the same hot florescent lights sinking into her skin, and that same aching, coiling in the pit of her stomach. She had been experiencing these same dreams and blackouts ever since puberty. Whether in sleep or in pure daylight, these episodes would take hold of her, pulling her into their terrors mercilessly. It seemed Mother Nature hadn’t been satisfied with just cursing her with small b***s and a period, but she had to make her a twisted and delusional freak too.

Freak.

The word echoed in her mind. That was what she was wrapped all up in one word. She had heard it repeatedly as an adolescent when she had been dumb enough to voice her fears, and somehow the word still managed to pierce her deep. Her own mother, Meryl Evens, claiming to protect her from such criticisms had hid her under a rock until now so as to not cause further embarrassment to her name. Meryl, being a top notch lawyer and legal adviser, held great esteem in the field, yet with such a reputation to uphold, having a daughter with mild schizophrenia and paranoid delusions, didn’t seem to ever be a good choice to add to her growing list accomplishments. Even though all studies conducted were inconclusive and a proper diagnosis was never made, Kate’s mother had quickly formulated her own conclusions, believing such episodes were symptoms of an overactive mind or ploy for attention. Such ideas couldn’t be voiced publicly so Kate was claimed to be schizophrenic instead of just “messed in the head”. Whenever Kate seemed to have one of her blackouts, Meryl had been quick to tell their cover story to save face. It wasn’t long after that Kate was left to her own devices and became a well hid secret, while her sister Casey basked in the spotlight of their mother’s admiration.

Yet, despite it all, Kate knew the truth. She knew there was something more to her story. She could feel it deep within her every time she was taken into these bouts of illusion. No dream could ever be so vivid, so intense. It felt like she was there, with him, not only seeing it all but also feeling everything he felt. It was like she had tapped into his mind, sharing his thoughts and feelings. Each time she awoke she had to remind herself where she really was. The aching, the pain, the hopelessness, she felt it all. He was real, she knew it. Those white walls that encage, that bind, that torture, exist somewhere, someplace.

She wiped away the beads of sweat that had started to dampen her forehead. Why did this have to happen? Such questions flooded her mind frequently as she tried to better understand what such visions could mean, and why they were happening to her. Who is this man that haunts her dreams? Even after years of trying to understand, she was still not any closer to finding the answers.

Sunlight peeked in through her open window touching her face as she inhaled the fresh morning air. It was going to be another beautiful day in the city, she thought to herself. Yet as she looked over at the clock beside her bed she realised with fright that she had been laying there thinking for what had been the better part of two hours. She was already thirty minutes late for work. Quickly she jumped out of bed, slipping on the first dress she could find amidst the scattered array of half open boxes and tried to tie her hair up, grabbing an apple she found on the counter as she headed for the door. She slipped into her car and sped downtown, hardly taking notice of the busy city whirling past her already up and running as she tried to devour her breakfast before reaching her destination. 

In a frazzle she arrived a whole forty five minutes late.

Kate was a personal assistant for Don Sheppard, business owner of one of the most highly esteemed magazines in the country, The Billington Estate Journal. It had been a stroke of luck that magically landed her this job. She happened to be in the right place at the right time when she witnessed Don lay off what seemed to be his hundredth assistant. Knowing who Don was, Kate bundled up her courage and had boldly given him her résumé. She got the job before she made it down the end of the street. He said he had liked her confidence. She started that day and hadn’t turned back since. Don was hard to work for, he was an extreme perfectionist, self obsessed, and a complete description of an a*****e, but she made it work. She always knew how to work with people whom were very particular; after all, she had lived with her mother her whole life. Each day consisted of coffee runs, laundry pick-ups, filing, and frankly whatever else Don needed. Though the real reason she took all of Don’s crap and stuck it out was because she had a dream. She always had wanted to be a writer. It was her passion, and the fierce desire to write ever intensified since taking the job. Being near to those whom wrote for a living made her the jealous type. Oh to only feel the touch of that glossy paper within her hands, and print an elegant word upon its page! She would do anything to get that far.

She stepped out from the elevator onto the eighteenth floor and headed down the familiar hallway that led to Don’s office, clearing through the dozens of associates rushing to and fro without a second glance. She focused on inhaling and exhaling all the way there so as to prepare for the scream fest that was about to go down. She glanced down to her empty hands and mentally kicked herself.  

She had forgotten to pick up Don’s Starbucks.  She figured she could count on getting fired considering he couldn’t function without his triple shot, Venti, sugar-free, non fat, no foam, extra caramel, extra whip, double cupped caramel macchiato, with the added regular coffee with two packs of sugar accompanied with a stopper and stir stick on the side.

As she entered the lavish office space, hardly noticing the familiar expensive furnishings and rare artwork adorning the walls, her eyes zeroed in on Don. He sat behind his desk in his overstuffed office chair, a hand combing through his gelled hair while his eyes stayed pinned on the page in front of him. Don was in his forties, a tall man with a bit of a gut, long face and big blue eyes, and was the type of man who just couldn’t seem to let go of some of the style errors of the past. This was glaringly apparent as each day Kate had taken note of his vast collection of neon or bold printed ties. It almost had become his signature. Today it was a tie that featured a whole neon mess of bold blues and hot pinks melding in almost a tie-dyed fashion. Once his eyes looked up to meet her gaze, she could see the look on his face. He wasn’t pleased, one long vein pulsing in his forehead, but he wasn’t yelling yet either, so she took that as a good sign.

“Your late,” was all he said, though Kate could tell that under that smooth expression he was furious. His low key tone she was sure was worse then yelling.

“I thought I’d settle for instant coffee this morning when you didn’t show. Do you know what this coffee tastes like?” He interrogated, raising the grubby mug in his hand. “Do you? This is a crime against humanity. How you can drink this stuff is beyond me! It’s like drinking liquid s**t.”

After a long lecture that she had been expecting, he dismissed her, telling her she was to immediately show her remorse by means of moving her fine a*s out the door and to the nearest Starbucks. She was to supply him with copious amounts of the most expensive coffee for the next week, courtesy of her overdraft account. There was no way in hell he was to ever settle for some office strip coffee, and the longer she waited, the less caffeine he had in his system, and everyone knew that would be like signing your own death wish.

Once she had carried out his instructions to the letter and his double cupped macchiato was in hand, she saw color in his face again. He still looked bagged though, and for a moment she almost felt sympathy for him.

She knew that it wasn’t just the lack of caffeine that had Don in a jumble of nerves, but according to some overheard gossip, Don’s wife was finally filing for divorce. It was a well-known fact that Don, or ‘Don Juan” as the employees had nicknamed him, had a wondering eye, and only his wife, until now, had been oblivious to his ongoing office flings. Such flings included women who obviously figured the 80s was coming back anyways, and saw the appeal to a wealthy blue-eyed man, not to mention a hand up in their writing careers. Yet now that he had been made, it was obvious things weren’t running as easily for the smooth talker.

The dark circles under Don’s eyes seemed to only attest to his stresses not only in the office but also in his personal life, the man looked as if he was running on an hour of sleep, yet even so, that didn’t stop the rumours of the up coming office party he was hosting next weekend, something Jan, hadn’t let her forget. Jan was Kate’s best friend, one of the many receptionists at the Billington Estate Journal. Jan happened to be the most free spirited women Kate had ever met, and her enthusiasm for life was contagious. Even though Jan was in her mid forties, she still acted like a young teenage girl, giddy and excitable.

“Don’t give me that look!” Jan snapped at her while she pretended to file. “The Party is going to a blast, you’ll see!”

“It’s going to be ridiculous, the last thing we need is another repeat of the last one, Don and his buddies got so drunk they couldn’t even hail a taxi home. This one isn’t going to be any different.”

“Yes, but you forget how much fun we had dancing it up, and besides Don paid for all the booze!”

Kate chuckled; she loved how Jan always put a positive spin on things.

“Please Kate, you have to come! It won’t be the same without you, I need my bestie!”

“Isn’t Andrew going?”

“I haven’t asked him yet.”

“Well don’t act like he has any say in the matter, you’ll make him go weather he wants to or not!”

Jan giggled. “Trust me he knows after seven years of marriage what I’m like when I don’t get what I want.”

 

Kate laughed, picturing Jan’s husband in her mind. He was the exact opposite of Jan, mild tempered and soft spoken; she still didn’t know how he ever could put a word in edgewise when it came to Jan.

“Are you going to bring anyone to the party?”

“Who would I bring? I’ll probably just go for the food anyways.” Kate laughed.

“Oh please! Now you’re really sounding like a desperate loner. Just because you’re single doesn’t mean your life has to be that miserable. Heck, the best years of my life were when I was single and living it up!”

“I’m not a desperate loner…” Kate mumbled. “I’m just biding my time.”

“Well your uterus isn’t getting any younger sweet heart, and your eggs, well, they might be in limited supply now!” Jan winked.

“Really Jan?” 

“Oh I went there. I’m just trying to give you a case of tough love.” She teased.

“Well believe me I’ve had the tough love speech, I still get it from my mother. It’s like being single is like you have an infectious disease. Just because I’m single right now doesn’t mean I have no life.”

“It’s true, society does have a twisted viewpoint these days, but I just want to see you happy Kate, you just don’t seem like your enjoying life to the full. You break your back working for Don, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you part from your notebook to actually go out and have some fun! That’s what you should be doing, your twenty one, your in your prime; and hunny your best friend is forty two and I haven’t seen you go out in at least six months.”

“Hey, you know I don’t care if you’re forty two.” Kate said sternly. “But I guess you have a point. I’ve just been so wrapped up with trying to get my career afloat I haven’t really even considered going out.”

“Well then it’s settled. You’re coming with me to the office party this weekend.” Jan stated. “Don’t you dare try and fight me on this.”

Kate shook her head in amusement, “I don’t think I could ever cross you and win.”

“You bet your a*s.” Jan laughed. “Now, let’s see, who should we get to be your date?”

“It’s an office party not a ball, I don’t need a date Jan.”

“Nonsense! I fully intend to have you good and tipsy and flirting with a handsome young man on Saturday night! And I will have my way!”

“You’re impossible!”

“I’ll keep my eyes open.” Jan encouraged, quite pleased with herself. “Oh! I did hear about a new editor that’s going to be starting tomorrow, maybe he’ll be cute!”

“He will probably be fifty and balding.” Kate rolled her eyes.

“Or he could be cute! Be positive!” Jan insisted. “I like this twist of events, now I’m picturing you tipsy, flirting, and then a hot make-out session in on the cab drive home with this new stranger!”

“You are getting way ahead of yourself there. There shall be none of that going on!”

“I’ll be happy to prove you wrong!”

“Alright, well if you can get me a date with this new hot editor, and that’s saying he really is hot, and I will try and make an effort to have fun and put my whole serious act on the backburner for a night.”

“Hurray!” Jan squealed and winked when she said, “you better make sure you get a bikini wax!