Re: quicklog, hotel: graham & jake
[Jake had wondered when the nightmares would just go on and stop. He remembered being small and waking up in a tangle of damp sheets and his mind roaring blank, empty and bloody. He remembered growing older, but he shouted less in his sleep and he got good at staying quiet in the day and his grandma stopped looking at him like he was live electric wire, ready to spark off any sudden moment.
Now he saw, with vivid certainty, the rolling movie of the nightmare once again. The sound at the door. The footsteps, the rise and fall of his mother's voice. Jake's hands were sweaty-damp and cold, and starting on shaking, and he clamped them palms-down on his thighs to stop it.]
You could have got a job back home. [He looked at Graham, and he figured Graham was going on blaming himself just as much as Jake was, but it didn't make Jake feel a mite better. He pictured that bed, the curl of his mother's fingers in her palm, the blood on the sheets bright as poppies and felt sick.]