Chapter 1
Bea jolts awake, shaking with tears streaming down her face. Another nightmare of when Harry used to best her senseless. She hadn't had a nightmare of the bastard in months. Just when she thought she was starting to get some peace with him being locked up, he comes flooding back in to get dream. She hates that he still has the ability to control her.
She grabs her phone to check the time. 1:27am. 'Fuck' she groans. She's only gotten a few hours of sleep, and she knows she will never fall back to sleep with her mind mind running like it is now. She needs to clear her head if she is going to get any more rest tonight.
Grabbing her jacket, Bea heads out the front door, making sure to lock it behind her. Maybe some fresh air would clear her mind, she thought. She starts walking aimlessly, letting her mind work through what it needs to. She is having flashbacks of what her life used to be like with Harry, and wondering why she can't seem to get him out of her life and mind for good. Caught up in her thoughts, she is walking at a brisk pace with her head down.
As she rounds a corner without looking up, she runs smack into something, shaking her out of her thoughts that were consuming her. She looks up to see what she ran into, a blonde woman now getting up from being knocked over. Realizing what she had done, her entire body immediately tenses, eyes squeezing shut, expecting to be yelled at for running this woman over. Not hearing anything, Bea opens her eyes and slowly looks up, expecting to see anger all over the blondes face, but she finds none. Before she can say anything, the blonde reached out and gently grabs her arm, 'Are you okay? You look really upset.'
Bea is so startled by the stranger touching her that she is frozen in place. Ever since Harry, she hates being touched, especially by strangers. But there is something different about this, a warmth where the blondes hand in gently resting on her arm, almost comforting.
Allie sensing the woman is lost in her head gently rubs her thumb on the older woman's arm and asks again, 'hey, is everything alright?' Bea looks up, her brown eyes meeting blue for the first time, and she feels it again, this warmth in her that she can't understand. There is something so comforting about this complete stranger that she almost considers answering her honestly and telling her everything awful on her mind. But she knows better. All she can get out is 'I need to go' and she turns around and leaves as quickly as she came.
Hurrying back home, Bea grabs a beer from the frigid and sits on the couch, even more on her mind than when she left. There was something about the blonde she couldn't get out of her head. She couldn't understand why she hadn't been at all mad that she ran into her, knocking her to the ground. And the warmth that came over her when the blonde had touched her, she had never felt that comforted by anyone's touch expect Debbie.