I dream sometimes about the things that might have happened to him. Sometimes I’m standing by, watching in the helpless immobility of the dream as Daren is beaten, brutalized, broken down and open. Sometimes I’m witnessing this violence from inside, trapped within Daren’s panicked, paralyzed mind, and no matter how much I long to lash out in defense I can do nothing to protect myself. To protect him. Even waking to find Daren safe at my side does nothing to ease the crushing sense of hopelessness that lingers after the nightmare’s end.

When I wake from those disorienting dreams I want to rouse Daren and swear I would have come. If I had known, if I had been able, I would have put myself between him and anyone who wished him harm. I would have taken those blades myself, or I would have turned them on his assailants. I would have done anything to keep Daren safe. I want to promise him a thousand times that it would have been different had I been there to rescue him from his own fate.

I don’t tell Daren about these dreams, though, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t arrive in time. I came long after he had already retreated inside his aching body and damaged mind. It does no good for me to tell him what I would have done when it changes nothing for him now. I can’t undo his trauma; I can only try to heal as much as I can, even when I know so little about his past. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.