Yuna jolted upright in bed, pulses pounding as the vivid nightmare faded. Her father's enraged face still seemed to hover in the darkness above. Trembling, she flicked on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with light.
Ever since she had moved in with Nick's family, these flashbacks had plagued her sleep almost nightly. She pressed her hands over her ears, as if that could block out the echo of her father's vitriolic words.
In the dream, she had been transported back to a few months before everything shattered beyond repair. Her father staggered in late, reeking of liquor. Even before he opened his mouth, Yuna knew what was coming.
"Look at you, sitting there useless as always," he had sneered, words slurring. "You'll never make anything of yourself. Stupid, worthless girl." On and on he ranted, face reddening.
Yuna froze, rendered mute as always by the verbal barrage. She told herself he didn't really mean the hateful things he spewed in these rages. But over time, the words carved deeper grooves into her psyche.
The dream-memory shifted, blurred. Now she was 13, shyly asking if her father would attend an upcoming honors ceremony at school. His response was a cruel, mocking laugh.
"As if I have time for that. Don't pretend you actually earned an award - we both know you're mediocre at best." His insult pierced Yuna's fragile adolescent pride.
On it went, an endless loop of similar scenes blurred together by the haze of time and trauma. No birthday or special event passed without her father finding some way to tear her down or ignore her existence completely.
Over and over he made clear that Yuna was worthless, stupid, useless in his eyes. She built walls around her soft heart for self-preservation, but his verbal assaults left scars across her psyche that no walls could keep out.
Until finally Yuna could bear it no longer. As she sat numbly holding her still-bandaged wrists, the present slowly came back into focus. She had escaped that monster in body, but pieces of him still lurked in the shadows of her mind.
When morning came, Nick found Yuna curled on the porch still in her pajamas, shivering in the pre-dawn chill. Without a word, he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and sat close beside her as light filled the sky - a steady, comforting presence chasing away the lingering dark.