Her Only Dream

Chapter Twelve

***Kathrine's POV***

    Desk jobs could be pretty boring these days, over half the team was working form home now, and while that made for less people to talk to, it also meant that I could sneak in some game play while I was waiting on the next question or escalation to come my way.  My chats for our raid groups were filled with people talking about the current five star raid, and when I had a chance, I would hop into some of them, it helped kill the time, and keep me from thinking back too much.  There was little left of the person from years before,  physically and mentally.  I'd started shutting down, I'd been blamed for everything that happened, from an alcoholic mentally and emotionally abusive ex to a manipulative passive aggressive ex that both manipulated everything to being my fault until I almost broke, I'd actually started pondering how fast I'd have to be driving if I hit a poll to ensure that I died.  

    No one knew those thoughts that I kept hidden from the world, they hadn't seen the depression that was driving me to these thoughts for the past seven years.  The only thing that had kept me from testing my theories on speed were the looks in my girls eyes.  Three girls, all dependent on me, and I couldn't let them down.  I'd given up on everything but them, and it was the only thing that kept me going through the motions every day, but I knew that my mask was starting to slip again, I'd started seeing the looks again, the concern, and knew I needed to distract myself again, so I started playing the game again, forcing myself to think of anything else, I'd locked myself out of the myspace account, and I'd had to hide the letter from Jake for years so when I found it again, and I cried for several hours, I couldn't see how he was, I had no way to see him or find him, the letter was the last straw when I saw it again, knowing that he was gone, I'd thrown it away, I couldn't keep looking at it anymore, that night my nightmares had been worse, reminding me how much I deserved my current life after that.

    I saw my name pop on the chat, and logged in, wanting to raid, and forget for a moment, I could distract the others with this as well, they didn't dig too deep if I kept them distracted.  Then I saw it.  Another member of the raid, Nightfall.  It couldn't be him, not after all this time.  It's got to be someone else, not him.  I mentioned something in chat, I knew that some people used their game names, and some like me, didn't, but no one mentioned anything, all the names that were talking, it wasn't him, and no one seemed to know anything.

    It couldn't be more than a coincidence, someone else just liked the name that's all.  Another raid, and there they were again.  I tried one more time in chat, talking about a mistake I made, but nothing happened again.  It isn't him, just another ghost from the past to haunt me, I can't let it bother me.

    Now days I was a borderline workaholic.  I had been putting in 10-12 hour days five days a week for the last three months, everything was shut down due to the pandemic and the goverment, but even before that I had been shutting down more and more.  I rarely went out, and unless I was playing my game or with my two remaining friends, I really didn't do anything but work and go home.  Everyone had given up on me, I remembered my mom even saying that she never could see me getting married, and frankly, I thought she was right, but not for the same reasons.  

    I'd gotten her and one of my friends into the game though, but only my friend Tina was in the raid chats, where everyone was that night comparing what they had gotten through the day.  I was watching it with half an eye.  Seeing a few names on there that I hadn't really seen before, but nothing too interesting.

    A couple of us were mouthing off back and forth, and somehow it got to drinks and I stated something about my bottle of tequila that I had waiting for me, when someone commented on loving tequila.  I looked at the name, the nickname showed the game handle of Nightfall, and the first name was the same, but the last name was different, the picture looked like a military vehicle, my heart pounding hard, and I fought back the tears, screaming at myself mentally to let him go, and berating myself for being an i***t seeing him in everything I did.  I was the worst kind of fool.  

    :Anyone got a shiny of this they wanna trade?:  The guy going as Nightfall posted in chat with a picture.

    :Yeah, it's pretty low but I have one.

    :Awesome, we can trade them across see if we can both get better ones?:

    :Sure, sounds like a plan.  Sorry, little distracted, thought you were someone else I knew years ago, keeps throwing me off.:

    :Kat, it is me.: