Chapter 15
Note to self:
Might be time to see a counselor.
Or just ask Theo to move in with me.
The dream was always the same. I’m watching myself from above as I sleep. The bed I’m in is taller than any bed I’ve ever seen, at least six feet off the ground. On either side are equally tall wooden nightstands with razor-sharp edges. On one, a large lamp sits. On the other, a phone and a stack of books. It looks like my bedroom at home but taller, more imposing, dangerous.
I’m curled under the covers but I’m restless, tossing and turning. After several minutes, I fling the covers off. I toss once more but this time I don’t stop, I keep rolling until I’m at the edge of the bed. There’s a thud as my head connects with the corner of a nightstand on the way down. When I land, my body is motionless and there’s so much blood.
With a gasp, I sat up. My heart knocked around in my chest and I pulled in breaths as fast as I could. It took me another few seconds to remember where I was. Naked people. The cabin. Theo.
I whipped my head to stare at his bed, praying he hadn’t woken. After my eyes adjusted, I could tell he was out cold, the blankets half kicked off, his hair wild on his pillow.
After climbing out of bed, I tiptoed to the bathroom. I flipped on the light and blinked against the stinging, sudden brightness. I splashed my face with water and stared at myself in the mirror.
“You have got to get over this.” It had been eight months now and I had this stupid dream at least twice a week. It didn’t take a genius to guess why. Going back to sleep on the bed would be impossible now.
Quietly, I shuffled back into the main room and pulled the sheet, blanket and pillow off the bed, glancing occasionally at Theo. On the floor at the foot of the bed, I made a nest and curled up in it. I tried not to think about what things this floor had seen. Nope, not thinking about that.
Within minutes, I was sound asleep.
It could have been fifteen minutes or three hours later when the insistent tapping on my foot woke me. Pushing my hair from my eyes, I rolled over to find the shadowy figure of Theo staring at me.
“Why are you on the floor?” he asked. He’d switched on the light in the tiny bathroom and cracked the door. A soft glow haloed his head.
“That bed was way too soft.” I sat up. “I like my bed like I like my men.”
“Dirty and possibly contagious?” He crossed his arms and his t-shirt bunched up to reveal a strip of skin which I did not look at.
“No, dummy. Firm.”
He crouched beside me, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and asked again. “Why are you on the floor?”
I picked at the blanket on my lap. If there was anyone on this earth who might understand, it would be Theo. My last seizure had not been two years ago, as everyone thought. It had been eight months ago.
Most people don’t realize there are a lot of different kinds of seizures and reasons for having them. Focal seizures look as though the person is staring off in space, but they can’t respond, or speak. Sometimes people go years without realizing they’re having them. The ones I have are tonic-clonic seizures—the fall-on-the-floor, body-jarring convulsions. Frankie liked to joke I was “dramatic” even when I was having a seizure.
Like about fifty percent of people with epilepsy, I had no idea why my seizures started that day on the soccer field when I was sixteen. I only remember feeling the slightest bit nauseated and then—like someone hit a fast-forward button on my life—I was in an ambulance, and it was so hard to focus. My limbs had felt heavy, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
See, I never remembered having a seizure. But according to those that have witnessed one, I fall or slump wherever I am, and my body goes stiff, then the convulsing starts. When that’s over, my face turns bluish-gray, and I stop breathing for thirty seconds or so. The actual seizure lasts less than five minutes but recovering takes much longer.
That time is lost, a hole in my memory. Another little piece epilepsy has stolen from me. But it’s a mercy, I think. If I remembered it, I think the fear would drag me down until I couldn’t function, being trapped like that by my own body. The first fifteen minutes or so after a seizure, I’m unconscious. Dead weight, my dad called it. And then the vomiting comes. For hours after, I’m unsteady on my feet and so, so exhausted. I’ll sleep for hours, and my brain feels slippery, like what I need to remember is right there but keeps slithering away.
That night eight months ago was different. I’d gone to bed around ten; I woke on the floor hours later. A wave of nausea greeted me. My head throbbed, and when I put my hand to the back of my head, it came away bloody.
The best I could guess, I’d had a seizure, fallen off the bed and my head hit the nightstand on the way down. After laying on the floor until I felt steady enough to attempt to move, I’d half stumbled, half crawled to the bathroom. Despite the fuzziness of my vision, I managed to make it just in time to puke.
It had been two in the morning, and I needed to go to the hospital to get checked out. I couldn’t call my parents. My mother would lose her mind, and I’d finally gotten her used to me living on my own.
I didn’t want to call Frankie who would turn around and call my parents. I could have called Mae, and she would have come to rescue me. But I was starting to get real tired of the imbalance in our friendship. If there was a giant scale with FRIENDS WHO GOT IN TROUBLE on one side and FRIENDS WHO RESCUED FRIENDS on the other, I knew what side I was on.
So, I called Theo. Even though we weren’t nearly as close as we’d been as kids, given my whole Theo Thirst Era, the fallout from that, and my strict Friend Zone rule, I called and he came. Because he was Theo, he didn’t ask questions; he just showed up, wearing gym shorts and an inside-out t-shirt, his hair protesting the early wake-up call by practically standing on end.
He’d taken one look at me, still not quite steady on my feet, a towel pressed to the cut on my head, and carefully, gently, like I was made of something fragile and precious—and at that moment, maybe I was—he’d wrapped his arms around me and held me. It had taken everything in me not to burst into tears. It soothed something in me, him being there, quietly comforting me.
After, he’d helped me to his car and taken me to the emergency room.
I’d ended up with a mild concussion that required I stay off screens for a couple of weeks, and a phone call to my neurologist who changed up my medication for the first time in over a year.
Theo had taken me home afterward and insisted on staying with me for the day. “To make sure you don’t knock your head on anything else.”
He hadn’t hovered like my mom. He didn’t make me feel guilty for needing someone, like Mae would without meaning to. He was just there, quietly checking on me while I slept off the aftereffects.
And he’d never breathed a word of it to anyone.
Although it had been eight months since, I still found myself spooked some nights. I’d never been one of those people who could predict when a seizure was coming. A few minutes before, a sense of foreboding might slither up my spine. But sometimes the seizure came, and sometimes Peter Stone appeared.
“I have this dream.” My voice cracked slightly.
“About what?”
“Falling off a tall bed, hitting my head, and landing like a bleeding, crumpled piece of paper. Not very original, right? Whatever could it be about?” I tried to keep my voice light.
“So, you sleep on the floor.”
“Not every night. Just the nights I dream. I get…tense.” And terrified and unable to close my eyes if I’m lying in bed. The only way I’d been able to go back to sleep, I’d discovered, was moving to the floor. I’d never had to deal with nightmares before, even as a kid. I could watch the creepiest of horror movies (and I did because three older brothers) and they never affected me.
I guess that’s the difference between a fake movie and a very real accident.
I yanked out the scrunchie holding my hair back and reworked it into a ponytail. “I’ll be fine. Go back to sleep.”
He gave me a long look. “Come on.”
“Come where?”
“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor.” He held his hand out and wiggled his fingers. “Come on.”
I took his hand and disregarded the sleepy dragons, their wings fluttering ever so gently. “I really am fine.”
Ignoring me, he led me to the small table. “Stay there.”
Quickly, he swept up the pillows and blankets I’d made my nest out of and threw them on the foot of my bed. Then he shoved the bed against the wall, boxing it between two walls and a dresser now at the foot of the bed.
He clasped my hand and tugged me toward it. “Now you won’t have to worry about rolling off.”
Nibbling on my bottom lip. I hesitated. “What about the other side?”
“I have that covered, too. But first we need to get you in bed.” Then without any warning, he turned, slid an arm under my knees and behind my shoulders and unceremoniously dumped me on the bed.
I squeaked out something unintelligible in surprise. Ignoring me, he covered me with the blanket and stuffed a pillow under my head. I laid there like a stunned fish, mouth opening and closing in disbelief.
“Give me a second.” While I watched, he dragged away the nightstand from between the beds. Thirty seconds later, he’d pushed his twin bed against mine. He snapped off the bathroom light and crawled into his bed. “There. Now you can’t roll off this way either. Better?”
“Yes?” It was better and worse at the same time. I mean, his solution was a good idea, but this also put us in the same bed practically.
“I can’t let you sleep on the floor.” He yawned. “We both need to sleep and now we both can.”
He sounded so close, and the thing is, he was.
Stunned, I held myself perfectly still. The Theo-obsessed fifteen-year-old inside me, that girl was about to incinerate with excitement. I’d had this dream many times. Theo, me, a bed…It was like one of those scenes from the cheesy romance novels Mae pretended not to read.
The part of me that was a grown-up was also equally excited. But smarter. Wiser. This was probably a terrible idea. But I didn’t move.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Something warm brushed against my hand. My breath caught when Theo slid his fingers between mine, his hold strong and firm, reassuring.
“It must be scary to have that dream.”
I made a small sound.
“Especially when you’re alone,” he said, his voice quiet and sure.
Out of nowhere, tears pricked the backs of my eyes and I blinked rapidly to get rid of them.
“But you’re not alone right now, okay? I won’t let you fall.” He squeezed my hand. “Now, close your eyes and try to get some sleep.”
So, I did. My last thought before I drifted off was that something monumental had shifted in the region of my heart in the last ten minutes. That once dormant crush on Theo I’d worked so hard to pretend didn’t exist had woken with a vengeance.
Great. Just great.