I looked up at her sharply.
“You’ve got Maggie,” she said. “You’ve got the new kid. You’ve got Will, and Michael, and so many other people, Harry. You need to reach out to them. You need to take care of yourself. You need sleep.”
“I can’t sleep,” I said.
“Oh, do you think maybe, just maybe, the guy who is subconsciously trying to get himself killed by way of self-punishment is denying himself rest for the same reason?”
I frowned at that. “That’s helpful. That kind of sarcasm.”
She made a dismissive sound. “I’m your friend,” she said. “That’s never going to change. It means I tell you the truth.”
Weariness hit me like a brick. My shoulders sagged.
Her voice changed again, swelling with compassion. “Oh, Harry. Please. If your daughter had been through something like this, would you want to punish her?”
“Of course not,” I said automatically.
“Why not?”
“Because she wouldn’t deserve…” I took a deep breath. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly.
“I’m not…I can’t see it like that,” I said.
“Not yet,” she agreed. “But you’re getting closer. Maybe you should pretend that you can see it like that. Just for tonight.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Go to bed, you half-wit,” she said fondly. “Go get in bed and pullup your covers and pretend you’re a little girl whose father loves her very much and go to sleep.”
“But…we didn’t finish the game,” I whispered.
“Oh, Harry,” she said. “There will be other games.”
I felt so very tired.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll watch over you for a while.”
I sat still for a moment, the inertia crushing.
Then I got up and slogged over to my bed. I took a moment to take off my clothes and barely made it under the covers and onto my pillow before my eyes crashed shut and refused to open again.
She started humming a quiet tune. I didn’t recognize it.
I didn’t drift off to sleep so much as plummet there.
And I slept until morning.
Chapter
Nineteen
“So how come we do an hour a day, instead of two hours every other day?” Fitz asked, panting.
We were in the gym and had finished up a pretty intense leg day. My knees were complaining at me, but not enough to make me think I’d actually hurt them. I just wasn’t as young as I used to be.
