“Brighton?” My voice is shakier than before.
Nothing.
Daisy’s door clicks open, and my worst fears play out like a burning roll of film before my eyes. She steps out, confusion painted on her sleepy face, and Brighton’s entire body whips toward her. I don’t know if it's fear or muscle memory, but my body moves between them in an instant.
“Daisy—back to your room,” I say without turning.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asks, and he starts to move forward.
“He’s sleepwalking, just—”
Daisy flinches when he moves faster, and I extend my hand to her in comfort, ready to tell her to go back to her room again, but Brighton has other plans. He’s too close now, and there’s not enough space in the narrow hallway to go anywhere but back. I cover Daisy’s body with my own; every muscle beneath my skin trembles, but I don’t back down.
“Rhea…” Daisy’s voice is quiet and terrified.
“It’s okay. He won’t hurt us. He’s just sleeping.” I tell her as I repeat it over and over again in my head.
He’s sleepwalking; he won’t hurt us.
“Slow. Back into your room. Lock the door,” I tell her instinctively, and when I turn to make sure she hears me, Reid and Rue stare up at me, scared little kids with glassy eyes and bruises I couldn’t prevent spattered across their faces. “Go back to bed, Daisy, he’s okay,” I tell her whenshe doesn’t move.
She nods gently, squeezing my hand, and takes two slow steps before she’s back in her room. The door locks behind her, and Brighton’s head flinches toward the sound.Contact.My brain is running in circles trying to figure out how to wake him up this time, and I’m coming up blank. “Brighton,” I say again, and he hears me, turning his head as I reach out and take his hand. If I can get him back into bed, maybe he’ll stay there for the night. “Let’s get you to bed.”
I lace my fingers into his and tug gently until his feet start to move. His steps are syrupy and clumsy as he wanders through the dark into his room. I get him to bed and manage to force him down into the sheets. I dig around for one of the blankets, pulling it up around him and waiting a few seconds to make sure he’s going to stay put before taking a step back.
“Stay,” he huffs, the word still tangled in sleep.
I stare at him, and it’s clear he’s not awake, but he says it again clearly, and it’s so desperate that I consider it for a second. I can wait until he’s asleep properly and sneak from his bed before he even realizes any of this happened.But Daisy.I turn to the room and chew my lip, aiming to go back, sure she’s alright, but he repeats himself.
“Don’t leave me,” his voice isn’t his own, and it heaves at the barriers in my chest. Every logical thought I have is breaking down from the sound of it.
“Alright,” I say out loud, even though he can’t hear me. I wait another second, hoping that this decision doesn’t backfire, before I crawl into his bed on the other side. I pull up a blanket and tuck it under my chin as I roll to my back, trying to keep the space between us that he works so hard to respect when he’s lucid.
I sigh, seeing his ceiling. It's empty except for a group of exactly seven small glow-in-the-dark stars. “Is that the Little Dipper?” I whisper. My racing heart comes to a dead stop, and my mouth goes dry.“Right here, it’s the cutest thing on your stubborn face.”
He’d said it to distract me… but what if he wasn’t lying?
Brighton rolls over in the bed, scaring me from the surprise, and presses his head against my shoulder with a small exhausted huff as his hand creeps beneath the blankets and finds a place splayed over my stomach, all before his body goes completely still.
I’m really sick of waking up to sheets that smell like Brighton.
My eyes fly open against his chest, and I hold my breath as I gently pull back to find him wrapped around me like a blanket. His hair is messy against his pillow, and there are none of the angry creases to his face that are normally there when he’s awake.Shit, shit, shit.
I wiggle back, but his fingers dig into my back against the friction and keep me in place. He moves a little, his arms tightening around me as his body stirs from sleep. He freezes for what feels like an eternity before he slowly pulls back from me.
“Why are you in my bed?” His voice is caked with sleep that stirs up the butterflies asleep in the pit of my stomach.
Not the time, horny Rhea. You shouldn’t be here.
“Why were you holding me like that?” I fire back, slipping from the bed to the floor. He cracks an eye open and stares at me, confused. He’s trying to figure out why I’m here, and I don’t blame him. Unable to wake him up from the episode last night, he has no idea what’s going on.
“Well, I was asleep… I thought you were a pillow. You didn’t answer why you were in here?” he asks again.
I scowl at him. “Why did you put all those stars on my ceiling?” I’m flustered and don’t want to have to answer his questions, so I keep asking him more. He doesn’t move, just lies there with the blanket draped around his waist and his expression thick with sleep.
Deep breaths, one: two, three, four… every part of his body is tight.
“Because you said they help you sleep. And you’re my friend. I wanted to make you comfortable here.” He says it so smoothly, I almost believe him.
