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“Emma? Are you okay?” When she doesn’t answer, I ask, “Will you open the door?”

“I’m fine,” she replies, her voice shaky.

“Please open the door?” I try to keep my voice even.

“I’m okay, really.” I don’t believe her.

“Please,” I insist, knowing this isn’t over for her. If I can just get her to listen. “Just open the door, okay?”

“Fine. Just a minute.” The creak of the floorboards lets me know she’s up. A moment later, she cracks the door open. Her hair’s tied back, and she’s wearing a hoodie that she probably just threw on. “I’m okay, see.”

She scrunches her nose guiltily, her cheeks still ruddy from her troubled sleep. “It was just a dream. Sorry I woke you.”

“You shouldn't go back to bed,” I tell her.

“Huh?”

“When you have a nightmare like that, you need to get out of your bed, to get away from it,” I explain. “Get a glass of water, watch television, something to clear your head. That way, when you go back to sleep, the nightmare’s not still there, waiting for you."

She stares back at me, absorbing my words.

“Come on. Let’s watch TV for a while, okay?”

“Sure,” she concedes. “But you don’t have to stay up.”

“Don't worry about me.” I step back and let her pass me before heading down the stairs. “Let’s go see what they’re selling at this hour.”

We flip through the channels, and I make a dumb comment about staying away from the infomercials, although they are easy to get stuck on when you’re half asleep. Something about the inflection of the voice trying to sell a product like your life depends on it.

Emma appears dazed, sitting on the loveseat, not paying attention.

“It gets better,” I say, hoping I sound convincing.

“How would you know?” There’s a challenge in her eyes, like she’s calling me out on my bullshit.

“Believe me, it does,” I lie. But I’ve always been good at that.

Jonathan thrashes in the sheets and calls out in his sleep. Not words. Pure fear. The desperation and pain caught in his throat ricochets through my core. I feel it.

I scramble off the bed and kneel beside him. I set a hand on his forehead. “Shhh. You’re safe. You’re with me. Jonathan, open your eyes.” My voice is a melody of words.

I’ve learned how to rouse him so I don’t become part of what he’s fighting in his sleep.

He shoved me off the bed one night when I tried to shake him awake. Jonathan was so overcome with guilt that he wouldn’t sleep in the same bed with me for a week. I wasn’t hurt. I mean, it definitely surprised me. But I know now that he needs to be coaxed back to wakefulness slowly. Not abruptly.

I run my hand across his skin and into his hair. “You’re safe, my love. Open your eyes.”

His dark lashes blink violently. It takes him a minute to focus and recognize the studio. That I’m beside him. There are tears in his eyes. And instead of wiping them away like he usually does, he gives in to them. The pain etched on his face is so deep, I can’t breathe.

“I can’t do this.” The words scrape out of his throat, raw and hoarse. As painful to say as they are to hear. I crawl beside him, and he curls into me, his head on my lap, his arms wrapped around me. “Why am I here? I can’t keep going through this. Reliving it. I’m so tired—”

I soothe him with hushes as I run my hand through his hair. Along his back. Silently begging him to stay with me.

He pulls me down so I’m closer to him. We wrap around each other. A tangle of limbs in a desperate embrace. I kiss his fevered temple. His tear-streaked cheek. His scruffy jaw. His bare skin is still damp with sweat. All I want is to be his light. To remind him that he deserves to be here. That he is loved.

I want to be his reason.

I hope I am enough.