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“Sadie, wake up.”
He’s kneeling on the side of my bed, his face illuminated by the glow of the night-light plugged into the wall.
I blink a few times, trying to reconcile if this is real or a dream. I can still feel hands on my body and the moisture on my face. I touch my face to find my lashes wet and a sheen of sweat on my forehead.
“Are you okay?” he whispers, brushing my hair from my face. “You had a bad dream.”
Suddenly, I’m flooded with embarrassment. I haven’t had a dream like that in a long time. I thought those days were behind me.
Oh God, what did I say?
“I’m fine,” I say, shaking my head and trying to hide the tremble in my limbs.
He’s staring at me gravely, without moving.
“I said I’m fine,” I snap, turning away from him and resting my hand on the hard, round swell of my stomach.
“Okay. You scared me,” he says, as if I should feel bad for my subconscious scaring him.
“Sorry,” I huff, my voice shaking as I fight the urge to cry.
I keep waiting for him to leave so I can just let it all out, but the bed dips instead. Turning back, I find him crawling under the covers behind me. He’s in nothing but plaid pajama pants and no shirt. And I’m in far less—a sports bra and a pair of cotton panties.
When the bare skin of his chest touches my back, I have to breathe through the tears. His arm wraps around my midsection, tugging me closer.
“Go to your own bed,” I say, whimpering as I sob. I don’t even bother trying to hide it now.
He squeezes me closer.
“No.”
“Luke,” I whine.
“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs in the darkness.
“Now who’s the brat?” I say, forcing a laugh that he doesn’t return.
I don’t fall back to sleep and not because I’m being obstinate, but because I can’t. My mind is racing, replaying everything from the dream and then, of course, everything from that night the dream was an echo of. The tears eventually stop, but I lie in silence and stare through the night at the window and the gently moving curtain.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he whispers a while later.
I shake my head.
“Can I ask why you called my name?” His voice is gentle, with his hand resting on my stomach and my head just under his chin.
“I didn’t,” I argue, although I don’t know what I yelled out loud. I just know what I felt.
“Yes, you did. You screamed it.”
My eyes pinch closed tightly.
Then I feel his lips against my head as he gently mumbles, “You sounded terrified.”
My fingers find his and I squeeze his hand in mine and tighten his grip around me, but I can’t speak. Not yet.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Sadie. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You don’t hurt me,” I reply in a breathless cry. I hate to imagine him thinking he’s the reason I was so scared. It wasn’t that way at all, but how can I tell him that?
