Page 165 of The Professor's Wife

“I can’t sleep.”

“I know.”

Her silence lasted a few seconds.

I turned toward her.

The dark hid most of her face, but I could make out the pale shape of it against the pillow. She pulled the blanket higher beneath her chin.

Something had followed her into the bed with us.

I wanted to know what.

Daisy’s eyes moved toward the window. Rain tracked down the glass, catching what little light remained outside.

“I had a bad dream,” she said.

The words were so quiet I almost thought the storm had made them.

My whole body sharpened.

“When?”

“Last night.”

“And you’re telling menow?”

She looked away.

I bit back the next question.

Why hadn’t she told me?

Why did she keep waiting until things had eaten through her before she admitted they existed?

Because she wasn’t used to telling anyone. Because speaking had probably cost her something once.

I forced my voice down. “What happened?”

Daisy was silent for so long that I thought she might take it back.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” she eventually said.

I watched her profile.

The small tension at the corner of her mouth. The way her fingers worried at the blanket beneath her chin.

“Was it about Rowe?”

“No.”

“Your sister?”

Her eyes closed. “No.”

There was someone else.

I felt it. A person she kept hidden behind every unfinished sentence. I wanted the name. I wanted it so badly my teeth hurt from holding the question back.