Page 44 of Ex Somnis

“What do you mean?”

“I…” He stops and runs a hand over his face. “Nothing. I don’t know.” He looks at the wall again through the windshield, then back at me. “I’m sorry about your…” He gestures to my face. “I guess that was me.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s really not.”

“It’ll come off.”

Probably.

Hopefully.

“I should go.” He starts to open the door.

“Where?”

“Home. I need to…” he looks down at himself, “… get some clothes.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“It’s fine, I can⁠—”

“Nevan!” I shoot him a hard look. “You are not walking home in your underwear.”

He nods and deflates instantly, as if leaving were only a polite suggestion, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to. He sits back and pulls the door shut again.

I reach into the middle console for the glass cleaning set I keep there. The paint comes off the lenses well enough, though the frame will need more attention than I can give it in a car.

Nevan quietly sits there, his breathing slow and heavy.

“Does that happen often?” I ask.

“Since I was a kid, worse since my teens. But I usually wake up at the abandoned mill on the edge of town, not at…” he gestures vaguely back toward the Vaughn mansion, “… other people’s houses. Shit.” His eyes go wide. “I just committed a fucking felony.”

“You got more paint on me than on the house. I’m sure I can talk to Mrs. Vaughn about it.”

He looks at the side of my head. “Spraying people in the face is probably a felony too.”

The corner of my mouth twitches. “Not if I don’t tell anyone.”

He doesn’t say anything to that and looks back at the road, so I start the engine and pull away from the curb. We drive for a moment in the quiet of two people who don’t know each other well enough to fill the silence easily and are both tired enough not to try. But I watch him in my peripheral, the spray can still in his lap, one hand resting over it, looking out the window at a town that is so small, people know everything about each other.

I wonder how I haven’t known about his REM behavior disorder.

“Do you know what kind of psychologist I am?” I ask, breaking the silence.

“Not really. Mabel said something about sleep.”

“Why did she never send you to see me?”

He turns his head. “What?”

“For your condition.”

“My condition?” His eyes go wide.

He’s probably still half asleep.