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Twenty-One
I WAS ALLset to keep my distance after that.
But then, that night, Jack had a nightmare.
A bad one.
I woke to the sound of him thrashing and choking. He had said not to be alarmed, but I’m not gonna lie: It was alarming. He’s not a small guy, and whatever was going on in that nightmare… he was fighting it with everything he had.
I stood up fast, heart thumping, and clambered over to him.
“Jack,” I said, trying to steady his shoulders. “Wake up.”
But he was thrashing like a wild boar. His arm came up and smacked me across the collarbones like a wood plank. I took a step back, found my breath, and regrouped.
I stepped closer again. “Jack! Wake up!”
This time, he heard me, and opened his eyes. He grabbed my nightgown to pull himself up—gasping, coughing, sobbing, and looking around like he had no idea where he was.
“You’re good!” I said. “You’re safe!” I said, as he tried to focus. “Just a dream. Just a really bad dream.”
And then what did I do? I hugged him.
I sat close to him, and squeezed my arms around him tight, and said every soothing thing I could think of.
As soon as it all registered—where he was, who I was, what was happening—he clamped his arms around me and wouldn’t let go.
So I stayed right there.
I stroked his back and patted it. I waited for his breathing to settle. I comforted him. Like real people do with people they really care about.
Even after he’d gotten quiet, when I thought maybe he was feeling better and might want to be left alone to sleep, it was—let’s say—challenging to leave him. When I tried to unfold myself from his arms, he tightened his grip.
“You’re okay now,” I said.
But then he said, “Stay with me a little longer, okay?” His voice was so shaky, there was no other answer but, Of course.
And when he decided to lie back on the pillow and kept his arms around me, clamping me close like I was his teddy bear, I let him do that, too.
“Just another minute,” he said.
I could manufacture a hundred reasons why I stayed. But the only one that matters is this: I wanted to. I liked it there. I liked holding him—and being held. I liked feeling like I mattered to someone. There’s nothing like the mutuality of a hug—the way you’re giving comfort but you’re getting it, too.
I didn’t know what was real or fake anymore, but right then, it just didn’t matter.
We faced each other on our sides. He kept his arms wrapped around me. I rested my head on his bicep.
I gave myself five more minutes. Then another five. I decided to wait until he fell asleep. But he didn’t fall asleep.
I’d close my eyes, but every time I opened them, I saw his, right there, open, gazing at me, pupils dark and wide.
After a while, I asked, “It’s the same dream every time?”
“Yep.”
Then I asked, “Can you tell me what it is?”
But he didn’t answer.
