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“Maybe if I do it, it’ll deter other people from doing shit like this.”
“Or maybe it’ll draw more interest.”
“There’s going to be interest no matter what,” he says. “With the draft, and it being a decade since the accident.”
“Oh,” I say softly.
His mouth twists. I run my nails over his scalp, hoping to be soothing. I never know what to say in these situations—usually when I open my mouth, I fuck things up somehow. But he’s right, if he was eleven when his parents passed, it’s been a decade. A decade of a different family, a different life. Even though he was young when it happened, he remembers it all, and I’d bet that’s what he’s thinking about right now, given the far-off look in his eyes.
“It’s okay,” he says eventually. “We don’t have to—I just—fuck.”
“The school knows, right?”
“He wasn’t on university property, but my coach said he would tell the athletic department.”
“Good.”
He grimaces. “It’s just stupid. I should be grateful, you know? I’m probably going to go high in the first round. I’m going to be set, if I can navigate the minors and get called up at the right time.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have feelings about it. Even if those feelings aren’t what you think they should be.”
“Everyone is so excited.” He bites his lip. “Why aren’t I more excited?”
Before I can respond, he reaches around me and turns the movie on again.
I slide my hand from his hair down to the back of his neck, squeezing lightly. “Seb.”
“Let’s just watch the movie.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please, Mia.”
I wet my lips. The urge to push is simmering just underneath the surface, but sometimes a distraction is what someone needs, so I just turn around and settle back into his arms. He wraps an arm around my belly. The weight of it grounds me.
“Thank you,” he mumbles.
I hope this is grounding him, too.
* * *
A kneeto the stomach wakes me.
I gasp, my eyes flying open. As I blink in the blue dark, I remember where I am. Sebastian’s bed.Point Breakand baked ziti. Baseball and photographers. We fell asleep almost the second the credits started to roll, wrapped up in each other.
My belly aches as I take in a breath. Sebastian's arms are still around me, holding tightly, but he's thrashing around. We're dangerously close to the edge of the bed. My heart thuds, panic flooding my half-awake senses. "Seb."
"No," he says, his voice filled with anguish. “No no no—”
"Sebastian," I say, my voice cracking in the middle of the word. I'm frozen; I need to force myself to move so we don’t topple to the floor in a heap. I try to wriggle out of his grip, but he's too strong. "Sebastian, wake up."
"Don't," he cries. "Please."
That 'please' tears through me like a bullet. I pull at his arms until his grip breaks. Panting, messy hair falling into my eyes, I press him down against the bed. He nearly bucks me off, but I hang on, digging my nails into his arms. “Sebastian, wake up!”
I thought I'd understood what Izzy meant when she said he has nightmares. This is on a completely different level, and the adrenaline racing through my body won’t calm the fuck down. I can practically feel my heart in my throat as I beg him to wake up. What do you do when someone won’t wake from a nightmare? Slap them? Shake them? Keep pleading until they snap out of it? Why the hell don’t I know the answer?
“Sebastian,” I say again, my voice sharper. There’s a blur of orange out of the corner of my eye; Tangerine, streaking off the bed, no doubt scared by the loud noises. “You’re having a nightmare. Wakeup!”
