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The room was still black when I lurched awake. I glanced out the picture windows––this was an empty shell of a place, no matter the pictures that were scattered around. Boston twinkled in the black of the night. I checked the clock. Three a.m.
I rubbed a hand across my eyes. My head and ankle hurt, but I didn't want to take any more Percocet. Ibuprofen would hopefully take care of it.
My heart was pounding, as if something had startled me awake. I held a nervous hand to my pulse and listened, but the apartment was still. One of the benefits of living in an ice palace in the sky was the quiet––I'd never lived anywhere so utterly silent my entire life.
Was Brandon home? I didn't know, and I wasn't about to go check. He'd said he needed space, so that's what I would give him until he was ready for me to be close again. I laid my head back down on the pillow and closed my eyes, willing sleep to come again. But then:
"NO! GET THE FUCK OFF!"
Brandon's deep voice reverberated across the hall, followed by a half-scream, half-shout that froze my bones. I shot out of bed as fast as my hobbled ankle would let me, ignoring the pounding in my head at the sudden rush of blood. I hopped across the room, grabbed a crutch off the wall, and limped frantically across the hall, not even knocking before bursting into Brandon's bedroom.
He was corkscrewed around the sheets, sleeping as he usually did in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. The sight of him, all lean muscle and sinew cast with moonlit shadows, would have stopped me in awe had he not been covered in sweat and seized in what looked like agony.
Brandon's blue eyes were wide open, but he was clearly asleep, staring through me in abject terror.
"No," he moaned loudly. "Stop! Don't..." His voice drifted lower and into unintelligible babbling, but equally fraught with pain and dread.
My chest ached as I approached his writhing form. What was I supposed to do when people sleepwalked? I couldn't remember. Wake them up? Let them sleep?
But I didn't need to decide, because with one more vicious twist of his big body, Brandon slammed his head into the wooden headboard, waking himself with a howl. I dropped my crutch to the carpet and was on the bed in two more hops.
"Brandon," I said, setting a hand on his shoulder, slick with sweat. "Hey. It's okay. I'm here."
He rubbed a hand on his forehead as his pupils focused. "Fuck. Wha-where?" He looked to me with an expression that was half annoyed, half terrified. "What's happening?"
"You were having a dream. A nightmare, I think."
I scooted closer, so that I was leaning into the stack of pillows against the headboard. He was only sleeping on one side of the bed––the right side, the side he'd adopted when we were together before. My side was practically untouched.
Brandon curled into himself and began to shake, a minor shiver that soon started to vibrate through his whole body.
"F-f-fuck," he muttered to himself. "M-make it stop."
He clutched his head, like it hurt. Whatever was going on in his mind hadn't totally disappeared when he woke up. Immediately, I scooted even closer and rubbed a hand up his back, which seemed to calm him. Hesitant at first, he allowed me to pull him against my chest with a strangled groan, and his big arms wrapped around my waist so tightly I could barely breathe myself. His breaths were shallow, stunted.
"Ssshhhh," I crooned, weaving my fingers into his thick curls and stroking over his shoulders.
It seemed to work. The shaking subsided, and his breaths, while still shallow, gradually became longer and longer.
"Skylar," he whispered into my chest.
His arms hugged me tighter; I felt like he was squeezing my heart. Despite the pain shooting through my broken ribs, I knew this was where I belonged. Was he in as much pain as I was, sleeping across the hall from one another, knowing that I'd put that gargantuan space between us? He continued to tremble, and his big body clutched to mine like a buoy in whatever storm he saw.
"Brandon, what can I do?" I asked as I continued to stroke his shoulder, his hair. "Tell me how to help."
"S-s-sing," he stuttered. It was the only word he seemed to be able to get out. "Sing."
Sing?
So I started humming the bars to the first song I could think of: "My Funny Valentine." My voice, wobbly from sleep, cracked at the high reach at the end, but Brandon didn't seem to notice. He just grasped the hem of my T-shirt and listened.
"I got you," I said after, continuing to stroke his hair, repeating the words he'd said to me only a few days before. "I got you."
Eventually, his shaking subsided. The white of the moonlight seemed to fill the room, and the sweat that had covered his body evaporated into the night. Brandon's arms began to relax around my waist, and his head grew heavier and heavier on my chest. His breathing became deeper, and mine did too as I pressed my nose into his hair and inhaled. Almonds. Soap. Brandon.
But just when I thought he was asleep, his arms loosened, and he pulled his hands out from under my back.
"You sang that song with your dad," he mumbled.
