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I try to fall asleep, but Dahlia’s tossing and turning keeps me wide awake for the next five minutes. I’m not sure if she is typically a restless sleeper or if her cast makes finding a comfortable position difficult, but either way, she is driving me insane.
I turn my head to the side. “What’s wrong with you?”
She fixes the comforter for the tenth time. “I can’t fall asleep.”
“Why?”
“Because…” She motions toward the two of us like it answers everything.
“What?”
“This is weird.”
“Would you rather I sleep on the floor?”
Her smile can be seen in the dark. “Could you?”
“Hell no, but good to know you’d be up for me being exposed to more bodily fluids than a sperm bank.”
My brain is sent into a tailspin by the soft, melodic sound of her laugh.
“Don’t be dramatic. This has to be the nicest hotel in all of Detroit,” she says.
“It could be the Ritz-Carlton, and I’d still refuse to sleep on the floor.”
“There’s always the couch.”
“Thanks for the suggestion, but I like my spine alignment the way it is.”
She giggles again, this time with a little wheeze at the end.
Both of us fall quiet, although this round of silence feels more comfortable compared to the others.
“Julian,” she whispers a few minutes later.
I screw my eyes tight. “I’m sleeping.”
“No, you’re not.” She nudges me with her cast.
I pop an eye open to confirm she closed the gap between us. She leans on her side, with her right arm tucked beneath her pillow and her dark hair billowing around her like a curtain.
“What?” I ask without hiding my annoyance.
“Something has been bothering me.”
“About the mattress?”
“Aboutus.”
I remain quiet.
Dahlia sighs. “Sometimes it feels like…” Her sentence dies before she has a chance to finish it.
What?I want to ask.
Tell me, I wish to say.
But rather than give my curiosity away, I keep the questions locked away.
