This is the 23rd installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
I checked to make sure that he was still alive. I did this every morning—especially after the nightmares. Or after he had eaten a particularly rich dinner. Or after he had complained of a headache.
My hand on his chest, I could feel the thumping of his heart and the steady movement of breath in and out. He’d survived another night.
The nightmares—or nightmare, really—started 17 days ago. I’d woken up screaming the first time, and Kyle couldn’t do anything to comfort me. Eventually, I calmed down because I knew—thought I knew—it was over, we were safe, it was just a dream. This is what I’d told the girls a thousand times when they crawled into our bed after a nightmare. This is what I told myself, too.
I woke up crying the next few nights. Then I stopped. Maybe my body stopped producing tears to protect me from dying of dehydration—I don’t know.
I never told Kyle the content of the dreams, but sometimes he’d catch me staring at him, and he’d frown, just a little, as if he knew.
Maybe we both knew this couldn’t last forever.
Miles Away 