Verity(44)

I’m staring at a wall. The wall in the master bedroom is light grey. This wall is yellow. Yellow, like the walls in the upstairs bedrooms.

The bed beneath me begins to move, but it isn’t because someone in the bed is moving. It’s different…like it’s…mechanical.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Please, God. No. No, no, no, please don’t tell me I am in Verity’s bed.

I’m trembling all over now. I open my eyes, slowly, and turn my head at the slowest pace possible. When I see the door and then the dresser and then the TV mounted to the wall, I roll out of the bed, falling to the floor. I scramble to the wall and slide up it with my back against it. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can hardly hold myself up I am so hysterical.

My body is shaking so badly, I can hear it when I breathe. Whimpers at first, but as soon as I open my eyes and see Verity on her bed, I scream.

Then I slap my hand over my mouth.

It’s dark outside. Everyone is asleep. I have to be quiet.

It’s been so long since this has happened. Years, probably. But it’s happening and I am terrified and I have no idea why I ended up here. Was it because I was thinking about her?

“Sleepwalking is patternless, Lowen. It has no meaning. It is unrelated to intention.”

I hear my therapist’s words, but I don’t want to process them. I need to get out of here. Move, Lowen.

I slide across the wall, keeping as far from that bed as I can while I make my way to Verity’s bedroom door. I’m flat against the door, tears streaming down my cheeks as I turn the handle and open it, then flee the bedroom.

Jeremy flings his arms around me, pulling me to a stop.

“Hey,” he says, turning me to face him. He sees the tears on my face, the terror in my eyes. He loosens his grip, and as soon as he does, I run. I run down the hall, down the stairs, and I don’t stop until I slam the bedroom door and I’m back on my bed.

What the fuck? What the fuck?

I curl up on top of the covers, facing the door. My wrist begins to throb, so I grip it with my other hand and tuck it against my chest.

The bedroom door opens and then closes behind Jeremy. He’s shirtless, in a pair of red flannel pajama bottoms. It’s all I see, a blur of red plaid as he rushes toward me. Then he’s on his knees, his hand on my arm, his eyes searching mine.

“Lowen, what happened?”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, wiping at my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

I shake my head and sit up on the bed. I have to explain it to him. He just caught me in his wife’s bedroom in the middle of the night, and his head is probably swarming with questions. Questions I don’t really have answers to.

Jeremy takes a seat next to me on the bed, lifting a leg so he can face me. He puts both his hands on my shoulders and lowers his head, looking at me very seriously.

“What happened, Low?”

“I don’t know,” I say, rocking back and forth. “Sometimes I walk in my sleep. I haven’t in a long time, but I took two Xanax earlier and I think maybe… I don’t know…” I sound just as hysterical as I feel. Jeremy must sense that, because he pulls me to him, putting pressure around me with his arms, trying to calm me. He doesn’t ask me anything else for a couple of minutes. He runs a comforting hand over the back of my head and as good as it feels to have his support, I feel guilty. Undeserving.

When he pulls back, I can see his questions practically spilling from his mouth. “What were you doing in Verity’s room?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I woke up in there. I was scared and I screamed and…”

He grabs my hands. Squeezes them. “You’re okay.”

I want to agree with him, but I can’t. How am I supposed to sleep in this house after that?

I can’t count how many times I’ve woken up in random places. It used to happen so often, I went through a period where I had three locks on the inside of the bedroom door. I’m not unfamiliar with waking up in strange rooms, but why, out of all the rooms in this house, did it have to be Verity’s?

“Is this why you wanted a lock on your door?” he asks. “To stop yourself from getting out?”

I nod, but for whatever reason, my response makes him laugh.

“Jesus,” he says. “I thought it was because you were afraid of me.”

I’m glad he finds levity in the moment, because I can’t seem to.

“Hey. Hey,” he says gently, tilting my chin up so that I’ll look at him. “You’re okay. It’s okay. Sleepwalking is harmless.”

I shake my head in profound disagreement. “No. No, Jeremy. It’s not.” I hold my hand up to my chest, still clutching my wrist. “I’ve woken up outside before, I’ve turned on stoves and ovens in my sleep. I even…” I blow out a breath. “I broke my hand in my sleep and didn’t even feel it until I woke up the next morning.”

A rush of adrenaline surges through my body as I think about how I can now add what just happened to the list of disturbing things I’ve done in my sleep. Although unconscious, I still walked up those stairs and crawled into that bed. If I’m capable of doing something that disturbing, what else am I capable of?

Did I unlock the door in my sleep or did I forget to lock it? I can’t even remember.