Verity(45)

I push off the mattress and head for the closet. I grab my suitcase and the few shirts I brought with me that are hanging up. “I should go.”

Jeremy says nothing, so I continue to pack my things. I’m in the bathroom gathering my toiletries when he appears in the doorway. “You’re leaving?”

I nod. “I woke up in her room, Jeremy. Even after you put a lock on my door. What if it happens again? What if I scare Crew?” I open the shower door to grab my razor. “I should have told you all this before I ever stayed the night here.”

Jeremy takes the razor out of my hand. He places my bag of toiletries back on the counter. Then he pulls me to him, wrapping a hand around my head as he tucks me into his chest. “You sleepwalk, Low.” He presses a comforting kiss into the top of my hair. “You sleepwalk. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Not that big of a deal?

I laugh halfheartedly against his chest. “I wish my mother would have felt that way.”

When Jeremy pulls back, there’s worry in his eyes. But is he worried for me or because of me? He walks me back into the bedroom, where he motions for me to sit down on my bed while he begins to hang up the shirts I shoved into my suitcase.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“Which part, exactly?”

“Why your mother thought it was a big deal.”

I don’t want to talk about it. He must see my expression change because he pauses as he’s reaching for another shirt. He drops it back into the suitcase and sits on the bed.

“I don’t mean to sound harsh,” he says, pegging me with a firm stare. “But I have a son. Seeing you this worried about what you’re capable of is starting to make me worry. Why are you so scared of yourself?”

A small part of me wants to defend myself, but there’s nothing to defend. I can’t tell him I’m harmless, because I’m not sure that I am. I can’t tell him I’ll never sleepwalk again, because it just happened twenty minutes ago. The only thing I could probably say to defend myself is to tell him I’m not nearly as horrific as his own wife, but I’m not even sure if I believe that.

I’m not horrific yet, and I don’t trust myself enough to say that I never will be.

I drop my eyes to the bed and swallow, preparing to tell him all about it. My wrist begins to throb again. When I look down at it, I trace the scar over my palm. “I didn’t feel what happened to my wrist when it happened,” I say. “I woke up one morning when I was ten. As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt this intense pain shoot up from my wrist to my shoulder. And then it was like a bright light exploded in my head. I screamed because it hurt so bad. My mother ran into my bedroom, and I remember lying on the bed in the most pain I’d ever been in, but in that second I realized my door had been unlocked. I knew I had locked it the night before.”

I look up from my hand, back at Jeremy. “I couldn’t remember what had happened, but there was blood all over my blanket, my pillow, my mattress, myself. And dirt on my feet, as if I’d been outside during the night. I couldn’t even remember ever leaving my room. We had security cameras that monitored the front of the house and several of the rooms inside it. Before my mother checked them, she took me to the hospital because the cut on my hand needed stitches and my wrist needed an X-ray. When we got home later that afternoon, she pulled up the security footage of our front yard. We sat on the couch and watched it.”

I reach to the nightstand and grab my water to ease the dryness in my throat. Before I continue, Jeremy places a hand on my knee, his thumb rubbing back and forth reassuringly. I stare at it as I finish telling him what happened.

“At three o’clock that morning, the footage showed me walking outside, onto the front porch. I climbed up on the thin porch railing and stood there. That’s all I did at first. I just…stood there. For an hour, Jeremy. We watched the entire hour, waiting, hoping to see if the footage was broken because no one should be able to remain balanced for that long. It was unnatural, but I never moved. I never spoke any words. And then…I jumped. I must have hurt my wrist in the fall, but in the footage I showed no reaction. I pushed off the ground with both hands and then walked up the porch steps. You could see the blood already coming from my hand and dripping onto the porch, but my expression was dead. I walked straight back to my room and I fell asleep.”

My eyes return to his. “I have no recollection of that. How can I inflict that much pain on myself and not be aware of it? How can I stand on a railing for an entire hour without swaying, not even a little bit? The video frightened me more than the injury did.”

Again, he hugs me, and I am so grateful that I cling to him tightly. “My mother sent me away for a two-week psychiatric evaluation after that,” I say into his chest. “When I returned home, she had moved farther down the hall, into a spare bedroom where she placed three locks on the inside of her bedroom door. My own mother was terrified of me.”

Jeremy buries his face in my hair and sighs heavily. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“And I’m sorry your mother didn’t know how to handle it. That had to have been hard for you.”

Everything about him is exactly what I needed tonight. His voice is calm and caring, and his arms are protective, and his presence is comforting. I don’t want him to let go of me. I don’t want to think about waking up in Verity’s bed. I don’t want to think about how much I don’t trust my own mind in my sleep, and even when I’m awake.