𝘼𝙁𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙒𝙀 𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙀𝘿 ↣ 𝙊𝙉𝙀 𝘿𝙄𝙍𝙀𝘾𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉

37. EVER SINCE NEW YORK

"Wake up, come on now."

I gasped and sat up. I pushed away from the person in front of me and stumbled out of bed.

"Hey, hey, easy! Easy, love."

I tripped backwards and landed with a hard thud on the ground. Louis dropped to his knees beside me and tried to grab onto me. I fought him, kicking and pushing and deliriously begging please.

"Stop, love, it's me," Louis said. He gathered my wrists in one hand and held them tightly to my chest while his other hand pressed me down into the floor by my shoulder. My legs tried to pull me away. Louis made the quick decision to straddle me.

I tried to free my wrists, but Louis held them securely together.

"Please," I said frantically.

"Just look at me," Louis said gently. "It wasn't real, love. You had a nightmare. You're safe, okay? I'm here and you're safe. You're awake now. Come back to me. Breathe and come back to me."

I stared up at him with giant eyes. Slowly, my body turned off its auto-pilot survival effort. I stared up at Louis and recognized him fully. I looked away, ashamed of myself and my terror.

Louis was supposed to be the person that could get me back together. I'd fought him. What if I'd hurt him?

"Love, will you look at me please?"

He released his grip on my wrists and instead wrapped his hands around mine. I dropped my head down onto the floor and looked up at him.

If I had hurt him, it would've made me like James. James beat me and told me he loved me.

"Love," Louis repeated, speaking softly. He knew I was thinking too much.

"It was a dream?" I croaked.

"Yeah. It was only a dream."

"I- sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"I could've hurt you-"

"You were terrified. You didn't know what you were doing."

"That doesn't make it okay."

"I'm not upset. I'm not hurt. I'm fine. Are you fine?"

"Yeah," I breathed, "I'm fine."

"You want me to climb off of you then?"

"No," I whispered. Instead I reached up and pulled him down onto me. The pressure he gave me was overwhelmingly grounding.

"Talk to me," Louis whispered. He put one hand under my head so it wasn't on the floor and grabbed my hand with the other. He buried his face into the crook of my neck.

"I don't want to."

That statement hung in the air. I didn't want to. I didn't want to have to open up to Louis and tell him about the nightmare I'd had. I didn't want to have to explain how certain I was it was real.

I didn't want to still be doing it. I didn't want him to have to listen. I didn't want him to sort through my trauma for me, since I was obviously unable to on my own.

I just didn't want to.

"Please talk to me," he said. I closed my eyes. "I won't know how to help if I don't know what it was about."

"What does that even mean?" I asked.

"Usually when you have nightmares about losing me I can hold you and remind you that I'm here and that makes you feel better. If it's about one of the other boys getting hurt I can tell you funny stories to distract you from it. When your nightmares are more like memories of things that've happened, you don't usually want to fall asleep so we turn on a movie or make something to eat instead until I can get you to fall asleep."