He woke up groggy and disoriented. The shower was running at the bathroom. Clock on the bedside table told him that it was half past three at the morning. He tried to bury his head under the pillow, but then his sharpened senses perked up. Scent of tears. Small hiccupping sobs, muffled but he could hear them anyway. He rose and patted to the door of the bathroom. Knocked. “You homesick or something, kid?” He asked. There was no answer. “Kid? Are you alright in there?” He asked. Again no answer, just more sobbing. “Shit. This is just great…” He muttered under his breath. “Marie? Are you alright?” He tried again. This time there was an answer. Sort of. She turned off the shower. He could hear the towel rustling and swishing over her skin. The doorknob turned and the door cracked open, just the slightest bit. She stood there, shoulders slumped, wet hair hanging limply, huge towel wrapped around her, gaze of her red-rimmed eyes cast to her toes like all the wonders of the universe were revealed on the shiny surface of the carefully applied nail polish. “Sorry. I… I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she whispered and hiccupped, trying her best to rein her quivering lower lip.
He pushed the door open and stepped in, reaching for the bathrobe hanging on the wall and draped it over her shoulders, steering her towards her room. “Missing home already?” He asked. She shook her head and let him guide her on to the bed. Sat on the edge of it and let out a sigh. “Just a bad dream…”
He took in her appearance. Trembling from head to toe, her eyes bleary and her whole posture just about screaming for help, a place to hide. “Must have been a hell of a nightmare.” She nodded. “I have had those for ages. They feel so real. And after I wake up, it takes some time to… To adjust…” She stuttered. It was his turn to nod. “Takes time to realize that it was just a dream, right?” He asked, even though he knew the answer already. “Yeah. I know, it’s silly. Most of my dreams are silly. Downright stupid. Giant marshmallows chasing me and that kind of stuff. But it feels so real…”
He sat on to the bed next to her and looped his arm over her shoulders. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. Maybe she’d bolt up scared out of her wits, but he couldn’t just stand there and watch her sniffling and shivering. And this time she didn’t retreat, but burrowed closer at him instead.
“It really doesn’t matter if your dreams are silly. If they’re real and scary enough for you…” He squeezed her shoulder slightly. “You will get freaked out no matter if it is just a marshmallow chasing you or horde of scary monsters…” He paused for a moment. “You want to… Talk about it?” He added reluctantly. He really wasn’t equipped to deal with teenage traumas, but he figured that as long as the girl was under his wing he should at least make an effort. To his relief she shook her head. “What good would it do to talk? It doesn’t take away the dreams,” she huffed, shifting away from him. “And I really didn’t mean to wake you. Sorry about this. It’s just so hard to go back to sleep right after…” “Well, as long as we’re both up and running, we could get going. You can sleep in the truck if you’re still tired. How does that sound?” He asked. “Aren’t you tired?” The girl asked scrunching her forehead. He shrugged. “It usually helps me to forget my dreams when I keep moving. You want to try it?” He asked. The girl nodded. “But can we have breakfast at that diner first?” She asked. “Yeah. Roasted roaches it is.”
Once properly fed and back on the road the girl actually fell asleep again. She had been clinging to her teddy bear for support, but when the truck hit a pothole she slumped sideways, still holding the bear, her head ending up on his thigh. He expected her to wake up, but when she smacked her lips and burrowed closer at him he let her be. He wasn’t comfortable at all this close to her, he wouldn’t have been comfortable this close to anybody, but he was no stranger to nightmares and sleep deprivation. If cuddling up against somebody made her sleep better he could tolerate it for the remainder of their trip.
Half an hour later he found his hand from her shoulder, his fingers drawing reassuring patterns over her shoulder blade as he drove. He clasped his hand over the steering wheel. It wasn’t working very well. As soon as she muttered in her sleep or even breathed differently his traitorous limb crept back on her shoulder like a trained parakeet.
“Goddamned.”
It felt way too nice. It was way too easy to hold her, and it was difficult, damn near impossible to believe that the burn in his chest was just indigestion.
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