Page 75 of The Fire We Crave

“I didn’t think I’d cry,” she admits between sobs. “Even though I read about it and know people do.”

I smile.

She’s got so much to learn.

And I’m going to have so much fun being the one to teach her.

22

QUINN

Sleep is within my grasp, I’m sure of it.

But my eyelashes flutter occasionally. And I sigh. Then, I turn over, rolling onto a cooler part of the bed.

I beat the pillow with my hand as my head struggles to settle.

I yawn, a sure sign I’m tired, yet it’s time to admit, sleep is evading me.

It has since I fell asleep in the truck on the way home and Smoke put me to bed. On my own.

I’d been so hopeful it was going to be more.

When I was young, my mom always used to make me fairy milk when I couldn’t sleep. Warm milk with honey, vanilla, and cinnamon. She’d bring it in a little glass cup that always felt too fancy. She called it the sleepy cup. But Mom had this way of elevating even the most mundane things.

She’d sprinkle edible flowers over sandwiches, would serve up Jell-O in individual crystal dishes, and cut carrots and cucumber into little shapes to dip in hummus.

Conceding, I roll over to the edge of the bed and sit up.

I feel like I’ve lived twenty-seven lifetimes today. My body aches from all the cleaning I did. But it ended perfectly with adinner at a small Italian place, another town over. We ate pasta, and Smoke ate more garlic bread than I thought a human could consume.

The gut-curdling yell from Smoke’s bedroom makes me jump, and I stumble when I try to stand.

Smoke shouts again. “No. Not there…not.”

Is someone in the house? My heart hammers against my chest. I can’t do this again, but I know I must get to Smoke if we’re going to survive whatever this is. I reach for my phone, but remember I put it down on the bench in the hallway when we got home while I took my shoes off.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I look around the room for anything I can use as a weapon, but there is nothing helpful. An LED lamp, some paperback books.

Smoke’s room drops silent again.

I nudge the door to the hallway open and see Smoke’s door is still closed. My palms sweat as I listen. The only sound is the whooshing of my own heartbeat in my ears.

Then, Smoke talks again, but this time, the words are incoherent, and something tells me I’m safe.

There’s no one in the house except me, Smoke and his ghosts.

I tiptoe down the hallway and nudge his door open to find Smoke moving violently beneath the covers.

It’s as though he’s trying to dig his heels into the mattress.

Trying to escape whatever imaginary foe he’s fighting.

Relieved it isn’t an intruder but scared for the man I’m coming to care for, I run to him. The advice of what to do with a person who is having a nightmare blurs in my head. Are you meant to wake them, or let them sleep through it? Is it like when someone passes out, you have to stop them from swallowing their tongue?

The next cry from him sounds like a wild animal in pain, and suddenly, I don’t care what all the advice says, because this must be hurting him.

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