I'll be here forever

chapter 26

I woke up wrapped in the space blanket from our backpack, the steady hum of the car under me. I turned to the side to see Percy driving tirelessly onward, the radio providing a soft murmur of sound.

My cheeks flushed red when I realized I must've fallen asleep on him, and he'd carried me to the car.

Fuck.

He glanced sideways to check up on me, and then realized I was awake.

"No nightmares?" Percy asked hopefully. 

"No nightmares," I agreed. He let out the breath he'd been holding and nodded in relief.

Percy kept driving, and a million questions raced through my mind. Questions that only dared to surface now that the horrors of what we'd experienced were back in the farthest reaches of my mind, placed there to keep me from dwelling on them for too long.

"Can I ask about, um, the ones you've had?" I asked nervously. I prepared myself for a quick rejection.

Percy stayed silent and his grip on the wheel tightened slightly, hardly noticeable, but I saw it anyways.

"You don't have to-"

"What do you want to know?" he replied quietly. I almost didn't hear him over the low sound of the radio and the hum of the engine.

I blinked in surprise. I hadn't expected him to agree to answer.

"I- oh. Well, uh, what was your first one?"

"...next question."

"Okay, um... are they different every time? Like, do some come back?"

"Yeah."

"Which ones?"

"Lots of them," Percy swerved to avoid some monster in the middle of the road, like it was nothing, "They're all awful." I didn't even get a good enough look at the monster to tell what it was. It was a common occurrence, so I ignored it.

"Can you... tell me about one?"

He hesitated. The car fell into a deafening silence. His words rang in my ears and bounced around in my brain like a pinball machine.

"Um... yeah, I'll- I'll try," Percy replied quietly, and my heart beat quickly with anticipation, and fear.

"They're... it's a little hard to explain," he said. His voice was low, quiet. I didn't like it. Usually he was loud, a hint of a smile on his face, that troublemaker smile that would make any teacher nervous, that smile that made my heart jump out of my chest. But now he looked serious, his eyebrows furrowed, a little too concentrated on the wide road in front of us.

Part of me wanted to know about what other things he'd seen, because I was worried about him. Part of me wanted to know because I wanted to be prepared for them myself. Part of me wanted to reject this idea all together and jump out the window.

"Um... usually- usually I'm in this, this invisible box, thing," he started, "just watching. But not for this one. This one, I'm me. I'm there. But I can't... I can't, control anything. It's like I'm just along for the ride."

"It's, uh... we're falling. You and me. It's dark, and we're falling," he paused, "that's all it is, really. We're just falling. But the uncertainty... that's the scary thing, not knowing where we're going, or why. And we just fall, and it feels like we're falling forever."

"And then you-" Percy stopped, shaking his head. I got the sense there was something he wasn't telling me, especially when started tapping on the steering wheel anxiously.

"It's just falling. Over, and over, and over. But I don't think it's... it's actually not just falling, I guess. We're being pulled down, by something. And I don't know if one of these times it's going to let us hit the bottom or not. But I- I don't know. I think that the bottom's worse than the falling."

The car was silent.

"I hope it was a one time thing for you," he said quietly.

All at once, I was frustrated. How was it fair that he had to deal with these nightmares weeks before I had a single one? Why couldn't I have been there for him?

"I don't," I replied fiercely.

"What- what do you mean?"

"I don't want it to be a one time thing. I want to be with you, whether you're having these... these nightmares, or not. You're all I have, Percy. I don't want you to have to go through anything alone."

Percy chewed on his lower lip, and I drowned in the silence.

"You don't understand... some of the things you see, it- it changes how you see everything," he replied quietly.

"That's exactly why I don't want you going through it alone."

Again, it was silent. The pauses were killing me. Too many what if's and maybes liked to run wild in my brain.

"Thank you," he said, hardly loud enough for me to hear.

And from then on, we went to bed at the same times. Always. Either both of us would sleep, or neither of us would. We'd stop the car and take out the tent, lying close to each other, but at the same time, too far. We'd lie there and make up stories about what we might've been, who we might've been, dreaming about what we used to be, just to try and lull us to sleep.

Our roles seemed to reverse. Percy had a lot less trouble falling asleep, and it then was my turn to stay up all night. My thoughts kept me up, whirling around my brain and jabbing in all the right places. I always slept fitfully, if at all. Percy was a huge comfort, but there was only so much he could do.. I struggled, and I know he could tell, but he didn't say anything, for which I was grateful.