"There's a word I found recently. Evanescence. It made me think of you. It made me think of us. Were we just a dream, Sebastian?"
TW : Key themes of suicide and trauma.
WARNING: This is Book Two. Please read "affluenza" first to avoid any spoilers...
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"THIS IS RIDICULOUS," I mumble, turning over to my side to look at Roman. We'd been laying on the floor for at least ten minutes after Roman had loaned me some clothes to sleep in. "You're actually going to sleep on the floor of your own house? Get in bed, Rome."
He turns to face me, white sheets piled up around his hips. "You coming with?" he asks, not even bothering to hide the hopeful lift in his tone.
I make a face at him. "No," I seethe.
He yawns audibly, stretching out his arms. "Then I'm fine here," Roman responds. He shuts his eyes and slows his breathing again. "'Course if you want to take the bed by yourself..."
"Not with you sleeping on the floor," I argue. I knew I was being positively difficult about this, but why couldn't he just agree with me?
"You don't want to sleep on the couch, you don't want to sleep on the floor, and you don't want to sleep on the bed," Roman lists tiredly. "Did you want to check to see if the laundry room was open, or?"
"If you don't shut your mouth, I just might," I groan, shifting into a more comfortable position.
The room is silent for a few moments. I sigh softly, knowing that I won't get any sleep with his body less than three feet away from me like this. I peek open my eyes just a bit and look at him, the slope of his nose down to his lips, the way his chest rises and falls with every breath. I'm still staring at him when his lips begin moving. "My mom passed when I was fifteen," he murmurs, voice quiet.
I suck in a breath, worried that if I even breathe too hard he won't continue talking. But he does. "She was in a really bad accident; someone hit her and she didn't even see them coming. I only wasn't in the car with her that night because I was going to go to some stupid school party. I remember getting the call in the middle of some pop song. The call that she was gone. I don't think I've ever had a panic attack that bad."
"You'd had panic attacks before then?" I ask curiously.
"Yeah," he rasps. "Yeah. A few."
I nod in the darkness, even though he can't see me. "I get nightmares," I admit. "Like, body immobilizing, vomiting at three a.m. nightmares. They have different periods: sometimes they're really bad and other times I don't get them at all. Right now, it's bad again. But I've had 'em since I was a kid. The first time it happened, Oba was so worried that she'd taken me to the ER. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, because there wasn't. My body wasn't sick. It was my mind."
"Funny how that works, yeah?" Roman muses. "I could be completely safe and all right and my mind will just...force me to believe otherwise. You're just constantly on edge. It's like never really being able to take a deep breath. You're still breathing, but just barely."
