Out of My League

Chapter 16 (Noah)

It's a little crazy how things work, how an evening that seemed to be going downhill ended up being one of the best of my life. 

Now, she's asleep a few rooms down, probably dreaming of baseball and pizza, what I assume to be her two favorite things. 

I'd told a teeny, tiny fib when I said that Los Angeles isn't the safest city at night. 

I mean, it isn't the safest city by any means, but I was going to drive her to the hotel and watch her walk the distance from my car to the front door. 

I wasn't going to leave her by herself for a single second, so safety wasn't the primary issue. 

The real reason I wanted her to stay wasn't because of safety problems, though the safest place for her is definitely here where I have a security system that sends a notification to my cell phone anytime someone enters the front door, but because I wasn't ready for our date night to be over yet. 

I'm enjoying spending time with my now-girlfriend. 

You'd have to be crazy not to. 

After finishing up my nightly Bible study and prayer time, barely hanging onto consciousness, I place my Bible back on my nightstand and turn off my lamp, allowing the sweet caress of sleep to pull me under. 

Sometime in the middle of the night, no more than three or so hours after I'd fallen asleep, I'm awoken by yelling. 

Groggily, wondering if I dreamt the odd sound, I snap my lamp on, squinting against the bright light now pouring into the room, to reach for my phone. 

It'd been charging, but in the past hours, hadn't gotten very far. 

The clock on my screen, located just above a picture I took of Vivi eating her ice cream yesterday, alerts me to the fact that it's four o'clock in the morning. 

A quick check of the security app on my phone tells me that nobody has entered my home, so at least I don't have to worry about that being the weird noise. 

For just a moment, the yelling stops, but after a split second of silence, it starts up again. 

And this time, unlike before, I can make out what the words are. 

"Stop, stop, stop. It hurts." 

Tearing through my room in the dark, I throw my door open and race blindly through the house until I reach her door, throwing it open, worry eating away at my stomach. 

There's nobody in her room that snuck past the security system, thank goodness, but she's still in obvious distress, stuck deep inside of a nightmare that she can't escape from. 

"Bella, hey," I reach to turn the lights on before realizing that doing so might make the transition into real life even harder and reaching for her instead, "It's a nightmare. You're okay." 

"It hurts," she sobs, tears rushing out of her eyes and down her cheeks. 

"I know it hurts," I say and, in that moment, I can't help but to fear, to know, unfortunately, that this nightmare contains her mom, "Wake up for me, okay, sweetheart?" 

She doesn't, at first, but after a moment of my hands holding onto hers, her eyes jerk open. 

She's breathing heavy, like she'd just gotten finished running a mile, and her cheeks are damp with tears. 

"Oh, God," she buries her face in the sleeves of the shirt she borrowed, sobbing a little bit more before looking up to meet my eyes. 

"I'm sorry," she says, softly, and, as further proof of that, a single tear breaks away and rolls down her face.