Philia | h.s

twenty-one

This is part 1 of a double update !!

Harry

December 23rd

I slowly wake up, the sun's rays grazing my face and lulling me back to sleep. I resist the urge to open my eyes and instead enjoy this moment of calm before the whole house wakes up: the sun rising, the birds singing and my arms around the only person I've been dreaming about for years.

But my sleeping state comes to an end faster than I would have liked when my father's duties take over and checking on Mio becomes my priority. This is the first time he has slept in an unfamiliar environment for him, especially in a bed that is not his own, which increases my worries that he has woken up during the night and I have not heard anything.

I quickly put on a T-shirt and leave the room as quietly as possible so as not to wake Mabel and enter Mio's room. I repeat the same operation and try to be as discreet as possible in case he is still sleeping. But I am quickly proven wrong when I approach the bed and his eyes are wide open but show no signs of fear or tears as I feared.

"Good morning, baby" I sit on the edge of the bed and pull up the hair that has fallen over his forehead, "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes," he replies, fighting a yawn

"No bad dream?" I ask to ease my mind and he does exactly that when he shakes his tiny head letting me know he didn't have nightmares.

I'm always afraid, in the morning, to know what night he spent. If he slept well or if he stayed awake because of nightmares. I don't know when he started having them but I always remember the nights when I heard him moaning uncomfortably and tossing and turning around in his bed.

This feeling of incapacity and seeing him in this state without me being able to do anything about it made me question any ability to be the father of this little boy. I couldn't take the pain away even how much I wanted to and when he started to talk and to understand the world around him, he couldn't even explain to me what was happening.

I tried to guess as best as I could but he didn't know. Eventually, I stopped trying and instead I started to focus on comforting him and reassuring him. Even if I was dying to know what was disturbing his sleep, I quickly understood that my presence was helping him more than I thought.

I spent hours reading about nightmares and how I could help him. I did everything they said and some of them worked while some made things worse and I felt even more guilty when that happened.

But I realised, not a long time ago, that they became less frequent from the moment Mabel became a constant in our lives, which is strange because it's been a short time but at the same time it makes sense because of how close he is to her and how comfortable he feels with her.

This realisation scared me at the time because it means a lot to Mio and I don't know where Mabel really stands with the idea of being a mother figure to him. Of course, he had my mother before, but he never reacted that quickly. The same goes for Ana even though he's known her since he was a baby.

That bond was formed when they saw each other and only between them. But I'm afraid, I'm afraid it has to do with what he told me when he saw Mabel crying for the first time, thinking it had something to do with him and that he needs to make things right with her.

It's scary how well his brain is developed for such a young age.

It's also when I regretted telling him about his mother. It's a conversation I couldn't avoid, especially when he's surrounded by children with two parents and I'm alone with him, but maybe I should have waited or given him a better explanation.