Read to Me

Chapter 14- Nightmares

I was still staring at him. He had been in my house for over an hour, and still I could not stop myself from staring at the green-eyed boy in front of me. I think it was starting to annoy him. Every time I stared at him, he stared right back at me, his glowing green eyes going wide, which made me look at anything but him, and he made my cheeks blush bright red.

‘Why do you keep staring at me?’ Caleb finally asked.

Because you’re beautiful. But I didn’t dare say it out loud. So I simply muttered ‘ sorry.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question, Tate.’ He stated, looking at me in the eyes. God his eyes were beautiful. I blinked several times to stop myself from continuing to stare at him. Then I remembered that he had asked me a question, and that it would probably look pretty stupid if I didn’t at least try to answer it.

‘Umm… I-I… well…’ I stuttered.

‘Yes?’ he looked at me expectantly.

‘It’s just weird to see you… I, um, didn’t expect you to be so…so… beautiful.’ My voice got so soft by the end of the sentence, I wasn’t sure that he even heard the last part until I saw his cheeks go slightly pink. I turned my face away from him, choosing to look at the carpet, my toes curling in its soft material.

‘You really think I’m beautiful?’ he asked.

I nodded, still not looking at his face, my eyes trained on the pale brown carpet below us.

‘When I first saw you, I thought that you where the most gorgeous person I’d even seen in my entire life.’ My head turned to face him so far I was surprised something didn’t snap. My eyes went wide looking at him, looking for any signs that he might be lying, but I couldn’t find any. His hand hesitantly reached out and held mine; I squeezed his back as a sign that I would not be letting him go for as long as I could help it.  We stayed like this for a long time, but I still felt drowsy so we agreed to have a nap. He made himself comfortable in my bed, as if he belonged there all along, and then gestured for me to come and join him there. I fell into his arms and they easily wrapped around me, I had not felt this content in a long, long time.  After a while of him playing with my hair, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

I woke up because I was screaming in my sleep. My blankets suddenly felt too tight; the silence in the room seemed too loud. The walls around me seemed too small and I was shaking with the power of a thousand earthquakes, my heartbeat seemed so incredible loud, it was overpowering my eardrums, it seemed as if my heart was in my head and not in my chest, where it belonged. My throat felt so dry, I didn’t think that I could possibly talk, let alone scream. My eyes began watering; I curled my body into itself, making it as small as possible. I kept shaking and shaking, every time this happened it felt as though it would never end. Honestly it felt as though I was dying.

I felt arms come and wrap themselves around me and I jumped in surprise. ‘Hey, hey… it’s okay Tate it’s just me, Caleb.’ I relaxed slightly after I knew who it was, but my body was still trembling, my heart was still beating rapidly, tears were still falling down my face; I still felt like I was dying.

‘What’s going on, Tate, can you tell me please? I want to help you.’ He rubbed my back in slow circles.

‘I-I… I’m having a… panic attack.’ I said between shaky breaths.

Even with him here I knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it, you can’t just stop a panic attack from happening, you just have to wait it out. Even if that sometimes meant waiting for over an hour. I could never tell how long they lasted, some lasted much longer than others, some more intense. Even after the actual attack finished, I would still be trembling for half an hour until I returned completely back to normal.

Caleb continued to rub my back in soothing circles, he held me, but not too tight that I felt claustrophobic.

‘It’s going to be okay Tate… you can get through this. You’ll be fine.’ He kept whispering these in my ears until the attack started to subside. He wiped the tears off my face with his thumb and he cupped my face in his hands.

‘Just keeping breathing okay Tate?’ I nodded.

I closed my eyes and breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth, something that Caleb told me to do. I kept breathing, in and out, in and out. Slowly I felt my heart return to normal, and the shaking was not as violent as it was before. The room started to feel comfortable to be in again and I blinked a couple of times before opening my eyes again to see Caleb in front of me, looking slightly worried.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked. No.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I replied.

‘No you’re not.’ He said. ‘What triggered it?’ his voice was still soft.

I searched my brain; I couldn’t remember what happened after I fell asleep in Caleb’s arms. Lately many of my dreams had me waking up in absolute terror, but hardly any of them I could actually remember why. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I looked at Caleb and into his wonderful green orbs; they had specks of amber in them.

‘I… I think it was a bad dream…’ I mumbled. ‘But. But I don’t remember what it was about.’

‘Does this happen often?’

‘I’ve been having a fair bit of nightmares recently, I don’t remember what most of them are about, but they haven’t sent me into a panic attack before.’ I cleared my throat; it didn’t feel as dry as it was before. It no longer felt as though it was closing in on itself.

‘Maybe I’m like the opposite of a dream catcher.’ He said, his voice sounded disappointed. Not in me, but in himself.

‘No.’ I said, almost too quickly. ‘This is the first time in weeks that I haven’t woken up at least four times in the night.’

‘You really haven’t been sleeping well have you?’ he said, and as he did, he stroked the side of my face, caressing my cheek.

‘Can we try this again? I’ll try harder not to have any more nightmares.’ My voice hopeful.

‘Of course.’ He brought me back under the covers of the bed and held me tightly against him, my face inches from his. ‘And if you have any more nightmares, wake me up, okay? Doesn’t matter what time. I’ll always be here for you.’

‘Okay.’ 

Hey guys! Sorry for the long wait. I got a new laptop for Solstice, so hopefully I'll be updating more often, yay! Did you like the chapter? 

I based off the symptoms of the panic attack from what happens when i have them, i would like to mention that it is different for everyone, they are not all like this, but basically, it feels like you're dying. it drains you physically and mentally. i would also like to add that i tried to make it as real as possible, because i do not believe that they should be romanitcized. they are not cute, or pretty, they are really shitty. 

so that's my rant over. hope you all liked the fluff.

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