My Roommate

Chapter 21

~~~

Evan's  POV—

With a small yawn, I open my eyes, adjusting to the still dark room. Outside, the rain has died down a bit, only raining and thundering. No lightning, at least from what I can tell right now. It was doing it a lot earlier.

Very gently, I pull my arm away from Ashley's waist, trying not to wake her up. Once I get my arm away from her, I try to reach into my pants pocket to pull out my phone, again, without wanting to wake her up.

Her even and deep breathing lets me know that she's still asleep, holding onto my sweatshirt with a firm grip. From what my phone says, we've been asleep for at least a couple of hours. I didn't even realize I fell asleep until just now, when I woke up.

If that makes sense.

But at least Ashley's getting some rest.

I can only bite my lower lip as I think back to when I found her sitting on the stairs. I didn't know what else to do besides carry her up the stairs and into our room. As best as I could, that is. She was shaking, horribly shaking and kicking, which made it really difficult to hold onto her while going up the stairs and not drop her. That would've made things worse.

Then, not to mention the fact that she was screaming. If you could even call it that. The kind of screaming where you're crying really hard, and you're confused, and just...

Lost...

Hyperventilating was more like it.

I hated seeing her like that.

Scared me too.

It was like she couldn't even hear me when I first tried to reach out to her. She just kept rocking back and forth, trembling. It worsened when the thunder would shake the house or when lightning flashed across the sky.

I knew that Ashley had a lot of anxiety and such because of that accident but I wasn't aware of just how much of it hung over her.

Now I know.

I wanted to help her so she could move on from it. She wants to move on from it, I know she does. She told me she wants to move on from it. But, clearly, saying she wants to move on and actually moving on are two separate things. The latter being easier said than done.

She was just...

Lost.

Lost too deep in the memories, or really just somewhere where I couldn't reach her. I had to keep calling her name, repeatedly, once we got up stairs and I got her sitting on her bed. I was close to crying myself just from seeing her so lost in it and when she finally opened her eyes, all I wanted to do was just hold her. Hold her until she calmed down.

But I didn't. Part of me didn't want to overstep. Just in case she was still lost and any further form of contact and such would freak her out even more.

Relief flooded through me when she said my name. All I could do was just smile at her, knowing that she was out of it. And then lightning struck again and I was so scared I lost her again.

And now, here we are.

Ashley's sound asleep, clinging onto me. I'm keeping her close as well, draping my arm around her waist.

I know it's not really the right time to be thinking like this, but the moment she asked me to stay with her, those butterflies returned. I was originally planning on just staying in the room just to make sure she was fine and didn't go into another episode. But then she repeated her request, more like...well, almost like begging me to stay with her.