When We Were Young

XXX: sweet little lies

As I walk into the hall, I feel a little bit nauseous, but I push the feeling down. I put my head against Tatum's door and hear silence. She's always been the deeper sleeper of us two, so I'm not surprised that she's unbothered by this annoying noise.

Moving to Gray's door, it is obvious that he is the one thrashing. I can also hear quiet grunts and heavy breathing.

Knocking, I whisper, "Gray? What's going on?"

No response. The thrashing continues.

I knock again. "Gray, are you okay?"

Sill nothing. I try one last time, louder. "Grayson! What the heck is going on?"

He still does not respond to me, yet the thrashing never ceases. I decide to just open the door and take my chances.

As soon as I fling open the door, I see him, shirtless in a mess of sheets. Just as I had imagined, he is moving around violently and trembling. What I didn't realize was that his eyes are shut.

He's having a nightmare.

I perch myself on his bed and try to shake his shoulders to get him to wake up. It doesn't seem to work and his movement gets wilder.

"Grayson!" I exclaim loudly, trying to wake him.

That seems to snap him out of it as his eyes shoot open and his body freezes.

Momentarily, he's confused, thinking that he is still in his dream. Then, he sees me and realizes that it was all fake.

"You were having a bad dream." I take my hands off his shoulders as he begins to relax, still breathing heavily. I also notice tine sweat droplets on his forehead and on his chest.

He doesn't say anything, just runs his hands through his hair, trying to calm down his erratic breathing. I look at him with concern, wondering what kind of dream got him so riled up.

"Thanks for waking me," he finally tells me, emotionlessly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I move closer to him.

"You should go."

Frowning, I don't give up so easily. "That was quite some nightmare, Gray. You looked like you were going to break down, you even have cold sweats. I'm here for you, you don't have to be afraid to talk about it with me."

"No, it's fine," he responds sharply. "I know how to deal with this."

This makes me even more concerned. "This has happened before?"

How the hell did I sleep through that?

"Will you please stop questioning me and just go to sleep, Maverick?" His tone is pleading and his eyes are sharp. He clearly doesn't want to talk about it.

I push myself off the bed, moving towards the door. Before exiting, I turn one more time. "Gray, honestly, we all get nightmares, you don't--"

"Maverick, please!" I can hear that he's on the verge of tears and he didn't want me to be there when he started crying. The thought of him sobbing is more than my heart can handle, especially the thought of him having to go through it alone when I've cried so many times into his shoulder. I desperately want to get back in and wrap my arms around him.

His haunted look prevents me from doing it. Instead, I close his door and walk back towards my room, hearing a small sob as I retreat to my bedroom.

---

A week after the first nightmare incident, I enter the kitchen after a night of fraughtful sleep.

There have been three additional nightmares where Gray has woken me up since the first one, including one last night. Each time that it happens, I wake Gray up and the same thing happens. At first, he's startled, then he shuts down. He hasn't cried again, but he has the same shaken expression every single time. And every single time, I try to get him to talk to me, but he refuses.

I am surprised to see Mickey at our kitchen table, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, looking very at home.

This is odd, I don't think he slept over last night? And there was no movie night, so there wouldn't have really been a reason for him to sleep over. All that happened last night was I got home from my tutorial and made myself dinner. Gray got home since he had to go to work yesterday and he avoided me, as he's been doing the past week and shut himself in his room. Tate came home while I was in the shower and I briefly spoke to her right before bed. What the heck is Mickey doing here?

He must notice my bewildered expression because he tries to explain himself. "Good morning, Mave. Just wanted to drop by to say hi, Tate let me in."

Drop by to say hi? This is the first time in almost two years that he's wanted to drop by to say hi. And we have these things called cell phones, he could've just called. This whole thing is awfully suspicious and he is a horrible liar.

"Then why are you dressed like that?" I bump my foot against the side of his legs. "And you never come to say hi, especially not this early in the morning."

He contemplates this for a moment before coolly letting me know, "I'm just having a lazy day today, sorry my outfit is not up to your par. Actually, I was hoping we could discuss Tate's birthday coming up next month?"

I let him get away with changing the topic because it's something I wanted to ask him about too. "Hm, about that, I think we should postpone it until after exams. I'm really not trying to do anything while studying for five exams."

"What? That's not fun. No one likes postponing their birthday, that's sad."

"Okay, then what do you suggest?" I challenge, sitting myself down next to him.

"I think we should have a surprise party."

I cringe at the idea. "That's like the opposite of what I suggested. That takes a lot of planning. And lying. She's going to see right through us."

He rolls his eyes. "Come on. You're her best friend, she'd do this for you."

In fact, she has before. I don't think Mickey knows this, but for my fourteenth birthday, Tate and Gray surprised me a week before. It wasn't much of a party, considering there were three people, but it was still a memorable time.

I sigh in defeat. "Fine, but there has to be alcohol."

"It wouldn't be Tate's birthday if we didn't." He laughs. "But, we can't do it on her actual birthday. It has to be the day before because firstly, it's very obvious if we were to do the day of. Also, she's going to be spending time with her family the three days of and after her birthday anyways."

"Wait, what?"

"On her birthday, she said that she's going with Luca, Lola, and her dad to Luca's cottage... she didn't tell you?"