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I wake, drenched with sweat, shaking and nauseous. I can’t move. I can barely breathe.
I need Mia. She’s always been good at calming me down. I call her, not caring that it’s four in the morning. It goes to voicemail. When I text her, I see she’s set her notifications to silent. I try again and again, hoping that my sheer determination will have her waking up and checking her phone.
My heart races. Then stops. Then races again. I feel like I’m going to pass out. I’m having a full-on panic attack, and I don’t know how to stop it.
Without even realizing what I’m doing, I tap Asher’s name. The phone rings. He answers on the third ring. “Allie?”
“I…I…” I break down in sobs. “C-can’t breathe.”
“Allie. What’s wrong? Do you need an ambulance?”
“N-no. I… just… c-can’t… breathe. Dream. I… Ash…”
“Okay, okay. You had a bad dream?”
I can’t respond. Because it’s now when the true reality hits—I’m on the phone with Asher. I never call Asher.Ever. And it’s four o’clock in the morning and I’m calling him in a frenzy.
“Listen to my voice, Al. Whatever it was, it was just a nightmare. You’re okay. Do you hear me? Breathe. Just breathein and breathe out. Do it with me. Come on, let me hear you. Breathe.”
His voice is soothing. He just keeps talking, and eventually the calm, quiet cadence of his words slows my racing heart. Soon I stop shaking altogether. I actually grow sleepy again. I imagine this is how he talks to Bug when she wakes up from a nightmare. Or after she has a bad day. Or if she gets hurt riding her bike or dumped by a boy. He’s a good father. A good man. I should tell him. Now’s my chance to get it all out there.
But I don’t. I can’t. How can I tell him that tomorrow I’m going in to the doctor’s office to find out what’s wrong with our child—the child he doesn’t even know about.
“Allie, are you still there?”
“I’m here,” I say quietly.
“Must have been one hell of a nightmare.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay now?”
“I don’t know. I guess. I mean, I will be.” Suddenly, I’m crying again. I’m sniffing and snotting and sobbing because I know Iwon’tbe okay. Nothing will ever be okay again.
“Allie. Seriously, what’s wrong? I can hear you crying.”
“It’s n-nothing. I’m gonna go now. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“Al—”
I hang up the phone before he has a chance to talk me into telling him what’s wrong. Because a part of me wants to. Because he’s not my ex and he would never abandon me like Jason did. Because he deserves to know. And because I’m a terrible person for not telling him.
But I have to know. I have to know before I go ruining his life.
I can’t ruin his life. I refuse to. I love him too much to do that.
Oh my god. I love him.
I press my head into my wet pillow and cry at the revelation.
Then for the next ten minutes, I stare at my phone. Mysilentphone. The phone that hasn’t received a single text or call from him since I hung up on him. So I cry even more, because now I know I finally did it. I pushed him far enough away that he doesn’t care. Time and distance have made him lose feelings for me while all it’s done to me is the opposite.
I love him.
And he’s gone.
Dawn starts breaking. My sleep shirt is soaked with sweat. I take it off and pull on the first thing I can find—the yoga pants and sports bra I left by the side of the bed. I scoot to the other side of the mattress where the pillow is dry. Pulling it to me, I fall back to sleep as Asher’s soothing words play through my mind, fearing the only place I’ll ever hear them again is in my dreams.