Page 33 of Brick Wall

Annie

A nnie: How did your dr appointment go?

I’m trying not to be an overbearing girlfriend here, but what I witnessed the other night freaked me out.

I don’t feel like I was overreacting at all. I was sleeping beside Sebastian and heard him gasping for air. I’m not a light sleeper, but his gasping woke me up.

Sebastian was able to talk to the team doctor the next day and received a referral and doctor appointment for first thing this morning.

After a few minutes, he texts me back.

Sebastian: Just got back Sebastian: Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Annie: I’m sorry. I can’t tonight, but can I come over after I’m done with work? Sebastian: Sur e

I finish work as quickly as humanly possible, a little after nine thirty, and make the drive over to Sebastian’s place.

He has me a little worried because it didn’t escape my notice that Sebastian didn’t directly answer my question from earlier.

“Hey!” I say as he opens the door to his place.

“Hey yourself,” he says, capturing me in a giant hug.

I may be biased, but my boyfriend gives the best hugs. I’m pretty sure his hugs could turn my entire day around, maybe even month. They are that amazing.

I throw my giant tote bag in the corner of his entryway and take off my shoes to make myself at home.

“How’s your day been?” I say, hinting at the subject I want to talk about.

“Oh good,” he replies.

“How did it go earlier—at the doctor?” I guess I’m bringing it up after all.

“Oh, good.” He waves one hand over his face.

“Good,” I reply, not trying to be too annoying.

There’s a moment of silence, and then he adds, “They gave me this contraption thing.” He points to his kitchen table, where a new, small black case sits.

I just raise my eyebrows for him to explain more.

“I need to use it tonight while I’m sleeping to monitor and measure my breathing.”

“Okay.”

“I should probably look at this stuff before I get too tired to figure it out properly.”

“I’ll help.”

We go over to the table, unzip the device from the black fabric container it was in, and read the directions.

“I went over everything today with a tech, but seeing and doing are sometimes two different things,” Sebastian admits.

Sebastian figures his sleep will be harder tonight with the addition of the machine, which is probably the correct conclusion. I’m not too sure I’d sleep great either with a monitoring device on me.

“I’m going to finish setting up and then head to bed early,” he explains. “Uh…” he starts as I notice the blush in his cheeks. “You don’t have to stay tonight if you don’t want to. I know I will probably be annoying sleeping with this thing and will likely look weird, so we can say good night now.”

“I’d love to stay if you are okay with that.”

“I’m very okay with that.” He leans down to kiss me on the lips.

A few minutes later, I am lying in bed with a man who looks like an elephant—a very cute elephant, though.

He’s grumbling over on his side of the bed, and I fall asleep with a smile plastered to my face.