The Marrying Man

Chapter 10

The rest of the weekend didn't go as I would have expected, though perhaps I should have.

I'm not a heavy sleeper, I haven't been since I lost Maria, too many nightmares kept interrupting my sleep and even with sleep aids I'd wake up a lot. But even if I was sleeping like the dead, I would have heard Avery screaming in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I rushed over to her room, only to find her sitting up in bed, choking back sobs as tears poured down her face. I felt horrible, it had obviously been a bad nightmare and I just wished I had heard it earlier.

"Avery, what happened?" I quickly sat next to her on the bed, pulling her into my arms and squeezing her tight. I rubbed circles into her back, hoping to help her through whatever nightmare had affected her so much. It took a few minutes, but she was finally able to calm down, and her breathing slowed. As I sat there, I realized her room smelled of vanilla, and it soothed me immediately, I'd always loved that scent.

"Nightmare, sorry!" she gasped out. "I was back in the crash, my brother, he was... he was talking to me but..." she broke down sobbing again, clutching at my tee shirt.

"Hey, it's okay, it was just a dream. You're safe!"

"I've been having a lot of them the last few days, I'm so sorry I woke you up," she groaned miserably.

"Don't sweat it. That's what friends are for."

"Is that what we are? Friends?" she asked, trying to breath evenly with her head on my shoulder.

"Is that what you'd like us to be? If you took away the whole marriage thing, I certainly would like to think we're friends."

"Friends is good," she murmured.

I could feel the dampness of her tears through my shirt and pulled her even closer. "Have you been having a lot of bad dreams?"

"Yeah, pretty much every night I was with my grandparents, and then again last night. I just keep replaying the car crash over and over, but it keeps getting worse." Her breathing began to get erratic as she talked about it, and I went back to rubbing her back until she was able to calm it down again.

"Do you think you can get back to sleep?" I looked over at the clock on her nightstand, and realized it was only 1:30 AM, so I hope she could get some more rest.

"Maybe. I guess we'll find out." Her voice was shaky, and it wasn't hard to tell that she was worried about another nightmare.

"Hey, stupid question, want me to get a baby monitor so I can hear if you have a nightmare and come wake you up faster?" I mean, it would work, so maybe it wasn't as stupid as I had first thought.

She actually smiled at that. "That just might work. Are you sure you don't mind being woken up like that?"

"Nah, no problem. This week we'll see if we can find you a therapist too, they might be able to help too. We'll get you through this," I promised.

"Thank you, Thomas. I know this whole situation sucks, but you've made things a lot better." She squeezed me in a big hug, and I could feel her relaxing a little. Hopefully she'd get that sleep.

"You know you're welcome. Now get some sleep, you need it." We untangled our arms from the hug, and I slowly made my way back to my room.

I felt bad, I probably should have asked her if she needed to be held, but that seemed too intimate, and too forward. I had just told her nothing was going to happen between us, and I couldn't turn around and offer to sleep in her bed with her, could I? I already felt like a dirty old man, just having flashbacks of checking her out in the bikini. I lay back on my bed, arms behind my head on the pillow, just staring at the ceiling fan silently spinning above me. I wasn't a fan of confusion, and that was all I was surrounded by right now. There was very little in my life that didn't seem confusing.