Premature Metamorphosis

Chapter 4

As it turned out, letting Hunter sleep in their bed became less of a one-time occurrence and more of an every-time occurrence.

Knowing that there was now an option to not sleep in his own bed, he was avoiding it like the plague and anytime either parent tried to put him back in his own bed, they'd just find him curled up in the little space underneath it by the morning.

In the end, they had come to the decision that they'd rather give in and let him get a good night's sleep rather than have him sleep on the cold floor, probably causing all sorts of problems for his back or whichever other aches and pains came with sleeping on the floor which would only come to haunt him with age.

They'd tried to question him about it, asking what was so wrong with his own bed? Why he was so set on sleeping anywhere else? Even offering that one of them sleep in his bed with him in an attempt to slowly wean him back into a normal routine but each time, he'd just work himself into tears and they'd have to let it go before he made himself sick with the force of his sobs.

This sort of behaviour was just so unlike him! Evelyn wouldn't have been too surprised if she'd seen another child behaving in this way, it was a decently common behaviour for children actually, but not for her son. Her son loved being independent, he loved having his own little space to hide away in with his books and his bird plushies. He liked being in control, able to organise his room just the way he wanted, and he loved feeling mature, able to sleep in his own proper bed instead of a cot or a toddler bed like he used to have.

His sudden anxiousness about sleeping in his own bed just didn't make any sense.

And he wouldn't tell them either, not even a hint. Maybe it was just typical childlike disobedience, sure, but it really didn't seem like that was the case. When they questioned him, he didn't smile or giggle like he was enjoying keeping a secret and knowing something that they didn't, he just got upset.

The closest thing to a coherent answer (and you'd be generous calling it that) that they'd gotten out of him was that he was 'scared'.

Scared of what? Neither of them knew because he'd refused to elaborate any further, shutting down and hiding his face behind Flapjack like a shield until they'd dropped it.

One night, they'd tried allowing him to lay in their bed, waiting until he'd fallen asleep, then had carried him back to his own room to see if that would help but the next morning, they'd just found him sleeping outside their door again.

The bedwetting hadn't stopped either. Evelyn had been woken up a fair few times over the past few weeks to stumble about, changing sheets and finding clean pyjamas. He seemed positively mortified by the whole thing so neither she nor Caleb had pushed that topic very far.

In general, she'd noticed him acting a lot more childish than usual, clinging to her side for most of the day, carrying Flapjack around with him wherever he went, and she'd even noticed him sucking his thumb on occasion, though he tried to hide it.

She'd tried to do a bit of research on the internet, scouring forms and reading articles but all the results that came up only spoke of babies and toddlers who'd regressed a stage in development due to stress or change, not six-year-olds suddenly sicking thumbs or wetting the bed where they hadn't before.

The closest she could find to what could possibly be an answer was stories of autistic children regressing in behaviour because of routines being broken and changed, and well, she did suppose that staying over at someone else's house for the first time for a whole week without parents was a pretty big change and Hunter had always been very specific about his routines so maybe that could explain it?