Faces, Names, and Memories (completed)

Chapter 48 - Memories

I'm woken by the sound of a door sliding open. When I open my eyes, I see Cale trying to sneak into the room with a blanket clutched in his hand. He's frozen in place, staring at me with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression that's so uncharacteristic of him that I have to laugh myself to alertness.

"Cale?" I chuckle. "What are you doing?"

"Waking you up, apparently," Cale replies sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

"It's no problem. I probably would've woken up regardless," I answer. Despite the abnormal circumstances of the day, this night has gone the way it normally does, filled with terrible memories that aren't mine and confusing memories that I assume are. "What are you doing in here?"

"I was going to sleep in the chair. I've never been good at being in a room by myself," Cale answers.

The last time he slept in a room by himself was probably that melancholy week between Stave's passing and my arriving. The only breaks he had from that room were during meal days, group confinement (when it was in someone else's room), and physical examination.

I can imagine what it would be like to be alone in the place where he watched his best friend die only days earlier, where he'd relive that moment every time he looked at that particular spot on the ground, where he could still see and hear the guard beating the life out of his friend, where every waking moment would be spent staring at the all-of-sudden vacant other half of the room. It would be like me having to spend hours and hours, day after day, locked in that end of the hallway right in front of the exit, where Tressa's heart had beat for the last time. I would see her dead on the ground every time I looked in that direction, me spasming a few feet away fighting the same electricity that caused her untimely end, and her staying limp as a rag doll, impervious to Dr. McAvery's efforts to revive her.

Now I don't even want to be in this room alone, however far away we may be from that prison. I can definitely understand why Cale doesn't want to be by himself either.

I clear my throat. "Yeah, I get why."

"You don't mind, do you? I'll just curl up on this chair," Cale says.

"Please do," I say.

He lays out the blanket on the chair, sitting down in it and folding half of it over him.

"Are you the only one up?" I ask, finding it unlikely.

"No, Spenzo and Deen are watching soccer. And, Kinnie and Tammie are behind their bedroom door whispering about something or other. I guess no one is really in the mood for sleeping," Cale answers.

"Yeah, I'm surprised I slept even a little," I say with a light laugh, knowing full well that the only reason I fell asleep is because I cried to the point of exhaustion.

"Me too, you normally don't fall asleep until after I do."

"You've noticed that?"

"Yeah, you take forceful deep breaths to calm yourself down before you go to sleep," Cale says. "It's actually your breathing that puts me to sleep every night."

"I don't know if I should be flattered or creeped out," I say, sending him a strange look. "I didn't even know I did that."

"Did you know that you always wait for me to fall asleep before you let yourself sleep?"

"How did you know I did that?"

"I didn't. I just had a feeling."

He caught me. I did usually wait for him to fall asleep first. I guess it's been my way of looking out for him since he had that nightmare, and protecting myself from having to explain why I'm such an unsteady sleeper. "You're right. I think I did that in the cave and the prison, too."