her. -- an original short story

she dreamed.

she told him about a lot of these dreams. how weird they could get, from crazy apocalyptic scenarios with teddy bears to the real night terrors. she had bad nightmares, he knew that. she was afraid of everything, sure, but the stuff that she talked about from her nighttime made him realize why she never slept.

demons that would hang on her ceiling and stare at her, force her to keep from blinking until her eyes burned and she was left sobbing. until she woke up and realized that it was okay, that she'd be okay.

then she'd wipe her eyes, smile, and say that it was okay, that she'd be okay. she said that everything would be fine past the dark bags under her eyes and the way that her limbs sagged under the heavy weight of exhaustion. and he believed her, because then she listened to him.

when he talked about this, they called him selfish. they came to him after it all and said that he had no right to talk about her struggles, struggles that she confided into him. struggles that he admitted he heard, that he acknowledged and he saw what they were doing to her, struggles that he didn't do anything to help her with. they told him that he had no right to call himself her friend after leaving her to suffer through something he saw was affecting her, that he had no right to stand up in front of them all and tell them about how their beloved was ruined by something that he could've helped.

he was right, but she had dreamed about that too.

about how they were surrounded by people, and yet he held her and told her that everything would be okay, something that she did so many times for him.

if only he'd told her that, and if only he'd been there.

then she'd be dreaming more.