I nodded and turned toward the bedroom, when I looked back I saw him moving around the room checking all of the windows, then the door lock, and putting something over each of the entries to the room. He saw me and smiled as I shot him a questioning look.
“It’s in case someone tries to break it,” he explained. “I’ll hear them and have time to counter the attack.”
“Attack?” I asked. “You’re expecting an attack?”
“Well, you know what I mean,” he said. Then dropped his voice and said, “I just want to keep you safe, Ava.”
I motioned toward the bedroom and with a suggestive grin said, “Then come snuggle up next to me and shield me.”
“Aye, aye!” he said as he returned the grin.
It wasn’t long before Brian climbed into bed next to me and held out his arms. I moved into them and rested my cheek on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart and feeling safe and warm wrapped in his strong arms. We were both asleep in minutes.
*****
I was pulled out of a sound sleep by the sound of moaning and crying.
At first I thought it was a dream, that I’d been pulled back into the nightmare of my relationship with Dominic and that the cries were mine and that I was fighting him off again, but soon I realized that it wasn’t me that was crying, it was Brian. I rolled over and found him restlessly tossing and turning as he called out in an unintelligible language. I reached over and shook him a little, but that seemed to increase the volume of his cries, and he was now thrashing on the far side of the king-sized bed; his feet and arms flailing as he began yelling. I still couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I knew better than to try and slide over and wake him up, so I called out, “Brian! Brian! It’s me, Ava! Wake up! You’re dreaming!”
He continued moaning and thrashing, and now it seemed to be getting worse. I yelled again and gently lobbed my pillow at him, hoping that the impact would somehow jar him out of the dream state he was in. Instead, he grabbed the pillow and began wrestling with it as if it were a person who was intent on doing him harm.
“Brian!” I called with urgency in my voice. “Brian, wake up! It’s just a dream!”
He thrashed harder now and began to yelled, “Get down, get down! No! No! Get down!” over and over again. I realized he was in the midst of a nightmare about something else, somewhere else, but I didn’t know how to bring him back to me. It wasn’t long before the yelling turned to screaming, and his frantic attempts to escape whatever horror he was reliving caused him to fall off the bed and hit the floor with a loud thud. The screaming stopped and I rushed to the other side of the bed to find Brian laying tangled in the sheets with a dazed look on his face.
“Ava?” he said in a small voice.
“Yes, Brian, I’m here,” I replied as I tentatively reached out to stroke his head. I wasn’t sure how awake he was and I didn’t want to startle him, so I waited for him to give me another signal.
“Ava? What…” he began before he looked up at me and then down at where he lay. He quickly sat up and pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them as he buried his face between his knees. Uncertain as to what he needed, I stroked his head softly and slowly as I felt him begin to shake.
“Brian?” I whispered. “I’m here. What do you need?”
He shook his head slowly as he continued to shake. It wasn’t long before he began to rock back and forth, as if he were trying to comfort himself. I heard the sound of sobs being choked back as he focused on breathing deeply and rocking. I left my hand on his head and waited silently.
It took many, many minutes before he was calm enough to look up at me, but when he did, my heart broke. His face was contorted by pain and fear, and the only thing I could do was drop to my knees next to him and pull his head to my chest and hold him tightly against my body. Brian wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my chest.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered over and over. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Brian shook his head and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“I’m not okay,” he murmured.
“Yes, you are,” I replied.
“No, Ava, I’m not okay!” he growled as he lifted his head and gave me a fierce look. “I’m so messed up, and I’m never going to be okay.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, bewildered by the sudden shift in the power dynamic as I realized that I was protecting him from something neither of us could see.
“It’s so screwed up,” he muttered as he shook his head. “I’ve kept it under control all week, but the lack of sleep and the stress of trying to keep you safe…”
“What? What did it do?” I pushed.
“It triggered the nightmares,” he admitted with a deep sigh.
“Nightmares?”