Page 61 of Love Again

“Devon, it’s not real. Wherever you are, it’s not real.”

She coughs and twists her hand away. “I have to save them,” she says, the words clear and loud, though her voice is raspy.

“You’re in the living room with me. Everything is fine.”

But she’s wringing her hands and looking around. Her eyes are wild, large, and peering into the dark, seeing things I can’t see—things that are tormenting her.

I can’t stand it. Gripping her upper arms, I get right in her face. I think if I can get her to look at me, it’ll stop, that I can free her from whatever she’s in.

“Devon,” I say and give her a small shake. “Look at me. It’s Luke. I’m here with you. I’m right here with you. Everything is okay.”

It takes a few times of repeating this, finding almost a beat to the cadence. With my last reminder, she doesn’t try to twist away. Instead, she keeps staring at me, her small mouth open, slack, her breathing heavy. And then she suddenly goes limp.

I catch her in my arms and press her to me, scoop her up, and carry her to the sofa as a long, ragged sigh comes from her chest.

“Oh my God. Where am I?”

She’s as limp as a rag doll as I set her on the sofa and stroke her forehead. “You’re right here. You’re with me. Everything’s fine.”

“I couldn’t get to them,” she says and then looks up at me from the sofa. I kneel next to her on the floor and wrap my arms around her. She did this a few times when we were together in Colorado, but never like this. One time, I found her sitting at the table with her cell phone pressed to her ear. Another, she was standing in front of the fridge. Both times, I told her to go back to bed.

There was no terror.

Leaning her forehead against mine, her body shudders for a moment and then is still. She wraps her arms around my neck, and her words come in breathy whispers.

“It’s always the same thing, with different people. I have to pick who to save, and I can’t.” She wipes a tear away. “This time, it was Travis and Claire. She was in a car, crushed, and he was in a tall skyscraper building with a bridge thing, and they—”

“There were two fires?”

She nods. “If I go to one, the other . . .”

“It’s just a dream,” I say, knowing it won’t matter.

It doesn’t. “It feels real. I can feel the heat. I hear Travis screaming above the flames. Salty is throwing himself against the corral—it’s a different horse, but it’s still Salty—and I know Claire’s inside.”

She looks stricken.

“I can’t get to either of them. I’m paralyzed.”

The thin collar of the nightgown flutters with her sigh and lies against her chest.

“I’m going to walk over there and get a washcloth, and I’ll be right back.” I rise and keep an eye on her, not quite convinced she’s fully awake. I rinse out a tea towel with warm water and run cold water for a glass. I bring her both.

She takes a long sip, though her fingers tremble. I wipe her face with the damp towel.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice small.

“Hey, it was weird enough for me to wake up in an empty room. It was like when—” I stop myself. She doesn’t need to hear this right now. She never needs to hear it.

She lies limp, draped across the sofa like a soft blanket. “I can’t believe how exhausting this is. I haven’t had a bad one like this in a long time.” Closing her eyes, she whispers. “Thank you.”

My relief that she’s with me in this room and not somewhere still in her dreams is tangible, and I chuckle, stroking her hair from her forehead. “For what?”

“For taking care of me. Claire says I need to learn how to receive. You make it easy.”

I slip an arm between her and the sofa and curl her to my body. She’s wrung out as only nightmares can do. Stretching out on the sofa, she lies on top of me.

“You’re hot,” she says sleepily. “Your body is warm.”