bryn

Chapter Eighteen

Bryn

The screaming woke me, and I swung my feet out of bed. When they hit the cold hardwood, I noticed the clock by my bed said 2:08. This was about the same time Cullen had experienced his last night terror. Jerking open my bedroom door, I ran to his room. Cullen’s face was illuminated by the Spider-Man night-light I always left on for him and the moonlight cascading through the windows.

He was sitting up in bed, eyes wide open, screaming but not moving or acknowledging my being there. The first time this had happened, it had terrified me. I was sure something awful was wrong with him. The pediatrician had assured me that night terrors were common and not to be alarmed.

I went to his bed and had a seat beside him, then pulled him into my arms. His screaming didn’t stop, and like the times before, my heart hurt because I couldn’t stop this for him. I wasn’t surprised when I heard the other bedroom door in the apartment swing open. There was no sleeping through one of Cullen’s night terrors.

Rio’s tall form filled the doorway. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep but alert for someone who wasn’t used to being woken up in the middle of the night.

“Night terror,” I replied. “He has them occasionally.”

Rio didn’t ask any more questions. I had expected him to, but instead, he walked farther into the room and stood at the foot of the bed. I rocked Cullen back and forth as his screaming began to subside and his eyes closed. He leaned back against me, and we remained that way for several moments.

“He’s fine now,” I told Rio. “I’ll stay with him the rest of the night. It seems to calm him more in his sleep if he’s not alone.”

Rio didn’t move, and I thought I was going to have to tell him to leave when he finally nodded. “Okay. Can I get you anything?” he asked me.

That was such a foreign question to me. I blinked several times, then shook my head. I had never been asked if I needed something before. Times like this, I had always figured things out on my own. Tory hadn’t been here the last three times he had his night terrors, and I was beginning to think that was what triggered them. Her absence and his uncertainty about when she would come home.

“I’ll leave this door open and mine. If you need anything, just call for me. I’m a light sleeper,” he said.

“Thank you,” I managed to say.

Telling Rio March thank you wasn’t something I’d thought I would be saying and truly meaning anytime soon. Sure, he had stayed tonight, but Henley wouldn’t have given him an option. This kindness was something he was doing all on his own. It reminded me of the Rio I’d once known, and that was a dangerous slope.

I was tired and exhausted mentally from this day. That was all. I laid Cullen back down, then crawled under the covers beside him, keeping my arm around him so that he felt secure. I didn’t watch Rio leave but closed my eyes instead. However, I knew the moment he left, and I sighed wearily. Tomorrow, he would be gone, and this would be over.

sb_b

It wasn’t the bright sun streaming through the blinds that woke me that morning. I was sleeping too deeply for something such as light to bother me. The small finger tapping my forehead was what pulled me from my slumber. Slowly, I opened my eyes to see Cullen’s small hand in front of my face as he continued to rap my head with his pointer finger.

“Umhmm,” I grunted, and he stopped.

“I’m hungry,” he said, fully alert, and I wondered how long he had been lying there, waiting on me to wake up.

“M’kay,” I muttered, then yawned, covering my mouth and stretching.

“Why are you in my bed? Did I have the bad terror dreams again?” he asked me, and I heard the concern in his voice even if my vision wasn’t great just yet.

I rubbed my eyes, then opened them to look at him. He had been with me at the doctor, and he knew about the night terrors even if he didn’t remember them.

“Yeah,” I told him.

He frowned. “You can go back to sleep if you’re tired,” he said.

The guilt he was feeling at having woken me last night was something no four-year-old should experience or even understand.

I threw back the covers and smiled brightly. “No way! I’m starving. How about waffles?”

“With silly faces?” he asked hopefully.

I had used berries to make a face on his waffles last time in hopes that he would eat the berries. He had as long as I added the syrup and whipped cream for the hair.

“Absolutely,” I told him.

“Yay!” he cheered and bounced out of bed, wearing his Spider-Man pajamas.

“Let me go to my room and put on some clothes instead of my pajamas, and I will meet you in there.”

“But you always cook breakfast in your pajamas,” he replied.

“Yes, but we don’t always have company,” I told him.

Although Rio had seen me in them last night, it had been dark in the room, and I had been holding Cullen. It wasn’t that they were revealing, but I didn’t feel comfortable, wearing silk pajama shorts and a silk tank top in front of him. Sure, he had seen me in much less at work, but that had been different. At least, in my head, it was different.

Cullen’s eyes widened when he was reminded of our company, and he hurried to the door. “Do you think he’s awake?” he asked me, stopping at his open bedroom door.

I doubted it, but what did I know of Rio’s sleeping habits? I shrugged. For all I knew, he could be gone already. If he had left without telling Cullen good-bye, I was going to need to add chocolate chips to those waffles and exchange the regular syrup for chocolate syrup to brighten his mood.

I was just walking out of the bedroom when Cullen called out, “He’s up! He’s in the kitchen, drinking coffee!”

I didn’t reply. I went to my bedroom to get on a pair of cutoff sweats and a T-shirt before joining them in the kitchen. He would be leaving soon enough to handle the problem Tory might have left behind. I just hoped he was right and could fix things like he seemed to think he could. I only had two weeks off work, and then I would go back, and Cullen would have to get into a new routine.

Thankfully, I had more money in savings than I’d thought I would see in this lifetime, but I didn’t know if Tory had some debt in the drug world that I was going to have to pay. I also wanted to keep that money in savings and not use it to live on. It was the first time in my life I had some security, and I wanted to keep it that way.

Going back to work and taking Henley up on the babysitting wasn’t going to be an option for me though. Rio would not be okay with that, and I couldn’t ask that of her even if I paid her. Besides, I didn’t know what went on at the house Henley lived in. She was nice, but there could be parties and guys over there, drinking with her boyfriend. I would protect Cullen the way I hadn’t been protected.

Figuring out how to go back to work was something I had less than two weeks to work out.