Chapter 16: Splinters of a Night
That night was a blur of harsh breaths and jagged silence.
She tossed in her sleep like someone caught in a rip tide, arms tangled in the sheets as if they were hands dragging her under.
Every time I touched her shoulder, whispered her name, she flinched — eyes squeezed tight, lips trembling.
And every time I held her, it was like holding a ghost I was already losing.
---
Around three, she woke up screaming.
Not crying — screaming.
Pure, unfiltered terror clawing up her throat.
"Get off me!" she thrashed, nails scraping my arms as if I were the enemy, as if my hands weren't the ones that had held her together so many times before.
I didn't let go.
Couldn't.
"You're safe," I kept repeating, voice wrecked. "I'm here. Please, it's me."
But my words felt like they hit a wall. Nothing reached her.
And in her eyes — wild, glassy — I saw someone I didn't recognize at all.
---
When the screams broke into exhausted sobs, I held her anyway.
She wept into my chest like her body had nowhere else to go.
And I thought about all the times I'd watched her disappear into her own mind — but tonight, it was different.
This wasn't forgetting.
This was being hunted by something inside her that wouldn't let her hide.
---
By morning, we were hollow.
She wouldn't look at me, hands trembling so badly that she spilled the tea before it reached her lips.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I don't know what happened. I don't know why I was so scared."
I wanted to lie. To tell her it was nothing, just a bad dream.
But the dark circles under her eyes and the bruises on my arms told a different story.
---
We sat together at the table — me leaning toward her like I could shield her just by being close.
And even though I could feel her trembling under my touch, I stayed.
And I stayed even as my heart felt like shattered glass in my chest.
And I stayed knowing that tonight might come again.
And again.
And again.
---
That day, we spoke less.
And what we did say was careful, as if we were walking barefoot across sharp stones, hoping we wouldn't slip and cut deeper.
And as the house filled with silence, I realized a new kind of fear had moved in with us.
A fear that this — this dark, trembling version of her — might last.
And I would have to face that forever.
---
Still, when she reached for my hand that night, I gave it.
Because leaving was never a choice.
Even when staying felt like bleeding.