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Page 61 of Beauty and the Beach

Those are cries. She’s crying.

No—she’ssobbing.

I’m out of bed before I realize what’s happening, and I’ve never left my room that fast in my life. I don’t knock on her door before I enter, though I should; but there’s a frantic urgency driving me, one that tells me this isn’t normal crying.

I don’t turn on the light in her room. I fly to her bedside, where my gaze can only make out the shape of her figure in bed; the light mess of her hair on her pillow, the curled form of her body because she’s kicked all her covers off.

“Holland,” I say, reaching for her. I find her shoulder in the dark and give it a little shake, but there’s no response; just her continued sobs, low and ragged.

Something dangerously close to compassion rises in me as my suspicions are confirmed: she’s not awake. This is a nightmare, and it’s so much worse than I expected they would be.

“Holland,” I say again, shaking her harder. When she fails to respond, I don’t think or plan or consider—I just act, instinct driving me.

I lean down, slide my arms beneath her shaking body, and lift her into my arms.

Her skin is somehow clammy and hot at the same time, but I hold her closer anyway; I carry her out of her room, opening the door wider with my foot, and into my own room. I sit on the edge of my bed and shift her slightly so that her head is resting higher on my chest, near my shoulder, and then I rock back and forth as though she’s a very large baby.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but it feels right, so I keep going.

“Holland,” I say, louder this time, my voice tense. I free one hand and click on my lamp, the dim light spilling into the room. Then I reach for the glass of water I keep by my bed, dipping my fingers in. I bring them to her face, smoothing water over her forehead and her cheeks. “Holland, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

She flinches at the feeling of the water on her skin, so I get some more. As I get her face wet, her cries begin to fade, and her pained expression begins to twitch—relief crashes over me when she begins actively shying away from the water.

“Holland,” I say again, patting her cheek. “Wake up. Wake up—there you go.”

Her lashes flutter for a second, and then her eyes open; only slightly, and she’s clearly not fully aware, but she’s awake.

My racing heart calms a bit as I take a deep breath.

“Oh. This is better,” she says after a moment of looking around. Her voice is sleepy and slow, and the sheen of tears still clings to her lashes.

“What?” I say.

She snuggles into my chest, pressing her cheek against my skin as she makes herself more comfortable. “This is a better dream,” she says, and her eyes drift closed again. “I like you better in my dreams than I do in real life.”

I blink down at her, taken aback. “Do you?”

“Mmm. You’re less annoying.” One hand reaches up to rest on my bare chest. “And more shirtless, I guess.”

I sigh, stroking her hair, my hand moving of its own accord. “This isn’t a dream, so stop talking,” I say. “You’re going to regret saying these things.” I’m going to have to pretend I don’t remember any of this—it’s all I can give her. Maybe I could say I was drunk?

No. She knows I don’t drink.

I’ll just tell her I was half-asleep myself.

“Of course it’s a dream,” she says in that sleepy voice, her eyes still closed. “We would never do this in real life. You hate me too much.”

An odd mixture of surprise and pain pierces me somewhere around my solar plexus. “I don’t hate you,” I say. “You hate me.”

“No. I hate that when I look at you, I remember watching the paramedics wheel Trev’s body away.” She inhales deeply and then lets out a shuddering yawn. “I feel so guilty. It hurts—youhurt.”

Down in the depths of my heart, something shatters. The memories rise before I can stop them—she and I huddled together, silver shock blankets wrapped around our soaking bodies, Trev lying between us.

A knot rises in my throat; I swallow it, along with those images. Is that what she sees when she looks at me? Is that what I make her feel—pain and guilt?

She snuggles closer, and when she sighs again, I can feel her puff of breath against my chest. “You hurt,” she mumbles. “But you make me—feel. You make me feel so—so alive.”

And another image floods into my mind, one I haven’t thought about for a long time.