Nothing should have mattered more.
I opened my mouth to call out to him when it hit me: he was sleepwalking.
I’d never seen anyone sleepwalk before, but some things you just know. His outfit: low-riding pajama pants, a rumpled T-shirt, mussed hair, slippered feet. Glazed eyes. He was there but he wasn’t, which meant that I could be there even though I wasn’t supposed to be, and with that realization, the clear night became clearer. I could breathe again.
I followed him.
I chose the opposite side of the street to do it. Each of us claimed our own sidewalk. I wanted space between us because I was still overcome with the fragility of our closeness. I didn’t want to ruin it in case that night was all I had.
As we walked, I studied him. My mother deleted and burned all of my photos. I had memories, of course, but months without him faded them out so I wanted to imprint this new visual on my soul. Jed Miller is beautiful and to describe him as anything less is less than he deserves. He’s a sturdy twenty-year-old with blond hair and blue eyes, the kind of eyes that make you melt. My mother said I needed to teach myself to see beyond them but I wasn’t sure how I could do that when they were just as amazing as I remembered them, if not more.
Jed kept walking. I wondered where he was headed, when he’d wake up, or if he’d make it back to his room before then. I remembered hearing somewhere that waking a sleepwalker can kill them, can shock their body dead. That scared me. What if I killed Jed Miller? What if I made a noise and accidentally startled him to death?
I’d never hurt Jed unless I had to.
I turned away and left him, and yes, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done even if it wasn’t the first time I’d ever done it. I took a shortcut through the Donnellys’ front yard, crossing lawns until I wound up back at my house where I went inside and crawled into bed. The itch was there until the sun came up and then it turned back into the emptiness because I knew Jed was waking up at that moment and he was waking up thinking of her, maybe, and waking up without me, definitely. In spite of it, I hoped he got home safe.
Since my accident, everything is different. I don’t go to school. I don’t see Jed. There are no more days.
No one would believe me, but I tried hard to reconcile with what happened that first night.
I tried hard to let it go.
I wasn’t supposed to be near Jed Miller, so I decided maybe it was the universe’s way of helping me make peace with everything that happened and then I’d move on. Because what were the odds after months of not feeling anything, I’d get that itch that told me to leave the house the same night he just so happened to be sleepwalking?
I also tried to convince myself the itch that displaced my emptiness was a fluke, that it wasn’t the universe, that I should take what I got and not get too greedy.
But I couldn’t help myself.
In the end, I went to Jed’s house a second night. Everyone would’ve gotten so upset if they’d known. I dressed for it. I put on a jacket and I stood outside waiting but he didn’t come out so I went home. I read online you can’t kill a sleepwalker just by waking them; you have to kill a sleepwalker like you’d kill anyone else.
It was a relief because I didn’t want to kill Jed Miller by accident.
I also read sleepwalking is sometimes exacerbated by stress, and then I started to hope maybe he was worried about me, he was thinking about me. The last time we saw each other was not good, so I could understand how it would torment him, and Jed’s life was stressful, anyway, what with the pressure of having a father in politics and the entire family constantly in the spotlight—maybe that added to it, too. But mostly, I bet it was me.
I decided I had to be sure.
So the third night, I went to his place again. He still didn’t come out. I thought I’d lose it. It was something to be there—the itch lessened, a little—but it was better when I saw him.
I sat on the curb across from his house and waited.
I went to the Millers’ place sometimes. Before. But I had to. I did work on Mr. Miller’s last campaign. The local TV station interviewed me and I told them I’d vote Miller if I was old enough to vote, and after that, I was occasionally asked to introduce the man himself at his rallies and talk about how much my generation believed in everything he said, like it was God’s honest truth. The only thing I really believed in was Jed. I don’t like politics. Politics is all strategy and secret keeping and climbing ladders and tearing people apart. But I got involved for Jed, so I had to come over. I had to. But it was usually Erik or Mr. or Mrs. Miller at the door—never him, no matter how much I hoped.
Until the day it was.
We’d talked before but only in public, at the kinds of events where everyone is on their best behavior and no meaningful words could be exchanged so nothing we said meant anything. But even when we had nothing meaningful to say, he knew I loved him. I know he did because the day he answered the door, he got right to the point. He invited me inside and told me he’d been watching me, too, and I stuttered over words that were so far removed from the normal formalities. He whispered things in my ear.
I have this way with the people I love. I always make sure they feel important around me and when you make people feel important, they want to be around you all the time.
For a while.
So that day he answered the door—Friday, June 10th, at 3:05 p.m.—was the beginning of everything. Each day after, I’d sit outside his house on the curb with my feet pressed flat against the pavement and my palms pressed flat against my knees, hoping he’d see me and invite me in and whisper those things to me all over again.
Sometimes he did. First, he’d open the door wide, gesture me over, and ask, What are you doing here? I never answered because there was only ever one reason I was there, and there was only ever one reason he’d open the door. Neither of us had to say it. It was our secret. He’d grin, and we’d go to his room. His hands would be on me, and I felt like I was made of electricity.
All through Jed’s father’s campaign it was like that. He would steal me into his room and run his hands over my skin, through my hair, and tell me how beautiful he thought I was and I loved it but I hated it, too, because as soon as those moments were over and I had to go home again, I’d feel the absence of that spark, a taste of existing without him.
I don’t exist without him.
The fourth night, he finally came out again.
I was so relieved. Being close to him was terrifying but also made me feel powerful because he wasn’t awake and I was and no one could stop us from happening. It was so nice. It was just like the first night; he stayed to his sidewalk and I stayed to mine. I tucked my hands in my pockets and matched his pace perfectly because I thought it would give me an idea of the kind of sleep he was having. It was unhurried and calm.
Jed. I whispered it so I wouldn’t wake him. Jed, do you think of me?
He didn’t answer.
Jed, do you think of me?
His mouth stayed closed.
I think of you all the time. Do you think of me?
He was supposed to say yes. Yes, he thought of me all the time. And he missed me. There was a second where it was like something stirred inside him, pulling him from sleep, and I was so sure he’d say what I needed him to say, but Roy Turner’s porch light went on before it could happen and I couldn’t afford to be seen by anyone, so I ran home.