a few hours.
I was a light sleeper, which was why it woke me up when she began to toss and turn in the middle of the night. She must have been having a nightmare; I could tell from the way her body was cold to the touch and her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.
She looked so scared, and I immediately wanted to rescue her from whatever situation she was dealing with in her sleep. I figured that since she was used to being woken up by the nightmares, it would be better to rouse her than leave her to the hellscape of her mind.
Setting one hand on her shoulder, I gently shook her. “Serenity, Serenity,” I said, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible.
Instantly, her eyes flashed open and she looked at me with such fear, panting. “Grayson?” Her voice came out weak and frightened, and I immediately pulled her to my chest.
“Shhhh, it’s alright now, it was just a dream.” Her hands gripped at the fabric of my shirt and she buried her face in my chest.
“Can you remember what it was about?” I asked, continuing to stroke her hair. I was admittedly a little curious as to what had happened to give her such vivid nightmares.
She shook her head. “No, I just know that it was a bad one. Sorry, I didn’t think that I would have them when I was around you.”
“It’s alright,” I said. “I’m a light sleeper, so I can wake you up. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Thank you.”
I pulled away for just a moment to look her in the eyes. “Is there something we can do right now? Anything that usually helps?”
This gave her pause, and she seemed a little anxious at the idea of trying to come up with something, so I decided that I would suggest something instead. “We could go out to the living room. Put on a good movie? I’m sure that will get your mind off of things.”
She took a moment to consider this, and then nodded. “That actually sounds really nice,” she said.
“Alright, then we’ll do that. Any particular requests?”
She gave a short little laugh. “Just, uh, nothing scary, I guess.”
“Well, we can certainly work around that. Maybe I can find something from our childhood.”
She reached down to grab my hand, squeezing it tightly in gratitude. “That sounds nice.”
“Good. Then that’s just what we’ll do, come on.” I stood, offering her my hand. She took it, and I led her downstairs to the living room, getting her situated on the couch. “I’ll go grab some blankets, I’ll be right back,” I promised, then headed to the linen closet to find some cozy blankets for her. Thankfully, neither of us had to go in to work tomorrow, so we had the whole night to chill out if that’s what she needed.
I brought back several fluffy blankets and found that Serenity was already curled up in the corner of the couch, shivering a bit. I tossed one of the blankets to her, and it hit her square in the chest, falling over her in a waterfall.
She looked up at me, surprised.
“You looked cold,” I said by way of explanation.
“That didn’t mean you had to throw this at me,” she said, pulling the blanket around herself. “I would say that’s pretty rude.”
I shrugged, sitting down next to her and pulling her to my side before tucking the blanket in tightly around her. “I mean, I was the one who went to go grab that for you, so you have no right to call me rude. I’m just concerned that you’ll get frostbite.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “Excuse you, I have every right.”
“Sure, sure.” I pulled her closer to my body and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Any requests for a movie?”
“Hmmmm.” She considered my question for a moment. “What about something holiday-themed?”
“Home Alone?” I suggested. I had vivid memories of our families coming together at the holidays to watch all the classic movies.
“That sounds wonderful,” she said with a smile.
“I figured it would be just the right amount of distracting fun.” I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. It had been a long time since I’d watched anything on it, and since I didn’t usually go for movies, I had to go to the iTunes store to purchase it so we could watch.
As the familiar opening scene began to play, Serenity scooted closer to me, dipping under my arm so that