Chapter 38: Helping

Early morning sunlight streamed through the windows of Cole’s bedroom. On the cot, Jenny yawned and stretched, leaning up on an elbow to peek over the edge of Cole’s bed. It was empty, his covers hastily pulled up.

When she’d come tiptoeing into his room in the middle of the night, the cot was ready and waiting. She wondered if he always kept it that way, or if somehow, he’d known that the dreams would return that night. After her digital stroll down memory lane, she was grateful that it had only been bad dreams and not one of the nightmares that she had trouble waking up from.

But she usually noticed those coming on, felt the walls closing in on her, saw the circle of black growing around her field of vision. There was usually some kind of trigger, a noise or a smell that brought on that kind of hell.