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You could use “trauma” to ask for a lot, it turned out. It had gotten Maddie last-minute interviews, grace on her one semester of particularly poor grades, and even a solo dorm room at UChicago. It had been hard, the summer after graduation, and even harder that fall, thinking about the people she’d left behind. And she did think about them - a lot. But it wasn’t as hard anymore. Time healed. Or maybe that was just freshman year of college.
She had Nicole and Claire and Xavier - they might not talk as often as any of them would like, but text and Facetime helped. She had new friends at school, other students who liked horror and filmmaking and late night diners. And most importantly, she had Simon.
He didn’t stay over every night, but at minimum twice a week he would crash after a movie night or study session. They slept laying in opposite directions in the narrow twin bed, head to foot. It was cramped, but the weight of him next to her, the sound of his breathing, usually helped her sleep better. For once, however, sleep was evading her as an essay that was due in a few days rattled around her mind. She had the side farther away from the wall so it was easy enough to gently slide out from under the blanket and tiptoe over to her desk. She turned on the small light, checked to make sure Simon hadn’t woken up, and then started scribbling notes.
It was maybe ten minutes later that she realized something was wrong. Over in the bed Simon was muttering under his breath, tossing and turning, tangled up in the blanket. For a moment, she just watched him, waiting for him to settle down. Instead, whatever he was experiencing seemed to get worse as he thrashed under the bedspread and she heard her own name leave his mouth in a groan.
“Simon,” she said immediately, standing and hurrying back over. His face was screwed up tight, muscles in his jaw jumping. “Hey, Si, wake up.” She sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to grab his shoulder. “Si, it’s okay, it’s just a dream.”
Finally his eyes flew open as he threw himself up into a sitting position, panting and wild-eyed in the dim light.
“Maddie?” he asked, and his voice was hoarse.
“Yeah, I’m here,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “I’m here. You’re okay.”
He took a jagged breath in and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, then closed it again. A soft sound, almost a whimper, and he bowed his head forward into his hands. As his shoulders started to shake, she realized he was crying.
“Simon. Hey. Come here, please. It’s going to be okay.” Maddie leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, held him as tightly as she could, smelled his sandalwood shampoo as she pressed her face to the top of his head.
After a few moments, he took a deep, shuddering breath and sat back up, dragging his hands across his face. “Sorry,” he muttered, not looking at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. I can go home, let you get some sleep.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she said, crossing her legs so she could sit on the bed facing him. “I want you to talk to me. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” He nodded but the way he was staring at his knees suggested otherwise.
“What was that? I’ve never seen you toss and turn like that.”
He shrugged. “I still have nightmares sometimes.”
She reached out and gently pushed a lock of hair back out of his face. “Nightmares. What about?”
“About you,” he said. He finally glanced up at her but as soon as he met her eyes, his gaze shot back down to the bed.
“What do you mean?” she asked. He was twisting the blanket violently between his fingers.
“Finding out you were missing. Probably dead. Thinking I was losing my mind. Holding you - your body - while you stood outside it. Watching you run into that red light. Thinking I was never going to see you again, again.” He finally dropped the blanket but she saw his hands were shaking.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, and reached down to wrap one of his hands in hers. She pulled it down to rest in his lap and gently ran her thumb back and forth over his knuckles. “I didn’t realize it all still bothered you so much.”
“You don’t know what it was like for me,” he said, with a surprising bite in his voice. “I know I don’t know what it was like for you, but I think sometimes you assume you know what it was like for us. And you don’t.”
“I know it was bad - ” she started soothingly, but his head snapped up and he pulled his hand out of her grip.
“You don’t. You don’t know how bad it was. You don’t know it’s like to have your best friend, the girl you love, taken from you. And then to have her want to stay away.”
He tossed the blanket back and started to stand up. She reached out in a blind panic and grabbed his hand and he stopped in place. The small desk light cast deep shadows across his face as he stared steadily at the door.
“The girl you love. What do you mean? Do you mean - like - friendship love? Or - ?”
Another long quiet moment. Then finally he sat down again, heavily. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“But you did say it,” she whispered, gripping his hand tightly. If she let go, she was afraid he might take off running and not stop.
“You’re my best friend. I would never, ever do anything to jeopardize that. It’s really important to me that you know that,” he said.
“I know,” she said. Her heart was pounding in her throat.
He turned and looked at her again. His pupils were wide in his already-dark eyes. “You’re my person, Maddie. I’ve known that for years. I can’t picture a life with anyone else. But - I know that you always will be in my life, and that’s enough, even if it’s not the way I most want.”
“Oh,” she said. It was all she could say.
“And you’re - you’re you - you could have anyone. You had Xavier, and he’s great, I mean he was an absolute douche to you, but he’s great now, and - and - you were in love with Wally - are in love with Wally? And he’s like - a perfect specimen of jock-kind - and my point is just - I don’t know what my point is. I love you in whatever way you want me to. And anything else is my problem.”
Her stomach was flipping. She had thought about it before - of course she had thought about it, how could she not? - but every time she’d thought about it, the panic had surged up and she’d decided to stop thinking about it.
“Will you say something?” he asked. “Even if it’s just ‘leave me alone, you creep?’ I promise I’ll never bring it up again.”
Maddie lifted a hand to the side of his face, stroked his cheekbone with her thumb. He looked beautiful in this lighting, rumpled pajamas and messy hair and all. It was her favorite face in the world.
“I did love Wally,” she told him. “I mean, I still do, in a different way. And Xavier too. But I can’t picture my life with anyone other than you.”
His eyes were closed as he turned his head slightly to press his face harder against her hand.
“That’s why it scares me so much,” she continued. Better to get it all out now. “Losing you is the absolute worst thing that could happen to me.”
“I know. I get it. It’s okay. We don’t have to - “
“That’s not what I’m saying, Simon. When everything happened last year, what I should have learned was that you can’t take anything for granted. You can lose anything at any time for any reason. It’s better to lose something because you tried than because you didn’t.”
He finally opened his eyes to look at her. She felt the warmth of his face against her hand and remembered the months she had spent unable to feel that warmth. She slid her hand around to the back of his neck, fingers weaving through his hair as she tugged him closer, as she leaned forward. They paused, a few centimeters apart, a quiet moment of terror - no going back, this is it, she thought. A quick shock ran through her as she missed Wally fiercely, and then she remembered how he had told her to go back to life - to all of life. She closed the gap and kissed him.
Simon was so very gentle. One hand landed on the side of her neck, his thumb running over the line of her jaw. Her body was sparking with electricity at every contact point - hands, faces, even their knees bumping against each other. She had been worried it would be awkward, feel like nothing, leave her regretting every choice she had made that night. It didn’t. She lifted her other hand to his chest, felt the soft fabric of his t-shirt under her fingertips. He was so solid against her. His other hand was on her back, pulling her even closer. She let him.
They were there for ten minutes, twenty, half an hour, just kissing, hands in each other’s hair, on each other’s backs, shoulders, faces. When she finally pulled away from him, she was exhausted but felt like a weight had lifted from her shoulders. He looked dazed as he smiled at her.
“It’s like, three am,” she said. “We probably should get some sleep.”
“Or we could keep making out until breakfast,” Simon suggested, lifting her hand to kiss her palm, her wrist, her forearm. She laughed and pulled him down until he was lying beside her.
“We both need some sleep,” she told him. “And we can make out tomorrow.”
“Promise?” he asked, pulling the blanket up over them both. “Promise this wasn’t just a really, really nice dream?”
“I promise,” she said, and kissed his nose. “If you promise you won’t have any more nightmares tonight.”
“Promise.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and she rolled over, her back against his chest. It was the most comfortable she’d felt in a long time. He kissed the crown of her head. “You don’t have to say it back, but I love you, Maddie.”
“I love you too, Si,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, and felt her heart beating in her chest, and drifted off to sleep.