PART 1
There it was again. That little thump. The sound of dad's feet getting out of bed. It had happened more and more often recently. Dammit. And I had just gotten all nice and cozy under the covers, too. Now I had to get up, go downstairs, make sure he didn't hurt himself ...
I stood up and quickly put on my slippers and my bathrobe. Man, it was really not comfortable, getting out from under that warm duvet. With a big yawn, I made my way from my room down the hallway towards the stairs. Seemed like he had already made it down to the kitchen -- I could hear noises down there. I sped up. Couple of weeks ago, he fired up the water boiler without any water in it. After that, I had gone out and bought one of those with an in-built safety so that it switches off when it runs dry, but there were still lots of other things he could mess up down there.
I found him by the cupboard, crunching away at some raw macaroni, straight out of the package. Not his fault, though. People do all kinds of weird shit when they're sleepwalking. In his head, he was probably having breakfast or something. No, the really awkward thing was that he was naked. Yeah. Didn't matter if he went to bed wearing boxers or even pajamas, they would always come off before he went off on his nightly excursions. It felt really weird the first time I saw him like this. After having been through it a few times, though, I was getting used to it. Seeing my father's naked body wasn't my primary focus anymore -- it was making sure the circuit breakers were off and that the stove was not fired up. Also I had to make sure he didn't mistake the kitchen floor for the toilet. Yeah, we really needed to figure this thing out.
"Come, daddy, back to bed..." I said, giving him a hug from behind while beginning to steer him towards the stairs.
"Mmmmh..." he mumbled, letting himself be nudged along.
It looked really strange -- his eyes were wide open, he seemed completely awake, apart from that vacant facial expression and his docile movements. The first time I saw him walk around in his sleep, I honestly thought he was awake. It was only when he didn't respond when I talked to him that I started wondering what was going on... and when I asked him about it the next day and he had no clue what I was talking about, that I realized something was up.
We managed to puzzle it together that he must have been walking around in his sleep, but we had no idea why and even less of an idea what to do about it. He had been seeing a therapist a couple of times, but being a single dad with a daughter heading off to college soon, he couldn't afford to keep going there, and the shrink hadn't been able to find a quick-fix for it. It was up to us. I didn't know what to do, though, and wasn't sure how things were gonna go if I moved away for college. Maybe I should stay here in town, after all ... the local uni probably wasn't too bad, really, even though I had been dreaming of Harvard. And we'd save a bunch of money if I could stay here at home ... so I could focus on my studies instead of having to find a part-time job ...
We made it back to his room without incident and I managed to maneuver him into bed. I was really tired -- the alarm clock said 03:46, and I had to be up at seven. Thinking about all this stuff hadn't exactly helped either. I felt like I was going to fall asleep while still on my feet. The bed right in front of me looked really enticing right then, so I just slumped down on the mattress and slid underneath the covers with dad. Hadn't done that in ages. Must've been ten years ago, at least. I drifted off, hoping dad would stay still for the rest of the night.
He did do. I awoke from the sound of my phone beeping like mad from my room across the hall. As I was about to move out of bed, I noticed that dad had put his arm around me in his sleep. His warm body was spooning me, and he was holding me, hand on my shoulder and arm draped across my chest. I smiled. It felt nice. Like old times, when I'd had a bad dream and came running in here, scared and needing my daddy. He would always make me feel better. Warm and safe in his strong arms. As I wiggled my way out of bed, I wished I could stay here like this a while longer. Started hating my alarm. And school. Schools should have flexible hours, like dad had at his job. Oh, well, at least I got my license last year so I could drive myself. That saved me some time, not having to take the bus. I took one last look at dad before I left for the bathroom. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
When I arrived back home for dinner, dad was in a good mood. Said he had been sleeping well that night and (as usual) had no memory of walking in his sleep. When I told him that he had been, he seemed surprised. Said he'd had a nice dream and woke up feeling refreshed; usually, he had stressful dreams when he sleepwalked, and woke up feeling tired and stiff.
"That's weird..." he muttered, but didn't elaborate. I wondered if this was just a coincidence.
"What did you dream, then?" I asked as we sat down for dinner together.
"Hm..?"
"You said you had a nice dream? What was it?"
"Oh, that. Oh, nothing, really. You know what dreams are like. Don't make sense. Just... gave me a good feeling, is all."
"Uh huh. Well that's nice."
After dinner, I spent the rest of the day studying for my finals. I really wanted a good score when retaking my SATs, so I spent a lot of time revising -- either with a group from my class or by myself. I was scoring straight A's, but knowing how stiff the competition was out there, I really wanted to do better than the 1310 I scored in my junior year. Not that I was too worried; my teachers said my essays were solid enough to take the score even higher if I could just ace the math section too ...
That, however, took time preparing for. Before I knew it, it had gone dark outside and it was time for bed. Having learned (the hard way) that doing all-nighters was not a good idea, and that having a steady day rhythm definitely was, I grabbed a snack from the kitchen and then headed off to the bathroom.
"Circadian rhythms..." I revised in front of the mirror while brushing my teeth -- I had developed this as a routine whenever I thought of a difficult word. "Circadian... c-i-r-c-a-d-i-a-n... cir-kay-dee-an. Phenomenon relating to a periodicity of approximately 24 hours. Periodicity... p-e-r..."
Okay, time to switch off. It was Friday, for goodness' sake. I did intend to study some more over the weekend, but this was enough for one day. And hopefully, I'd get a good night's sleep this time. The alarm would certainly be turned off. I headed off to bed, spending a bit of time reading John Green before drifting off. Just as I did, though, I heard it again.
"Thump."
"Oh no, you don't." I grumbled and quickly hopped out of bed.