I hadn’t even fallen asleep when I felt the body behind me suddenly jolt awake. I was waiting for it, sadly. The nightmares had lessened, but I still lay awake at night afraid to hear his cries and screams as the monsters in his head taunted him.

Sehun moved about in the bed behind my back. Over the course of a few hours, he had already sprawled out across the bed and lost the contact with me that he had when we both went to bed. His breathing began to speed up in the dark of the bedroom, panic taking over him. I could feel him moving pillows and kicking the covers away.

“Sehun?” I said his name loudly and he stopped moving around. The thin sheets that were draped over me moved as he slid his arm over me, tucking it under my side that lay against the mattress. “I’m here,” I assured him, listening to slight tremble in his breathing as he pressed closer to me.

Minutes passed as I listened to his breathing return to normal and he remained still, arm still tucked around me. I knew he wasn’t sleeping, I could tell by the sighs leaving him ever so often. Eventually, he slid out of the bed and flicked a switch near the door which the ceiling fan. I mentally thanked him because it was burning up in the house ever since the summer heat had moved in. He was next to me again in no time, arm finding its way back. This time, his hand found mine and his fingers wrapped around my smaller ones.

“They’re different now,” he told me, playing with my pinky.

I breathed slowly. It wasn’t caution that I used when we talked about these things, but a sort of gentleness. No one was sure of how his mind now worked, not even him, but it was different. Some doctors tried to say he was bipolar or just having mood swings, some said multiple personalities. I didn’t know. Maybe it was fear.

“How so?” I asked.

Minutes passed, the fan blowing cool air onto us both. I watched the shadows from the tree outside the window; they were dancing in the moonlight. Sehun’s grip tightened all around me.

His voice was thick, but not from sleep. “You disappear,” he whispered. I could hear him swallow and I pictured his Adam’s apple in my head. “And I can’t find you.”

Any person would answer saying they would never leave the one they love, assure them that nothing of the sorts would ever happen. I didn’t. Neither of us knew what the next minute, the day, the next year could bring. Either of us could disappear at any expected time. Whether from life or just from someone’s memory.

“Focus on right now; I’m here right now,” I said. I moved my legs until I found his and entangled with them.

He said nothing else. His fingers moved along mine until he began playing with the ring on my left hand. I shivered when he pressed his face into the spot between my shoulders, his breath moving along the goosebumps I now had. He placed a tender kiss right between my shoulder blades. Within minutes, he was fast asleep once again.

I woke before him and climbed out of bed, heading downstairs after pulling on a pair of jean shorts and picking out a white button up shirt of his as I passed