You lay, just out of my eye line. It’s the middle of the night and I can’t fall asleep. I know this is hard. I know we’re trapped and struggling, I know we’re both barely hanging onto our sanity separately.

Shouldn’t we be trying to hang onto some sanity together?

Instead, there’s anger, and stress, and I don’t blame you.

I hear you breathing, so close but so far from me here. I hear your sighs fade and slow and I know you are asleep. I can’t.

I lay, looking at the faint moon light that trickles through the shutters.

I’m sorry, I want to scream.

I’m sorry I’m not better.

I’m sorry I’m not stronger.

I’m sorry I keep failing at everything.

I’m sorry I’m not good enough.

Mostly I’m sorry I’m so terrified of never being enough. I don’t know who to blame for that.

Maybe I can blame my dad, this man whose opened his home to us now. Maybe I can blame him for how he was never home when I was little, how he has no emotional depth, how he can’t express himself for shit. But I can’t blame him for his broken body, his damaged brain, his staggering fear.

Maybe I can blame my mother, the one who is leaving. I don’t blame her though, at least not for leaving. She has been stuck here, sacrificing, giving so much away, taking care of a man who ruined her, working so hard to support us, getting so much abuse at work…

But you know what? I’m still going to blame her for all my insecurities and feelings of failure and inadequacy, cause she’s been setting me up for it my whole life, judging me with every word and look.

So there’s that.

Your breathing changes. I sit up a little, turning to try to see you. It becomes a moan, a small whine, and I know that sound, that sound that makes my heart break into a million shattered pieces, every one of which is yours.

You moan my name on a gasp, and then I’m moving, hand reaching out to you. Another gasp as you startle awake, yours eyes creaking open. Nightmare, you whisper. I know. I wrap my arms around you, pulling you close.

In the middle of the night, we can at last cling to each other and breathe together. We shift, your arms coming around me, spooning tight, and that is what lulls me to sleep, finally, always, your breathing with me at night.