“Sure,” I say, deciding on the spot to cancel lunch and take this appointment instead. After all, as much as I’m afraid of all the reasons why Waylon may be lying to me—of what he’s doing in my house, my life—I’m more afraid of what I saw on that laptop screen. “I’ll see you at one thirty.”
* * *
Once I arrive, the office feels familiar yet foreign, like walking into your own home in a dream. I used to come here so often—twice a week every week, starting last July—that I knew it inch by inch. But now so many little things have changed, it doesn’t feel quite right. I know they’re supposed to be subtle alterations, a slow redecoration over the past six months, but all at once, it feels jarring, like seeing the drastic changes in a child after too much time apart.
All of it is making me feel uneasy, like I’m in the wrong place.
“How are you sleeping?” Dr. Harris asks now, leaning forward. His hair is a bit longer than it was the last time I saw him, the old stubble on his chin grown out into the beginnings of a beard. “Any better than before?”
“Yes, better,” I lie. “Much better.”
“That’s fantastic,” he says, pleased with himself. “Are you following my protocol? Getting enough exercise, cutting out alcohol and caffeine—”
“Yes,” I lie again, because I don’t want to rehash this with him. I need caffeine to get anything done during the day; without it, I might as well be a zombie. And alcohol … well, it feels like I need that, too, sometimes. Just for different reasons.
“Have you been creating a relaxing nighttime routine like we talked about? Cutting out electronics, stressful triggers—”
“Yes.”
The lies are coming too easily now, but how am I supposed to create a relaxing nighttime routine when I live the way that I do—always alone, always on edge, always waiting for Mason to come home? My entire existence is a stressful trigger; my house the scene of a crime that remains perpetually unsolved.
“Cutting down on daytime naps?”
I think about all my little microsleeps; those minutes or hours of unaccounted-for time. About blinking my eyes, finding someone staring at me—Waylon, or a stranger—concern in their eyes. But it’s not as if I’m doing that on purpose. As if I have any control. So again, I nod.
“How about the sleeping pills?” he asks. “Have you been taking those?”
“On occasion,” I say. “But the strength still seems a bit low.”
“You’re on the highest dosage.”
“I know.”
Dr. Harris eyes me, shifting in his chair.
“So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asks, spinning a pen between his fingers like a baton. “You mentioned you had some questions.”
“Yes. Not about insomnia, though. About sleepwalking, actually.”
“Ah,” he says, leaning back with a playful grin. “You used to be a sleepwalker, correct? I remember discussing that.”
“When I was a kid. It used to happen pretty frequently.”
“That’s not uncommon in adolescence.”
“What triggers it, exactly?”
“Oh, lots of things,” he says. “Fatigue, irregular sleep schedules. High fever, some medications, trauma, genetics, stress. Most of the time, though, it just happens.”
“For no real reason?”
“Yes,” he says. “During stages three and four of deep sleep. It’s called disassociated arousal. Some parts of the brain are asleep while others are still awake.”
“I was just wondering,” I say, looking down at my lap. More and more, this is feeling like that morning with Chief Montgomery: him, sitting too close in my bedroom, and me, hiding the truth. Diverting my eyes. Too afraid of what he might find there: my secret, my lie, curled up somewhere deep in my pupils like a hibernating animal. “Is it possible for someone to do something bad while they’re sleepwalking? And not know it? Not remember?”
“Define bad,” he says, resting his chin in his hand. “Sometimes people urinate in their closets, for example, or venture outside. Have entire conversations, even. That can be embarrassing.”
“No, I mean, can they do something … dangerous,” I ask, looking up at him. “Violent.”
“It’s rare,” he says, speaking slowly. “But sometimes people will try to drive cars or climb out of windows, and that can of course be very dangerous—”