I Only Want to Close My Eyes Half of the Time - Part 5

I woke Meghan up, a kid on Christmas morning, excited with the news that I was definitely not crazy in the least. Although she didn’t seem to think so at the moment.

“Babe, it’s first thing in the morning, what’s going on?” she yawned.

“I have to tell you something. And you’re not gonna believe it. But this really cool thing happened - I dunno, I guess it was last night?” I had to force myself to slow down, I didn’t want to just drop all of this in her lap.

“What? You were asleep the whole night, babe. I was up with Niko, and you were still in dreamland. What could’ve happened last night?”

I cleared my throat and calmed myself. “Something weird has been happening to me. Since before we got married, since before we even met. And it’s gonna sound crazy - like, completely unhinged - but I gotta tell you that I have proof. Like, actual proof that this is a real thing.” Her furrowed brow and bewildered expression made me want to hesitate, but I knew that I couldn’t possibly start with a line like that and not tell her what was occurring.

So I did. I told her everything. The mental health hospital, the long-term ward, the antiseptic smell, the countless stream of doctors and nurses, Lumberjack and Blondie, the bad coffee, the better coffee, my burnt fingers, and the self-inflicted cut on my hand. She stared at me, the disbelief battling with her inherent desire to trust me implicitly, the war between those feelings rendering her speechless.

“I swear, I am not crazy. Something is happening to me and I am either crossing worlds or dimensions or something, or I don’t know what else it could be. But darling, I swear to you that I am not making this up.”

She blinked a few times before finally speaking, “So you figured that hurting yourself was a good option…?”

“No, babe, no!” I protested. “If I wanted to really hurt myself I would’ve cut deeper. I mean, look!” I showed her my palm and the miniscule cut that I had made.

“OK, OK… So you’re not looking to hurt yourself, OK. OK. All right…”

I stared at her, my eyes doing the pleading. I needed her to believe me. Without that, I knew that my entire life would be a perpetual cycle of a pair of mental health wards. Bad enough that I was not with my wife while she slept, but to be away from her while she was awake, too…?

“OK. So this actually kinda makes sense… I mean, you’re just impossible to wake up in the middle of the night… And I know I haven’t mentioned it, since you’re so good during the day, and you have your commute to work, so I let you sleep…” I let her rattle off her reasons, allowing her to process her train of thought aloud. “But you just sleep through the baby monitor so much. I just thought you were just a deep sleeper…”

“Wait a sec, so I’m still here when I’m there?”

“Babe, don’t you think I would’ve noticed or said something if you were gone in the middle of the night?” I actually found myself laughing at the absurdity of my question and the obviousness of her answer.

“So… what do we do now?” Her question was not something that could be answered lightly or easily. We sat there, and for the first time since meeting her I felt awkward. Finally, she found her voice. “What if you did it again?”

“Did what?”

“You know… kinda hurt yourself, so that they can’t see it but you can. Just like you did here.”

I nodded. “It would be tricky, but I think I could do it at breakfast.”

“Good. At breakfast, then. Let’s figure this out, Jason. Together.”

Part 4: https://steemit.com/short-story/@phoenix32/i-only-want-to-close-my-eyes-half-of-the-time-part-4
Part 6: https://steemit.com/short-story/@phoenix32/i-only-want-to-close-my-eyes-half-of-the-time-part-6