He gently kneels down and shakes her arm. “Summer? You’re gonna get cold out here.” He speaks softly.
“No, I — ” Her head hurt. She couldn’t think. Arthur couldn’t leave; she needed him to stay. Why? She reached up, running a hand down Arthur’s arm.“I don’t know.”
Arthur pulled back for a second, grabbing a chair and placing it right next to Summer’s bed. “There, now I am here and you can try to sleep.”
Obediently she closed her eyes, arms folded on top of the coverlet, trying to relax. The question nagged at her brain, though.
Why did she need Arthur? Why had she gone looking for him?
After a few minutes, she rolled over onto her side, long braid sliding off the side of the bed. The ache of her head grew worse the more she pressed at the question, until involuntary tears started in her eyes. She ignored them, though, still worrying,
How long she lay there until exhaustion pushed her into a shallow sleep, she didn’t know. But she woke up with a rush from an overwhelming dream — Arthur and herself, and someone else she had forced away from Arthur, someone who was supposed to be there. And the terrible sense of something broken irreparably.
“No!”