He gently kneels down and shakes her arm. “Summer? You’re gonna get cold out here.” He speaks softly.
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!”
Arthur sat back in his seat; he wasn’t sure what was going with Summer. She was acting so strangely, she was usually so bubbly, but never looking so lost and in pain. He couldn’t tell or guess what her eyes were screaming when he was talking to her, only that she was deeply frightened about something.
He wasn’t sure when he drifted off, but he did, chin resting against his chest as he had quiet sighs escaping. When he heard her shouts of no, Arthur was jolted awake and eyes wide from the sudden wake up. “Summer!” He shouted, reaching out for her arms and held them a bit. “Summer, it’s Arthur, you’re okay now, you’re okay.”
His hands. His hands were on her. She struggled, trying to wrench her arms away. “No, no, you mustn’t — don’t — !” The words tangled in her mouth, still partly caught up in the dream, in the horror of it.
And then it all came together in a flash.
Wide-eyed, she locked her gaze on Arthur, falling still. “I’m not supposed to be here.”