She Will Be Loved

So this morning at 6:28, I woke up and was so afraid because of my nightmare. I laid in my bed for five minutes, then deciding that I can’t be alone, I got up and went to Erik’s room. When I got to his door, I pushed it open a crack and peered inside. He was still sleeping as I expected . I pushed the door open quietly, and crept over to his bedside.
“Erik… Erik.” I was shaking his shoulder lightly.
“Hmm..? Yeah??” he was tired, but not in a foul mood.
“I can’t sleep, and I’m afraid to be alone.” Truth being that I was afraid but I knew I was safe here now that things are done with Allison. I can stop being so scared. Erik can help me with that.
“Okay… grab some blankets. We’ll haul ‘em downstairs into the living room and sleep down there.” Thank you! That just made this a whole lot less awkward.
“Mhm.” I mumbled. We started grabbing blankets and pillows and we rushed downstairs.
We got settled on separate couches, and soon it started raining. It was still dark outside so it felt like it was midnight.
“Why couldn’t you sleep this time?” We heard the thunder roll across the sky.
“I had a bad dream..” lighting shot across the sky and the thunder almost sounded like a roar. The rain poured down on the giant, almost empty, house.
“What about?” Remaining lights that were on in the house were turned off by the power going out. “Do you not want to talk about it?”
“Well… in every dream… it’s pitch black, and there’s a white shadow. It keeps trying to keep me from doing anything. I’m chained half the time. One time…” I stopped, just stopped talking. I shouldn’t have said anything lead to this. It was about the dream where he said he loved me.
“What?” he pressed.
“One time… your voice was all I heard.”
“What’d I say?” the thunder sounded like it was right above us now.
“I uh… I don’t know. I can’t remember.” In all honesty I’d never forget it.
“Okay. So was this person, or thing, ever trying to hurt you?”
“Kind of. It always feels like they’re around.. especially when I wake up at night. It’s why I didn’t want to be alone. I never want to be alone.” I saw him nod understandingly. The lights flickered back on, and the rain died down. I was pretty sure neither of us were really going to fall back asleep this morning.
“Well I’m always here.” That’s always reassuring. I wonder if he’d still be here next year when I start senior year in high school.

It’s almost 2 pm now. Lizzy and James are over. We all have some soda. Lizzy has Coke and so does Erik. James and I have Mountain Dew because we’re awesome like that. I love Coke but right now I’m in the mood for the Dew.
So Joslin…” Lizzy began. I turned my head to look at her after taking a sip from my can. “James and I would like your permission to go to court to get the legal rights to adopt you… is that okay?” oh… my… god…
“Are you serious?? No joking!?”
“Not joking.” James added on. “We figured since all the crap you’ve been through in your life you deserve parents that actually care about you. That’s where we wanna fit in the puzzle.” I was utterly speechless.
“Holy crap… YES!!!” I jumped up and hugged James and Lizzy til they couldn’t breathe. Erik was laughing. “Of course! You guys are the best!” I can’t believe it. I was going to have a family. One that cared. I knew Lizzy really wanted a family, but it’s hard for her and James because of medical reasons. Everyone was going to be happy(er) now. I looked over at Erik who was glowing with joy. He knew they were going to say that. I saw it in his melting brown eyes. We ordered pizza to celebrate. Try catching this without falling back down. I was so happy. Everything was finally going right. Allison didn’t show up… and the skies were clear. And everything was good.