I’ve always believed that the human brain, for all its complexities, is essentially a collection of patterns—neurons firing in familiar loops, chemistry cycling through predictable rhythms. But I’ve also learned that when love enters the equation, those patterns collapse into something unpredictable. Something that makes less sense. Something that rewrites all the rules I used to think I understood.

You don’t sleep. Not really. Not well. And not for very long.

The first time I noticed it was early on—too early, probably, for me to say anything without sounding intrusive. But I did notice. The slight hesitation in your blink when you thought I wasn’t looking. The way your body slouched more than it should have, given the hour. The yawn you stifled behind a hand early in the day.

You laughed when I pointed it out. “What, are you keeping notes on me, Doctor Reid?”

“No,” I replied, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “Just… observing. It’s what I do.”

Eventually, you told me about the insomnia. The kind that doesn’t come from caffeine or poor bedtime routines but from thoughts that grow claws in the dark and scratch at the walls of your mind. I didn’t know what to say. I know the science, the neurological causes, the statistics. But when it came to you? Facts didn’t help. Facts couldn’t hold you through the night.

So I started reading to you.

The first night, I brought ‘The Little Prince’. You scoffed at first, playfully, until you heard me read the lines aloud. I sat beside you on the couch, book open, your head leaning ever-so-slightly against my shoulder.

“‘One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’”

You were silent. I turned the page. When I glanced over, your eyes were closed. Your lips parted slightly, like you’d just finished a sentence and forgotten to keep speaking.

You didn’t sleep long that night. But you slept. And that was a start.

Since then, it’s become our ritual—me, with a book in hand; you, curled up under one of my old cardigans you refuse to give back; the dim glow of a lamp pooling golden light on your face. Sometimes you fall asleep halfway through a paragraph. Other times, I read for hours and you’re still staring at the ceiling, lost somewhere I can’t follow.

“I’m sorry,” you’ll whisper, eyes glassy. “I’m trying.”

“I know,” I say. “You don’t have to apologize.”

You carry guilt for things you can’t control, and it breaks my heart. I’ve told you a hundred times: it’s not your fault. Insomnia is merciless, and I’ve seen how it wears on you. The purple shadows under your eyes, the way your words slow down by mid-morning like your brain is wading through water. You’re strong, but I hate that you have to be. I hate that rest—something so simple, so natural—is a battle for you every night.

Sometimes I wish I could crawl inside your mind, not to fix it, but to understand what keeps you awake. To sit beside whatever fears or memories linger in the dark and gently, gently guide them out. But all I can do is be here. With you. For you.

“I love your voice,” you told me once, sleepily, after I read you a poem by Neruda. “It’s like… static. Not the annoying kind. The kind that makes everything else go quiet.”

I smiled at that. Not just because of the compliment, but because you found something comforting in me, in this jumbled mess of neurons and quirks and too many degrees.

So I keep reading. Sometimes it’s classic literature, sometimes it’s mystery novels, sometimes it’s poetry. I even tried reading you sections of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders once. You fell asleep, surprisingly, though I think that was more about exhaustion than the DSM.

We haven’t cured it. Not yet. But every hour you sleep, every morning you wake up looking just a little less haunted, feels like a small victory. And I’ll keep fighting this battle beside you, one book, one word, one whispered “goodnight” at a time.

Because the truth is, your sleep matters more to me than mine ever will.