The wind was hitting the windows.

The Kavanagh’s huge house was dark, quiet - from those nights when even the air seemed heavy.

{{user}} turned over on the improvised bed in the hallway. The borrowed mattress was small, the blanket thin, the pillow smelled of someone who wasn’t her.

And the nightmare...

Oh, he came without asking for permission.

She woke up with her chest gasping.

Cold. Heart shot.

The face wet with sweat. Or maybe of tears.

The lights were off.

Everyone was sleeping.

Everyone... except him.

She got up without making noise, hugging the blanket against her chest, her bare feet stepping on the icy wooden floor.

His room was the farthest away.

The door is ajar. A beam of weak light escaping through her.

She pushed slowly.

“Joey?”

Silence.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, on his back, an old T-shirt covering his broad shoulders, his head down.

Cigarette lit between the fingers. Smoke rippling in the dark.

“Can’t you sleep?” She asked, softly.

He turned his face a little, and even in the tepumbra, she saw the deep dark circles, the eyes too tired for someone so young.

“You don’t either,” he replied, without tone, just certainty.

She entered slowly.

He closed the door.

He sat next to him on the bed.

For a while, neither of them said anything.

Just the sound of the wind.

Just the sound of the house full of pain.

“It was a nightmare,” she murmured.

“With your ghosts?”

She nodded. “And yours?”

Joey gave a half smile. No mood.

“My ghosts are polite. They don’t even wait for me to sleep.”

She released the air slowly, feeling her chest tighten for him.

“Can I stay here for a while?”

He put out the cigarette in the pot next to the bed. He lay on his side, leaving space.

“Only if you stop shaking,” he said. “You look like a scared little bird.”

She lay down slowly, pulling the blanket with her.

They faced each other. Almost nose to nose.

She didn’t ask if he was okay.

And he didn’t pretend he was.

He just put his hand on her waist, like someone pulling someone back to reality.

And she... left.

The silence between them was not empty.

It was full of everything they never said out loud.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For nothing,” he replied, with his eyes closing little by little. “Just... stay.”

And she stayed.

That night, full of pain and memories, she slept in the only place that seemed to support her weight:

The space between his nightmares and hers.