In that period of time I mentally call the Big Bad Hurt—April 2, 2006-December 2, 2007—I found myself in bed with a series of boys.  Always in bed, often through the night—but never sleeping.

Even after they would fall asleep—as they inevitably would—curled around me and snoozing like infants, I would lie awake for hours.  Crunched up in their arms, suffocating and guilty.  Hours and hours of staring at the ceiling, thinking too fast.

The mania didn’t help, as it never does.  It was an amalgam of factors, the natural loss of sleep I’d be getting when I was manic, added to the guilt and the suffocation.  I hate to be touched in my sleep and hate, even more, being cuddled when I’m tired.  A lifelong and unapologetic thumbsucker, I need to lie in a certain position to drift off.  But they never cared, never paid attention.  Just wrapped me up too tightly in their arms and dropped off, never caring if I joined them on that other side.

Except once, in the middle of the Big Bad Hurt—I got drunk in my house when my parents were away.  Joey and I weren’t “together”—we were on the break that would last from my birthday and for a little less than two weeks.  The same night I fell out of bed and he helped me back in.  Then let me turn on my side, like I prefer.  He didn’t wrap me up in octopus arms, but just let me be.  And calmly fell asleep beside me.

I woke up next to him the next morning, and I knew.  I knew that he was the one.  I knew that he was the person I was supposed to be with—after all, I’d fallen asleep with him.  Of all the boys I’d ended up in bed with, he was the only one who I could actually sleep with.

It takes a great deal of comfort, I guess, and a level of trust to fall asleep with someone.  With him, it was so natural, so unmanufactured.  I didn’t have to fake it with him. I never had to fake anything with him.

I was lucky, you know.  I was lucky that we made it through the Big Bad Hurt.  Truth be told, I’m lucky that he had the dedication to make it through.  That he stayed.

Every night, now, I get to drift off beside him, perfectly calm and sleepy.

And sometimes, when he’s staying at a friend’s house until late or staying up to play games on the computer, I fall asleep on his side of the bed, just so he’ll have to wake me up and move me over.  He wakes me up to move, and then I drop right back to sleep.  Just like then.  Just like always.  Perfectly calm.  Or, simply put, just perfect.