The first time it happened, I almost missed it.
I had been asleep in the heavy, dreamless way that only happens after twelve hours of moving boxes in a warehouse.
My shoulders still seemed to remember every pound I had lifted that day.
My alarm was set for six.
At 2:17 in the morning, I was somewhere deep enough that time no longer had edges.
Then I heard footsteps.
Light.
Barely there.
The soft brush of bare feet against cheap laminate flooring.
My eyes opened before the rest of me understood why.
Old reflex.
I lay still and listened.
The room was dark, but not completely.
The vinyl blinds never closed properly, and orange streetlight slipped through the gaps in thin horizontal lines.
Another step.
Then a soft thud.
Someone had bumped into the bathroom doorframe.
A woman muttered something too quietly for me to understand.
Then came the familiar creak of the hallway floorboard.
The one I had promised myself I would fix.
The one that somehow produced the same low note every time somebody stepped on it.
I sat up.
The digital clock beside my bed read 2:17.
For several seconds, I wondered if Emma had gotten sick.
She had moved into the apartment only three weeks earlier.
We were not friends exactly.
Not yet.
She had answered my roommate ad after my previous roommate left for another city, and she arrived with two suitcases, a coffee maker, and the kind of exhausted smile people use when they do not want strangers asking whether they are okay.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
The floor felt cold.
I wore an old gray T-shirt with a hole near the collar and sweatpants I had probably owned too long.
My bedroom door was already open.
I always left it that way.
Habit.
I stepped into the hallway.
Emma stood in the middle of it.
At first, I thought she was awake.
Her eyes were open.
Then I looked more closely.
She was swaying slightly.
Her brown hair hung loose around her shoulders in tangled waves.
She wore an oversized shirt with faded lettering across the front.
Her feet were bare.
Dark red polish chipped across her toenails.
But it was her eyes that told me something was wrong.
Open, but unfocused.
Looking without seeing.
Her lips moved.
No clear words.
She took one step.
Then another.
Her arms hung loosely at her sides.
Her fingers twitched.
I did not call her name.
Somewhere, sometime, I had heard that startling a sleepwalker was a bad idea.
Whether I remembered that perfectly did not matter.
I knew enough not to grab her suddenly.
Instead, I moved slowly into the hallway and stood several feet in front of her.
Emma kept walking.
Straight into me.
The impact was gentle.
She had almost no momentum.
Her hands rose automatically and rested flat against my chest.
Then she blinked slowly.
Once.
Twice.
Like a camera trying to focus in bad light.
“Too dark,” she murmured.
I stayed still.
“Can’t find…”
Her forehead tightened.
“Can’t find the…”
“It’s okay,” I said.
My voice came out low.
“You’re home.”
Emma did not react.
“You’re safe.”
Her fingers curled slightly into the fabric of my shirt.
Then she leaned forward.
Not intentionally, I thought.
Just enough that I felt a tremor moving through her.
A fine shaking under the surface.
I had seen people shiver from cold.
This was not quite that.
“You’re in the hallway,” I told her. “Your room is over there. Let’s get you back to bed.”
I placed one hand lightly on her shoulder.
Nothing more.
Then I turned her.
She followed without resistance.
One slow step.
Then another.
We reached her bedroom.
The door was open.
A small lamp burned on the nightstand, casting warm yellow light over the room.
Emma’s room had looked half-unpacked since the day she arrived.
Papers stacked across the desk.
Clothes hanging over the back of a chair.
Coffee mugs on almost every flat surface.
A tiny succulent on the windowsill.
Two suitcases against the wall.
No photographs.
No posters.
Nothing that told me anything about the life she had lived before answering my ad.
She had been in the apartment three weeks, and the plant was still somehow alive.
That seemed to be her greatest domestic achievement.
I guided her toward the bed.
Emma sat down heavily.
Her body folded as if someone had cut the strings holding it upright.
I pulled the blanket over her legs.
Then I started to leave.
That was when I heard her whisper.
“Can’t do it all.”
I stopped.
Her eyes remained open.
Still not really seeing the room.
“Everyone thinks I can…”
Her voice became smaller.
“But I’m so tired.”
She swallowed.
“I’m so…”
The sentence broke.
A tear slid down her cheek.
It caught the light from the lamp.
I stood there feeling suddenly intrusive.
This was not a conversation.
Emma was asleep.
Whatever she was saying belonged to whatever part of her mind was still moving when the rest of her could not.
I should not listen.
I knew that.
Still, I heard the next words.
“I’m trying.”
Something tightened in my chest.
I barely knew this woman.
She was my roommate.
That was supposed to be the entire relationship.
Three weeks earlier, she had answered the Craigslist ad I posted after deciding I could no longer afford the apartment alone.
Her first phone call had been strange.
“Is the room still available?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Does the building have an elevator?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Okay.”
“You have a lot of furniture?”
“No.”
She had sounded breathless, as though she had climbed stairs just to make the call.
When she came to see the place, she arrived ten minutes early.
Emma was twenty-eight.
At least that was what she wrote on the rental paperwork.
She wore jeans, sneakers, and a navy jacket despite the day being warmer than necessary for one.
She walked through the apartment quickly.
Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Bedroom.
Windows.
Closet.
She asked sensible questions.
Rent.
Utilities.
Laundry.
Neighbors.
Parking.
Then she stood in what would become her bedroom and looked at the empty walls.
“I’ll take it.”
“You don’t want to think about it?”
“No.”
I remember laughing.
“You haven’t even asked whether I’m secretly terrible.”
That was when she gave me that smile.
The one that almost reached her eyes.
“I’m assuming secretly terrible people don’t advertise the broken garbage disposal.”
I liked her immediately.
Not romantically.
There was nothing romantic about it.
I needed half the rent.
Emma needed a room.
We agreed on basic rules.
Clean up after yourself.
Text if someone was coming over.
Replace whatever food you finished.
No smoking inside.
Do not wake me before coffee unless the building was on fire.
Emma added one of her own.
“If I fall asleep on the couch, leave me there.”
I thought she was joking.
“You worried I’m going to carry you around the apartment?”
She looked embarrassed.
“No. I just sleep weird sometimes.”
That was the first warning.
I did not recognize it.
The first few weeks were easy.
Emma left early most mornings.
She worked in some kind of office job she described only as “project management.”
Her phone seemed permanently attached to her hand.
Emails at breakfast.
Calls in the hallway.
Messages while she brushed her teeth.
She bought coffee in quantities that seemed medically irresponsible.
I worked warehouse shifts.
Our schedules overlapped mostly in the evenings.
Sometimes I came home and found her at the kitchen table with her laptop open and papers spread around her.
Sometimes she was there when I left in the morning too.
“You ever sleep?” I asked once.
She did not look up.
“On federal holidays.”
Another time, I came home near midnight and found her asleep sitting upright on the couch.
Laptop open.
Glasses crooked.
One hand still resting on the keyboard.
I remembered her rule.
So I left her there.
The next morning, she apologized.
“For what?”
“I fell asleep in the living room.”
“You pay rent too.”
She stared at me for half a second.
Then said, “Right.”
Like that possibility had genuinely not occurred to her.
I noticed things after that.
Emma apologized constantly.
For leaving a cup in the sink.
For taking too long in the bathroom.
For using the washing machine when I came home.
For talking on the phone in the kitchen.
None of those things bothered me.
Still, she apologized.
I assumed she was simply anxious.
Then came 2:17 in the morning.
I stood beside her bed while she whispered words she would almost certainly never have said awake.
I’m trying.
I looked toward the doorway.
Then back at her.
“Emma.”
I said her name quietly.
No response.
I pulled the blanket higher.
Her breathing began to slow.
The tension in her hands relaxed.
I switched off the lamp.
Then I went back to my room.
I did not sleep much afterward.
At breakfast, Emma appeared at 6:40 wearing black pants, a cream blouse, and an expression suggesting she had been awake for hours.
She poured coffee.
“Morning.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She looked down at herself.
“Do I have toothpaste on my shirt?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
I hesitated.
I did not know how to tell somebody she had walked through the apartment in her sleep and cried in front of me.
“Do you sleepwalk?”
The coffee stopped halfway to her mouth.
That was answer enough.
“Why?”
“You were in the hallway last night.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“Oh.”
“You knew?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“It hasn’t happened in a while.”
She put the mug down.
“What did I do?”
“You walked into me.”
Her eyes widened.
“I what?”
“Literally. You walked into my chest.”
Color rose into her face.
“Oh my God.”
“You were asleep.”
“I know what sleepwalking means, Jack.”
That almost made me smile.
She did not.
“What else?”
“You let me take you back to your room.”
“That’s it?”
I paused.
Emma noticed immediately.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing important.”
That was a lie.
She knew it.
I could tell.
But she did not push.
Instead, she wrapped both hands around the coffee mug.
“I’m sorry.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“You apologizing.”
“I walked into your bedroom area in the middle of the night.”
“You walked through the hallway.”
“Still.”
“You were unconscious.”
“I wasn’t unconscious.”
“You know what I mean.”
Emma looked uncomfortable.
Then she asked:
“Did I scare you?”
“No.”
Another lie.
Not because I thought she was dangerous.
Because seeing somebody moving around with their eyes open while clearly asleep is deeply unsettling at two in the morning.
She nodded.
“I’ll lock my door.”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“No?”
“What if you try to walk through it?”
Emma stared at me.
I had not meant it as a joke.
Apparently she could tell.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said.
Then she took her coffee and left for work.
I thought that would be the end of it.
It was not.
Three nights later, I woke to the hallway floorboard again.
This time I checked the clock first.
1:53.
I got up.
Emma stood near the kitchen.
She had opened one cabinet and was staring into it.
“Emma?”
No response.
I approached carefully.
She whispered something.
“What?”
“Late.”
Her hands moved anxiously.
“Too late.”
“For what?”
I immediately regretted asking.
This was not a conversation.
Emma turned away from the cabinet.
She walked toward me.
I guided her back to bed.
The next morning, she remembered nothing.
A week passed.
Then it happened again.
Each time, the same pattern.
Emma seemed more likely to sleepwalk after especially long workdays.
She would move through the apartment looking for something.
A door.
A bag.
Her phone.
Something that existed only inside the dream.
I never asked questions while she was asleep after that second night.
I simply made sure she did not fall.
I moved a small table away from the hallway.
Fixed the floorboard.
Put a night-light near the bathroom.
Emma noticed.
“You fixed the floor.”
“Finally.”
“And that?”
She pointed at the night-light.
“I’m becoming afraid of the dark.”
She looked at me.
Neither of us believed that.
But she let the excuse stand.
Then came the night she climbed into my bed.
It happened nearly a month after the first episode.
I had worked late.
Emma had been in the kitchen when I came home, staring at her laptop while talking to someone through a headset.
“No,” she said sharply. “I understand the deadline.”
Pause.
“No. I said I’ll handle it.”
Another pause.
“I know.”
She looked exhausted.
I raised one hand as I passed.
She barely acknowledged me.
I showered.
Went to bed.
Sometime after three, the mattress shifted.
I woke instantly.
For half a second, I thought I was dreaming.
Then a knee pressed into the mattress near my feet.
I reached toward the lamp.
Stopped.
Emma.
She was climbing into the bed.
Not seductively.
Not consciously.
She moved like someone following a route only she could see.
“Emma.”
Nothing.
She crawled beneath the blanket.
Then lay down on the far side of the mattress.
I did not move.
My heart was pounding for reasons that were half alarm and half complete confusion.
Her back faced me.
She curled onto her side.
Then whispered:
“Just five minutes.”
I stared at the ceiling.
This was officially beyond anything Craigslist had prepared me for.
“Emma.”
She shifted.
“Please.”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Just let me sleep.”
I swallowed.
Then I understood something.
She had not climbed into my bed because she thought it was mine.
In whatever dream she was having, she had found somewhere she believed was safe enough to stop.
That realization changed the entire moment.
I got out of the bed.
Slowly.
Quietly.
I took the blanket from the chair and slept on the couch.
The next morning, Emma found me there.
She stood over me holding a coffee mug.
“Why are you sleeping on the couch?”
I opened one eye.
“You stole my bed.”
She laughed.
Then stopped.
Her face went completely still.
“Jack.”
“Morning.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“I am not joking.”
“Oh my God.”
“You say that a lot lately.”
She put the mug down.
“I got into your bed?”
“Yep.”
“While I was asleep?”
“I’m hoping so.”
She covered her face with both hands.
I sat up.
“Emma.”
“This is horrifying.”
“You stayed on your side.”
“That is not the point.”
“I know.”
“What did you do?”
“Came out here.”
Her hands lowered.
“You slept on the couch?”
“Seemed less awkward than explaining why I was throwing a sleeping woman out of my room.”
She stared at me.
Then her expression changed.
Something softer.
“You could have woken me.”
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
Emma looked away.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “My ex used to wake me.”
I stayed quiet.
It was the first personal fact she had offered voluntarily.
“He hated the sleepwalking,” she continued. “Said it made him nervous.”
I waited.
“He’d shake me.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Sometimes yell.”
“That sounds helpful.”
A faint smile appeared.
“It wasn’t.”
She sat in the chair opposite the couch.
“I started sleepwalking in college. Mostly when I was stressed.”
“Have you talked to anyone about it?”
“Yes.”
That answer came fast.
Then, softer:
“A while ago.”
I nodded.
I was not going to turn into her doctor.
That was not what she needed from me.
Emma studied her hands.
“I’m sorry I climbed into your bed.”
“You were asleep.”
“I still did it.”
“You also tried to find something in an empty cabinet last week. I’m not holding that against you either.”
Her head snapped up.
“You never told me that.”
“Because you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Something happened to her face then.
Small.
Almost invisible.
But I had begun noticing her too.
The way she reacted when kindness arrived without a price.
As if she did not trust it yet.
That morning, we made a practical plan.
We cleared the hallway.
Emma moved anything sharp or breakable away from easy reach.
She agreed to take the sleepwalking seriously again instead of pretending it had disappeared.
And I promised that if I found her wandering, I would guide her somewhere safe without interrogating her.
Simple.
Reasonable.
Roommate rules.
Except something had already changed.
I knew things about Emma she had never consciously told me.
Not secrets exactly.
Pressure.
Exhaustion.
The way she whispered that everyone expected too much.
The way her sleeping mind searched for somewhere safe enough to rest.
I never repeated those words to her.
They were not mine.
But I started noticing her waking life differently.
The phone calls.
The midnight emails.
The untouched dinners.
The coffee.
The apologies.
One Friday, I came home and found her sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop closed.
That alone was unusual.
She looked at me.
“I quit.”
I stopped.
“Your job?”
She nodded.
“Today.”
“Okay.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. That I’m irresponsible?”
“Do you have rent?”
“Yes.”
“Food?”
“Yes.”
“A plan?”
“A vague one.”
“That’s better than most people.”
Emma laughed.
Then unexpectedly started crying.
Not dramatically.
Tears simply appeared.
I stood there holding my work gloves, feeling useless.
“Bad time for a joke?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She wiped her face.
“I kept waiting for somebody to tell me I was allowed to stop.”
That sentence hurt.
Because I remembered the first night.
Can’t do it all.
Everyone thinks I can.
I’m so tired.
I put my gloves on the counter.
“You don’t need permission from me.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“But thank you.”
That night, Emma slept straight through.
So did I.
The sleepwalking did not disappear permanently.
But it became less frequent.
The apartment changed too.
Photographs eventually appeared in Emma’s room.
Her mother.
A younger Emma at graduation.
Friends.
A dog she had loved as a kid.
The suitcases disappeared from the wall.
She bought another plant.
It died within nine days.
The first succulent remained alive out of pure spite.
Months passed.
We became friends in a way neither of us planned.
Real friends.
The kind who knew what groceries the other forgot.
Who could recognize a bad day by the sound of a key in the door.
Nothing dramatic happened.
That mattered.
Trust rarely arrived in big speeches with Emma.
It arrived through routine.
One night, nearly six months after she moved in, I woke because the mattress dipped beside me.
My eyes opened.
Emma was there again.
Sleepwalking.
She had climbed into bed and curled up on the far side exactly as before.
I looked at the clock.
2:21.
Then I looked at her.
Her breathing was slow.
No tears.
No whispered panic.
No trembling.
Just sleep.
I got up.
Reached for the spare blanket.
Then stopped.
Emma murmured something.
I leaned closer despite myself.
“Safe.”
One word.
That was all.
I stood beside the bed for a long moment.
Then I went to the couch.
The next morning, Emma appeared in the doorway.
She looked from me to the blanket.
Then toward my bedroom.
“Oh no.”
“Yep.”
“I did it again?”
“Yep.”
She groaned and covered her face.
Then something made her pause.
“Did I say anything?”
I thought about the question.
Months earlier, I would have protected every sleeping word from her.
This one felt different.
“You said one word.”
Emma waited.
“Safe.”
Her hands slowly lowered.
For a few seconds, she could not speak.
Then she looked toward my bedroom.
