The first time I found my neighbor sleepwalking, she was standing barefoot in the freezing grass between our houses.
The second time, she somehow got inside my home.
At midnight, I woke to the mattress shifting beside me.
Emma Reed silently lay down next to me, eyes open but unfocused, her skin cold from the night air.
Then she whispered four words that changed everything.
“Please don’t leave me alone.”
My name is Nolan Mercer.
I’m twenty-nine years old, and I work at a distribution warehouse on the edge of town.
Twelve-hour shifts.
Boxes.
Pallets.
Scanners.
Truck trailers that somehow feel twenty degrees hotter or colder than the weather outside.
By the time I get home, my shoulders usually feel like somebody replaced them with concrete.
I live alone in a small rental house at the end of a quiet street.
Nothing fancy.
Two bedrooms, though I use the second one mostly for laundry and things I swear I’ll organize someday.
A narrow kitchen.
A back porch that leans slightly to one side.
Enough space to shower, sleep, and recover before doing everything again.
The house next door belongs to Emma.
She’s thirty and works in marketing for a mid-sized company downtown.
We had been neighbors for almost three years.
At first, she was simply the woman next door.
We waved over the fence.
Took in each other’s packages when rain was coming.
Dragged trash bins back from the curb on windy mornings.
Small things.
Nothing important until you realize small things are usually how people quietly become part of your life.
A hinge on Emma’s back gate came loose one spring.
I fixed it.
A week later, she left banana bread on my porch.
My porch light burned out.
She noticed before I did and texted to ask whether I needed a bulb.
I changed hers a month later.
She started leaving a bag of coffee beans on my doorstep once in a while because she knew I left for work before sunrise.
Once her orange cat, Milo, got onto my roof.
Nobody ever figured out how.
Emma stood underneath calling his name like he was a toddler hanging from a bridge.
I climbed up with a ladder.
Milo looked at me.
Looked at Emma.
Then jumped onto the porch roof and walked down by himself.
Emma laughed so hard she had to sit on the grass.
That was who she used to be.
Not loud.
Not the person who demanded attention.
Just easy to be around.
She could make the street feel less empty.
Some evenings, when I came home, she would be watering plants near the fence.
I would stop for five minutes.
Five became twenty.
She would tell me about some client who had changed a campaign for the sixth time.
I would tell her about a pallet collapsing thirty minutes before the end of my shift.
She killed plants constantly.
Bought replacements constantly.
Refused to admit there might be a connection.
Every now and then, I found notes taped to my door.
Your package is at my place. Don’t leave it out. Rain tonight.
Or:
Milo tried to break into your shed. I deny responsibility.
We were close in a way that was difficult to name.
Not dating.
Not exactly friends in the way people usually mean it.
We did not make plans every weekend.
We did not know each other’s entire histories.
We were simply two people who happened to live beside each other and had slowly stopped feeling like strangers.
Then, about six months ago, Emma changed.
Again, not dramatically.
There was no single day when I looked across the yard and thought something had happened.
The conversations just became shorter.
Her porch stayed dark.
The notes stopped appearing.
When I saw her outside, she smiled, but it looked practiced.
She began working later.
A few times I woke around one in the morning for water and saw light behind her living-room curtains.
Her silhouette would be bent over the laptop.
Then at 7:30 the next morning, I would see her leaving for work with a travel mug in her hand.
Dark circles beneath her eyes.
Same answer whenever I asked.
“I’m fine.”
There had been two weeks when she disappeared completely.
Family business, she said afterward.
That was all.
I did not push.
Adults are allowed to have parts of their lives that do not belong to their neighbors.
Still, I noticed.
The way she checked her phone and immediately turned it facedown.
The way she startled when a car slowed near her house.
The way her front curtains stayed closed even on bright afternoons.
She moved like someone carrying something heavy but determined not to let anybody see her drop it.
One evening I got home after dark and found her beside her car struggling with a cardboard box.
She had managed to drag it halfway from the trunk before the bottom started sagging.
I crossed the lawn.
“Hold up.”
“I’ve got it.”
“You absolutely do not.”
Normally she would have argued.
That night she stepped aside.
I lifted the box.
It was heavier than I expected.
“What do you have in here, bricks?”
“Basically.”
I carried it inside.
Her living room looked nothing like the tidy place I remembered.
Laptop open.
Cold coffee on the table.
Sticky notes everywhere.
Folders stacked near the couch.
Another box against the wall.
The one I carried contained old notebooks, files, envelopes, and several framed photographs turned facedown.
I set it beside her desk.
Emma looked embarrassed.
“Sorry about the mess.”
“Not my house.”
She folded her arms.
“I’ve been a little overwhelmed lately.”
There was an opening there.
I could have asked what was wrong.
I almost did.
Instead, I said, “If you need help moving anything else, just say the word.”
She nodded.
“Thank you.”
The next morning, a small box of cookies was sitting on my doorstep.
A note rested on top.
Thanks for yesterday.
I ate every one after work.
They were dry enough that I needed half a glass of milk with each cookie, but I ate them anyway.
When I saw her later, I told her they were good.
She smiled.
A tired, distant little smile.
“Liar.”
“Warehouse workers have low standards.”
That got half a laugh.
For a moment, she looked like the old Emma.
Then her phone buzzed.
Her expression shut down.
She went inside.
After that, I started paying closer attention.
Not because I was curious.
Because something in my chest kept telling me not to look away completely.
The first real warning came on a cold night in late fall.
I had finished a brutal shift, eaten cereal directly from the bowl while standing over the sink, and gone to bed before ten.
Sometime later, a sound woke me.
Metal.
A slow creak.
At first, I thought wind had caught my back gate.
Then came another sound.
Soft footsteps on the brick path between the houses.
I sat up.
My bedroom window faced Emma’s side yard.
I pulled the curtain aside.
She was standing outside.
Barefoot.
Loose nightgown.
Hair tangled.
The temperature had dropped close to freezing.
For a second, I thought something had happened.
Then I saw her face.
Eyes open.
But empty.
Not looking at anything.
I pulled on sweatpants and shoes and went outside.
“Emma?”
No reaction.
I stopped several feet from her.
I had heard you were not supposed to frighten a sleepwalker.
I did not know if that was actually true, but startling someone standing barefoot in the cold seemed like a bad idea either way.
I kept my voice low.
“Emma, you’re outside.”
She turned her head slowly.
Not toward me exactly.
More like my voice had moved through a dream.
“It’s okay.”
She took another step.
Her bare foot landed on frozen brick.
I winced just looking at it.
“Let’s get you inside.”
I did not grab her.
I moved beside her and quietly guided her toward her back door.
It was open.
That scared me.
Not wide.
Just enough.
Apparently she had walked out without shutting it.
Milo sat inside staring at us as though this was yet another example of humans failing at basic tasks.
Emma entered.
I followed only far enough to make sure she did not turn around and walk outside again.
She moved toward the couch.
Then stopped.
“Emma?”
Nothing.
She sat.
I found a blanket on the chair and placed it around her shoulders.
She pulled it close without looking at me.
Then, suddenly, she whispered something.
I leaned closer.
“What?”
Her lips moved.
“Don’t…”
Then silence.
“Don’t what?”
She lay down.
Within minutes, her breathing deepened.
I stood there feeling like I had crossed some invisible line.
This was my neighbor’s house.
She was asleep.
I had no business staying.
But leaving immediately felt wrong too.
I checked the doors.
Locked them.
Turned off the kitchen light.
Then went home.
The next morning, I waited until I saw her outside.
“Hey.”
Emma lifted one hand.
“Morning.”
“You sleep okay?”
She gave me an odd look.
“Why?”
“You were outside last night.”
Her face emptied.
“What?”
“In the yard.”
She stared at me.
“Barefoot.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
I explained.
The gate.
The open door.
The couch.
With every sentence, more color left her face.
“You don’t remember any of it?”
“No.”
She rubbed one hand along her arm.
“I used to sleepwalk when I was little.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know. My mom said I grew out of it.”
“Well, apparently you’ve got a reunion tour.”
Normally that would have earned a laugh.
It did not.
She looked toward her house.
“Did I say anything?”
That question was too immediate.
I noticed.
“A couple words.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t make it out.”
That was not entirely true.
I had heard don’t.
But I did not know what it meant.
Emma looked relieved anyway.
Then embarrassed.
“I’m sorry.”
“For sleepwalking?”
“For you having to deal with it.”
“You didn’t schedule it.”
She smiled faintly.
“I’ll lock the door better.”
I frowned.
“You walked through the door while asleep. A better lock only helps if you somehow lock yourself in.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
She went inside.
For the next week, nothing happened.
Then I found her asleep on her own porch at three in the morning.
The week after that, I heard her back gate again.
This time she was walking toward the street.
I stopped her before she reached the sidewalk.
The episodes were getting worse.
So was Emma.
She started forgetting things.
She left groceries in her car overnight.
Put her mailbox key in my mailbox.
One morning, she knocked on my door before work because she could not find her phone.
I called it.
It rang from her coat pocket.
She laughed.
Then unexpectedly started crying.
Not loud.
No dramatic collapse.
Tears simply filled her eyes.
She wiped them angrily.
“Sorry.”
“Emma.”
“I haven’t been sleeping.”
“I noticed.”
She looked at me.
“There’s a shock.”
“You should talk to somebody.”
“I have.”
“A doctor?”
Her hesitation answered.
I leaned against the doorframe.
“Then what did they say?”
“Stress.”
“Just stress?”
“Trauma can trigger sleep problems.”
The word caught me.
“Trauma?”
Emma looked away.
“I’m late for work.”
She left before I could ask anything else.
That night, I found myself thinking about the boxes.
The turned-down photographs.
The two weeks of “family business.”
Trauma.
There was a story there.
I had no right to demand it.
But suddenly the sleepwalking felt less random.
A few nights later, we had our first heavy freeze.
I texted Emma before bed.
Lock your doors. If you decide to sleepwalk tonight, at least wear socks.
She sent back:
Very funny.
Then, a minute later:
Thank you for checking.
I went to sleep around eleven.
At 12:14, according to my clock, I woke because something moved in my bedroom.
I did not understand it at first.
My brain registered weight.
Mattress shifting.
A person.
I turned.
Emma was beside me.
My entire body locked.
She was wearing a long sweatshirt over sleep pants.
Bare feet again.
Her hair fell across one side of her face.
Her eyes were open.
Unfocused.
She had somehow crossed the space between our houses and entered mine.
I sat up slowly.
“Emma?”
She did not react.
She lowered herself beside me.
Not romantically.
Not consciously.
Like a frightened child seeking the closest safe place her sleeping mind remembered.
Then she curled slightly toward me.
Her hand touched my sleeve.
She whispered, “Please don’t leave me alone.”
The words were clear this time.
I stopped breathing.
“Emma?”
Her grip tightened.
“Please.”
I looked toward the bedroom door.
My front door had been locked.
I was certain of it.
Then I remembered the spare key.
Months earlier, I had given one to Emma after locking myself out before a shift.
She still had it.
Apparently some part of her sleeping brain remembered too.
I kept my voice low.
“I’m here.”
Emma shivered.
Her feet were freezing.
I pulled the comforter over her without touching anything else.
“You’re safe.”
Her breathing changed.
Slower.
But then she said another word.
A name.
“Ben.”
I stared at her.
I had never heard the name before.
“Who’s Ben?”
Emma’s face tightened.
Even asleep, she looked afraid.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“No, don’t go.”
I stayed still.
“It’s okay.”
“Don’t get in the car.”
My chest tightened.
She was not speaking to me.
She was somewhere else.
Some other night.
Some other memory.
“Emma.”
Tears leaked from the corners of her open eyes.
“Ben, please.”
I did not know what to do.
Wake her?
Let her sleep?
Call someone?
I chose the least intrusive thing I could think of.
I reached for my phone.
Not to record her.
To check the time and keep it nearby in case she became disoriented or tried to leave again.
Then Emma abruptly sat up.
Her eyes moved around the room.
For one second, I thought she was awake.
She looked at me.
“Nolan?”
“Yes.”
Her expression filled with confusion.
Then horror.
She looked at the bed.
At herself.
At me.
“Oh my God.”
She scrambled backward.
“Emma, wait.”
“How did I get here?”
“You walked.”
“What?”
“You used the spare key.”
Her face went white.
“I came into your house?”
“You were sleepwalking.”
She stood too quickly.
The room seemed to tilt under her.
I got up.
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“You’re freezing.”
“I need to go.”
“Emma.”
“I’m sorry.”
She moved toward the door.
Then stopped.
Her shoulders shook.
I could not tell whether she was cold or crying.
“You said a name.”
She froze.
I regretted it immediately.
But it was too late.
“Ben.”
Emma did not turn.
For several seconds, the only sound was the furnace.
Then she whispered, “What did I say?”
“You asked him not to leave.”
Her shoulders dropped.
“And?”
“You told him not to get in the car.”
That was when she sat down.
Not gracefully.
Her knees seemed to stop holding her.
She lowered herself onto the edge of the chair near my dresser and covered her face.
I waited.
Finally she said, “Ben was my brother.”
The words came muffled through her hands.
I stayed quiet.
“He died six months ago.”
Everything clicked into place at once.
The two missing weeks.
The family business.
The boxes.
The pictures turned facedown.
The insomnia.
Her changed personality.
“I’m sorry.”
Emma laughed once.
A broken sound.
“That’s what everybody says.”
I did not know what else to say.
So I said nothing.
She lowered her hands.
Her eyes were red.
“He was twenty-six.”
I sat on the edge of the bed across from her.
“What happened?”
For a moment, I thought she would refuse.
Instead, she looked toward the floor.
“He called me.”
“When?”
“The night he died.”
My stomach tightened.
“He was upset.”
“About what?”
“He’d been drinking.”
Emma swallowed.
“We had an argument earlier that week. Stupid family stuff. Money. Our dad. Things that shouldn’t matter now.”
She rubbed her palms together.
“That night he called and said he was leaving a bar.”
“I told him not to drive.”
The bedroom became very still.
“I told him I’d come get him.”
She looked at me.
“He said he was fine.”
I already knew where the story was going.
“I kept him on the phone.”
Her voice broke.
“I thought if I kept talking, he wouldn’t start the car.”
“What happened?”
“The call ended.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“I called back.”
No answer.
“Again.”
Nothing.
“I should have called the police.”
“Nobody knows what they should have done when they’re inside the moment.”
“I knew he was drunk.”
“You also offered to pick him up.”
“I should have done more.”
There was no useful argument against grief.
Grief builds its own courtroom.
Same evidence.
Same accusation.
Night after night.
Emma looked toward the window.
“He crashed ten minutes later.”
I exhaled.
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“No.”
She wiped her cheek.
“Just him.”
I wondered whether that answer comforted her.
Probably not.
“The last thing I said before the call dropped was, ‘Don’t get in the car.’”
Now I understood the sleepwalking.
Not medically.
Not fully.
But emotionally.
Her mind was returning to the point where she believed one different sentence might have changed the outcome.
“Why didn’t you tell anybody?”
“I told people he died.”
“I mean what it’s doing to you.”
Emma looked at me almost angrily.
“Because everyone thinks I’m functioning.”
She gestured toward herself.
“I go to work.”
“I answer emails.”
“I attend meetings.”
“I remember birthdays.”
She gave another small broken laugh.
“I’m very impressive.”
I waited.
“The week after the funeral, people kept telling me to take care of myself.”
“Then everyone went back to normal.”
Her eyes met mine.
“And I couldn’t.”
That sentence explained the last six months better than anything else.
The whole street had returned to normal.
Traffic.
Garbage day.
Packages.
Work.
Coffee.
Emma had not.
She had simply learned to look like she had.
“Those boxes you carried inside,” she said.
“Ben’s things?”
She nodded.
“My parents couldn’t go through them.”
“So you did.”
“I said I would.”
Of course she had.
“And the pictures?”
“I couldn’t look at them.”
She took a shaky breath.
“But I couldn’t throw them away either.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked, “Have the sleepwalking episodes happened before the one I saw?”
Emma hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer scared me.
“You wake up in weird places?”
“Sometimes.”
“Outside?”
“Twice.”
“Emma.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
She looked at me.
“You walked into my house tonight without knowing it.”
“I know.”
“You almost reached the road last week.”
Her eyes dropped.
“I know.”
I softened my voice.
“You need help.”
“I’m seeing someone.”
“A therapist?”
She nodded.
“Since when?”
“Three weeks.”
That relieved me slightly.
“Do they know about this?”
“The sleepwalking?”
“Yes.”
“Some of it.”
“Tell them all of it.”
She gave me a tired look.
“You always this bossy?”
“Only after midnight when my neighbor appears in my bed.”
To my surprise, she laughed.
A real laugh.
Brief.
But real.
Then she covered her mouth because laughing seemed to make her feel guilty.
I recognized that too.
The belief that joy somehow insults the dead.
Emma stood.
“I should go.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“I live ten steps away.”
“You crossed those ten steps asleep.”
She did not argue.
I put on shoes.
We walked next door.
Her spare key to my house was still tucked into the pocket of her sweatshirt.
She handed it to me.
“I should probably give this back.”
I looked at it.
“Probably.”
Her face fell slightly.
Then I added, “Until we figure out a safer system.”
She stared at me.
“I’m not locking you out because I’m angry.”
“I know.”
“I’m locking you out because waking up next to an unconscious neighbor is terrible for my blood pressure.”
That almost earned another smile.
I waited until she locked her door.
Then I went home.
I did not sleep again.
The next afternoon, Emma knocked.
She held a fresh bag of coffee.
“Peace offering.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I broke into your house.”
“You used a key I gave you.”
“While unconscious.”
“Admittedly unusual.”
She handed me the coffee.
Then grew serious.
“I called my therapist this morning.”
I nodded.
“And my doctor.”
“Good.”
“I told both of them everything.”
That mattered.
“What did they say?”
“That I need to stop pretending this is manageable just because I can still go to work.”
I leaned against the porch rail.
“Sounds reasonable.”
“They also want me to deal with sleep safety.”
“So no more midnight field trips.”
“Apparently frowned upon.”
Over the next few weeks, things changed slowly.
Not magically.
Emma did not wake one morning cured of grief.
She still had bad nights.
Still worked too late sometimes.
Still went quiet on certain dates.
But she stopped trying to hide every difficult moment.
She installed alarms on her doors that chimed loudly when opened at night.
Her doctor reviewed her sleep problems.
Her therapist began working directly on the guilt surrounding Ben’s death.
Her parents came one weekend to help sort the boxes.
I stayed out of it.
Mostly.
At one point Emma knocked and asked whether I could move two heavy containers into the garage.
I did.
This time the picture frames were facing up.
One showed Emma beside a younger man with the same eyes.
Ben.
He had an arm around her shoulders.
Both were laughing.
“That him?”
She nodded.
“He looked annoying.”
“He was.”
She smiled.
“Extremely.”
The sleepwalking episodes became less frequent.
But they did not disappear immediately.
One night, the alarm on Emma’s door woke me through my open bedroom window.
I was outside before I fully understood what I was doing.
She stood on her porch, confused.
But awake.
“Nolan?”
“Yeah.”
She looked at the alarm.
Then at me.
“I think it worked.”
“You’re awake?”
“Yes.”
“You know where you are?”
“My porch.”
“Do you know what year it is?”
She stared at me.
“Go home.”
I smiled.
“Good enough.”
She stood there another moment.
“Nolan?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
She looked toward the dark street.
“For not treating me like I’m crazy.”
I thought about that.
“You’re grieving.”
“That doesn’t make this normal.”
“No.”
I agreed.
“But not normal and crazy aren’t the same thing.”
She nodded.
Then went inside.
Winter settled over the neighborhood.
Milo continued breaking rules with impressive consistency.
The warehouse continued abusing my shoulders.
Emma slowly started appearing at the fence again.
Not every day.
But sometimes.
She began baking.
The cookies improved.
I did not tell her immediately because I wanted continued access to free cookies.
One evening she brought over banana bread.
We sat on my porch drinking coffee.
She talked about Ben for almost an hour.
Not his death.
Him.
How he cheated at cards.
How he hated tomatoes but ate ketchup on everything.
How he once convinced Emma when they were children that their basement was haunted.
For the first time, her brother became a person instead of the worst thing that had happened to her.
I think that mattered.
Months after the night she entered my house, Emma and I were sitting near the fence when she asked something unexpectedly.
“Do you know what scares me most about that night?”
“You appearing in my bed?”
“No.”
“Because that definitely makes my top five.”
She rolled her eyes.
Then became serious.
“I asked you not to leave me alone.”
I nodded.
“You remember?”
“Not saying it.”
She looked down.
“But I know why.”
I waited.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“I figured.”
“I was talking to Ben.”
“I know.”
She shook her head.
“That’s what I thought too.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“My therapist asked why my mind would walk next door instead of replaying the scene in my own house.”
I said nothing.
Emma looked at me.
“She said maybe part of me knew Ben was gone.”
Her voice softened.
“And maybe another part knew I wasn’t actually alone.”
Something moved in my chest.
Neither of us joked.
“I think that’s why I came to your house,” she said.
“You felt safe here?”
She nodded.
The silence between us changed.
For nearly three years, we had lived ten steps apart.
Packages.
Coffee.
Trash cans.
Banana bread.
A cat on a roof.
We had built trust so slowly neither of us had noticed it happening.
Then Emma had walked through my door asleep because some part of her apparently had.
I did not reach for her.
Did not turn the moment into something romantic just because it could have been.
I simply said, “You can knock next time.”
She smiled.
“I’ll try.”
“And preferably during daylight.”
“No promises.”
That spring, Emma planted tomatoes beside her fence.
I reminded her she had killed four previous tomato plants.
She told me personal growth was possible.
Milo immediately dug one up.
Some evenings we sat outside after work.
Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes we did not.
The relationship between us eventually became something more than neighborly.
But it did not begin the night she climbed into my bed.
That night was not romantic.
It was frightening.
Messy.
Painful.
A person drowning in grief had reached for safety without even knowing she was doing it.
Whatever came later had to happen while both of us were awake.
That mattered to me.
Months later, Emma gave me another spare key.
This time to her house.
I looked at it.
“Should I be concerned?”
“For emergencies.”
“What qualifies?”
“Fire.”
“Reasonable.”
“Burst pipe.”
“Fine.”
“Milo on the roof.”
“Absolutely not.”
She laughed.
Then held my gaze.
“And if I need someone.”
That one stayed with me.
I put the key on my ring.
The first winter night I found Emma outside, I thought sleepwalking was the problem.
It wasn’t.
Not really.
The bigger problem was that she had spent six months believing grief was something she had to carry without inconveniencing anyone else.
She answered emails.
Went to work.
Baked cookies.
Smiled at neighbors.
And broke apart only when she was asleep.
The night she whispered, “Please don’t leave me alone,” her conscious mind was nowhere near my bedroom.
But maybe some deeper part of her had finally said what she had been unable to admit while awake.
She did not need somebody to erase what happened to Ben.
Nobody could.
She did not need somebody to promise she would never hurt again.
That would have been a lie.
She needed to know that waking up hurting did not mean she had to wake up alone.
And sometimes, the person who notices you disappearing is simply the one living ten steps away.
