Last night I couldn’t sleep. This isn’t a rare occurrence, but it was one of the few times that I couldn’t sleep even after taking my prescription sleeping pill (and the melatonin I take each night). Laying in bed wide awake drives me up the wall, so I slipped out and went downstairs to work for a while. I didn’t turn on any lights because I didn’t want to risk waking Jo or Dani, and I know the house well enough to creep around in the dark just fine.

I poked around on Facebook and Twitter and answered emails until I felt like I could sleep. Also, I heard what I thought might be Jo moving around upstairs and thought, “Aww, he woke up because he missed me in bed with him.” but then as I was heading up the stairs our cats were acting so crazy I figured that actually, it must have been them I heard trollumping around up there like a herd of elephants. None of the lights were on either, so seemed like I must be the only one up.

Walking carefully (I didn’t want to step on a cat’s tail) and quietly so as not to wake anyone, I crept through the darkened living room and turned the corner into the pitch black inside hallway that leads to our bedrooms and bathroom. That’s when a deep voice grumbled at me from the shadows.

I made some sort of strangled squeaking noise and jumped back into the living room. One hand fluttered up to my chest, ready to push my heart back into the cavity if it managed to break free (it was pounding so hard that it felt possible), the other fumbling for the nearest light switch. Turning it on I was relieved to see a very sleepy-looking Jo blinking at me from the darkness. “I was trying to avoid that reaction,” he said, his voice thick from sleep.

I sort of tripped into the bedroom and sat my butt down on the edge of the bed. I was certain of a few things, one of them was that after that jolt of adrenaline sleep wasn’t going to come easy, another that my knees were threatening to turn to jelly so it was best I not rely on them to hold me up. When, eventually, my body calmed down and I felt capable of putting a sentence together, I said. “What did you say?”

Jo answered, “I said, don’t be alarmed.”

#truestory