"Here is the bedroom and that is the bathroom." Kystan's friend, Jo, shows me the one bedroom in the house. Honestly, I fell in love with the place when I first walked in, but I go along to be courteous. I look back and see Kystan lurking in the kitchen instead of entering with me. I come out with my mind made up. Kystan receives me with a questioning look. I smile and nod. He smiles with relief.

"Well that's all with the house." Jo says as he leaves the bedroom behind me. "What do you think?"

"I'll take it." He looks surprised by my swift response.

"Cool." he exchanges a look with Kystan who only nods in reply. "Let me get the papers." He rummages through a bag he came with. I join Kystan at the island and take another look at the house. Despite being small it is very comfortable. I am sure I'll have a lot of fun here. "I can imagine you taking coffee from here every morning." Kystan comments in my ear.

I draw back and look at him jovially, "Me too. I like it." I can't stop smiling right now. As I look around a stray strand of hair falls into my face. Kystan removes it for me and tucks it securely behind my ear.

"Here you go." Jo hands me a contract to sign. As I read through the terms and conditions, he strikes a conversation with Kystan. I try to concentrate solely on what I'm reading but my mind keeps straying to their conversation.

"I am still surprised you accompanied your girlfriend here." Jo says with amusement. Despite it being a mistake, I am startled. The number of people who have assumed that about us is magnanimous, do we really appear like a couple?

Kystan's gaze burns a mark onto me, I pretend not to hear them instead of looking up. "She is not my girlfriend." The lighthearted laugh in Kystan's tone hurts the most. He makes it sound like even the thought of being with me is laughable.

I glare holes into the paper and sign as quickly as possible. I hide the hurt behind a smile and hand over the signed contract. Before long we leave the house. I do not utter another word to Kystan. "Hey." he says and turns me around. "Did you change your mind about the house?" he looks worried, sadly it's for all the wrong reasons.

"No. I didn't." I plaster a smile onto my face to reassure him, most of all to avoid being asked the real reason why I am down. "See you on Monday, okay?" I turn and leave before he has the chance to reply.

That night, I pack my stuff. Jade and I spend our last night as housemates watching reruns and dancing. We fall asleep towards dawn completely worn out. When I wake up it's already past noon. I take a quick shower and prepare to move. The car I hired for the move arrives shortly after and we start hauling boxes into it. Jade tags along to my new place.

"Wow. Your house is so comfy." Jade exclaims the moment we enter, each of us carrying a box. I put down the box near a bookshelf in the living room. "Thanks." I reply, going back outside for another one.

"And look at this kitchenette. It's so cute. My, my, this whole place is small but so gorgeous. I think I'll be coming over quite a lot." She says enunciating the t. I am still outside but I am hearing her crystal clearly.

"Would you tone your voices down?" An annoyed old lady says from her window above my place.

"Sorry." I say apologetically. With an upturned nose she retreats to her house. I find Jade arranging books on the shelf. "Quite an amicable neighbor you have here." She says with sarcasm.

"What better choice did I have?" I say cheekily but judging by Jade's sad expression the cheekiness got lost on the way. "I didn't mean it like that." I put down the box and hug her, "I don't mind living here so long as you stay healthy. Okay? So stop being sulky and help this girl set up her new home." I say and wiggle my eyebrows with a grin on my face. "You may or may not get some beer when we are done." I say temptingly.

"Ugh, did you have to blackmail me with that? Seriously?" She says as she goes back to her task.

"Had to." I affirm. True to my word, I give her the beer and we chill for the rest of the afternoon enjoying my apartment. When night falls, Jade leaves. I have to sleep too since I have work tomorrow. I clean up the dishes we used quickly and go to bed. The mattress is hard to the touch at first, I toss and turn before I find a comfortable spot and burrow deeper into it.

I wake up on a cold surface. My cheek is numb with coldness, and I feel an ache in my back. My eyes focus on stool legs when I open them. I get up dejectedly from the kitchen floor. I feel my energy seep at realizing I sleepwalked again.

I go around the house checking for any broken things, luckily there are none. What baffles me is that this time there was no possible situation that could have made me sleepwalk, no anxiety, no stress, nothing? I was totally happy when I went to sleep last night.

Fear engulfs me, what if I am getting worse? I feel my nerve endings ignite, I need to see a psychiatrist soon. I call the hospital to look for a doctor. "Hi." I say when the receptionist answers, at the third ring. "I want to schedule a session with a psychiatrist."

Buttons are clicked on the other end as I wait, "Dr. Glen is available. He is among the best we have in the country." She says with pride. I've heard that many times from Glen himself.

"No, I want someone else, anyone else." I say with urgency bordering on panic.

"Okay." She says uncertainly. "Another psychiatrist is Dr. Vicky but she'll only be available at eight tonight." She says.

"Schedule me then." I reply swiftly. Even if she would have said next month I would not have scheduled with Glen, not ever.

"May you tell me your name and address?" She asks and I tell her. "Hmm, it says here that you have been meeting with Dr. Glen."

"Yes, but not anymore." I reply vaguely. This lady sure is inquisitive, can't she just get on with it without asking irrelevant questions?

"Okay." She is about to say something else but I hang up. I take a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down. I am getting late for work but I can't go in such a state.

Cynthia is at the desk when I arrive, she gives me the stink eye for being late. I set my work desk as fast as possible. "Lover boy came over." Cynthia says.

I falter in my steps and look at her quizzically. "He said he'll meet you at lunch."

"Oh OK." I say coolly but inside I am so not cool. What? Lunch? Like a date or...?

I mentally reprimand myself. I shouldn't think of him like that, I am not ready for relationships yet. Besides, he doesn't see me like that anyway. I am over thinking.

Lunch time reaches so fast, I haven't done anything. Kystan appears looking great as always. I dread that he will see how jittery I am today. It feels like it's just us with our eyes on each other and the anticipation of going somewhere together hanging right there. Guess not though, because Cynthia makes her presence known to me by saying, "Looks smitten to me." I break eye contact with Kystan to glare at Cynthia. I look back at Kystan and he is right in front of me with all his 6 foot 1 towering over me.

"Hi." He says, "Are you ready to go?"

My anxiety wins over, with a heavy heart I say, "Can we go another time?" I do not offer any more explanation. I watch as his face falls

"Yeah sure." he hides his disappointment well but I have already seen it. His eyes linger.

"Thanks." i reply softly. He leaves with less buoyancy in his step. I take refuge in the restroom and stay there for the rest of the lunch break. I feel so bad inside.

After work, I go for my appointment with Dr. Vicky. I don't want to meet Glen there at all, I pass through the hallways with my eyes down cast. I look away instinctively every time I see a man in a white coat. In my plight, I bump into an auburn haired woman. I would have pegged her for a stranger if not for the hateful gaze she gives me. My gaze is drawn to her concave stomach. Rather than meeting Glen, I have met his mistress.

She remembers me, judging by the distaste she gives me, it is then replaced by smugness. She rubs her belly with confidence, "You know he loves me more than he ever loved you." she says in a low menacing voice. "I am moving in soon. We may even get married this year." She covers her mouth with theatrical surprise.

I am amazed by how petty she is. Does she think I still care about Glen one bit? I decide to be the bigger person in all of this. "I am happy to give you even more contents of my trash." she scowls at me. "If you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to honor. I doubt if you know what that word even means." I walk away from her before anything bad happens between us.

Her hand grabs my sleeve aggressively. I want to slap her badly, instead, I remove her hand from my clothes and walk away.

Sitting in the waiting room is torturous. I am relieved when they call me into the doctor's office. Dr. Vicky is younger than I expected, she could easily be taken for a twenty year old, though the creases on her eyes disagree. "Liza, right?" She asks after I have taken my seat on the couch, she is sitting across from me in an armchair.

"Yes." I answer. Her office is cozier than Glen's, his was austere and now that I think of it, it was always cold and uninteresting. "I like your office."

She gives a toothy grin, "Thank you." She pulls out a file ready to get to business. "So tell me about yourself." She says putting on a neutral and serious look.

"I have this condition, somnambulism, that's what it's called, right?" She nods, "It has been receding for the past years but, this month I have had three sleepwalking episodes which is odd."

After a silence, she realizes I am not going to say more, "Have you sought help before?"

"Yes. With Glen." I answer. She raises an eyebrow for a moment but returns to her neutral expression again quickly.

"OK. Has anything unusual happened to you recently?" She asks. This is our first session but she is acting as though I haven't heard these questions before and I am getting bored by the minute.

"You don't have to stick to protocol, I've heard all these questions before." I advise and she mumbles okay, "And to answer your question, I recently got divorced, got sort of kicked out of the place where I lived, and got hospitalized."

"That's a lot of stuff." She says more relaxed this time with less seriousness.

"I know." I reply with a short laugh.

"Has any of these been related to sleepwalking in any way?" She asks.

"Yes. I wouldn't have discovered how my marriage was crumbling, had it not been for a fortunate sleepwalking session. And also I went to the hospital, because of an accident which happened as I was sleepwalking, and that led to being kicked out to reduce the health risk it caused my housemate." She looks shocked.

"Wow. You really are a first for me." She muses. "You have only talked about one time, what about the other two?" She asks.

"That's actually why I am here. Recently, I sleepwalked and I do not have anything that I could say was the cause."

"May you describe that day for me?"

"It was on a Sunday, I had moved into my new place. During the day I had fun with my best friend and at night I went to bed perfectly at ease. Despite all that, I woke up in the kitchen without having any notion of how I got there."

"Okay." She thinks for a moment, "I believe it may have been caused by fatigue, as you said, you had been loading and unloading things all day, and that tends to get many people tired and sometimes frustrated." I nod with understanding. "Which remedies were you given by Glen?" My jaw clenches at the mention of his name. Vicky notices instantly.

"When I was younger, I tried most of the first defense methods of prevention and my parents made sure to help me as much as they could. But as I grew older, I was given Prosom. For some time it was working until I started having side effects like weakness, nausea and dizziness. Then I started using herbal teas and natural stuff. It was amazing, but Glen stopped me from using it and instead gave me Trazodone."

She was recording all of that as I spoke; she looks up when I finish talking, "Are you still using it?"

"Occasionally" I admit. "I think it is not so good for me because each time I take it, I feel malaise the next day and I have diarrhea or constipation for days afterwards."

"Yes, those are some of the side effects of taking it. You shouldn't be taking such strong drugs since as you said your somnambulism is receding." She says. "It would do you more good to try inducing your body to relax more efficiently rather than taking drugs."

"How can I do that?"

"You can first create a routine before sleeping, to make your body aware that it is time to sleep, you can also sip on some tranquilizing teas like chamomile or valerian. You can also do exercise during the day, or yoga and any other kind of stretching at night to loosen your body and make you feel more relaxed before bed." She hands me a brochure. "This contains all the many ways you can do this. You can start from there and we'll see a way forward from there."

"Thank you." The weight I have been bearing all day eases. I feel more hopeful about recovering with Vicky's help. I look at the clock. I have a few minutes before my appointment ends.

"What about the third time you sleepwalked?" she asks out of the blue.

"Gosh, you don't forget do you?" I ask with surprise.

She shakes her head and laughs, "Not in this profession, I can't."

"Well, that time was surely the safest but by far the most embarrassing." I recount for her the tale of how I sleepwalked on campus. When I am done, she laughs at me really hard. "Hey, you can't laugh at me, that's not professional." I retort jokingly.

She rolls her eyes at me, "That was funny. God, how did you ever face that guy again?"

"Well. Circumstances did me no justice, I had to meet him the very next day." I answer vaguely.

She narrows her eyes at me, "Why do I feel like you have a thing for this guy?"

"Well, it's complicated." I refrain from saying that he doesn't like me which would hurt.

"To me, it doesn't seem like rocket science,." She says cryptically. "You like him." She says as a statement.

I look at my watch and it is time for me to go. "You know what, I think there are people waiting." I say and get up.

"You are not escaping from this one." She shouts as I am leaving.

"I am. Bye." I say and laugh. I close the door behind me and walk down the hall to pay.

I am in a good mood for sure, and I liked Vicky a lot. I hope I can follow the procedures she told me though because I am not good at keeping routines and I party often so it will be hard.

A doorway opens to my right and a hand clutches my forearm and I am pulled inside before I can even fight back. The person tosses me onto a soft surface like a bed harshly. I hear the lock clicking in.