Part of me is relieved, honestly. That my dad cares enough to yell. That he feels well enough to. Because the possibility looms heavy over our house like a fog—the possibility that I’m going to wake up one day and the person in our house, wearing my dad’s clothes, is someone different. My dad but not quite. My dad but further away, already in a place we can’t reach him.

But today he really felt like himself. Like he was the same person who gave me the biggest lecture when I snuck in after midnight one night in sophomore year, bloodied and bruised from an ill-advised middle-of-the-night solo rollerblading outing.

Everything devolved after Thanksgiving. I think we were all surprised by how … nice? It was? To just have a family meal and not think about Atypical stuff or diseases or visions or anything else for a whole day. But when I went to sleep that night, exhausted from a straight day and a half of cooking and the stress of introducing Emily to my family, I stayed asleep. For two days.

They’re used to it by now—me going to sleep for large chunks at a time. But it’s been freaking them out, I guess. They called my doctors at the AM, who didn’t seem overly concerned. My body processes energy and calories differently when I’m dreamdiving, so they said as long as I’m not getting dehydrated or undernourished, I should be fine. That was cold comfort to my family, but good enough for me. I told everyone I would be more diligent about eating and drinking but that I was totally fine.

I lied.

I haven’t fallen asleep without meaning to in … a while. When I woke up briefly Friday morning and thought about going downstairs and spending the day eating leftovers with my family, it all seemed so … dull. Despite the fun of Thanksgiving, reheated turkey and post-holiday lethargy weren’t exactly tempting, especially when I knew I could be riding a dragon and eating what Turkish delight actually should taste like, in the way that it’s described in The Chronicles of Narnia, something good enough to betray your family to the White Witch for, instead of the gummy, gelatinous sugar rush it is in real life.