Reasonable Answers

I barely heard the words the first time; they were faint and warbled. I took in a sharp snort-like inhale as my eyes batted open. I leaned all my weight on my elbow. Everything was warped and blurry for a few seconds. I squeezed my eyes shut hard to clear them as I yawned out my words. 

“Wha di you sah?” 

“Are you hungry?” the other voice repeated more clearly. 

I was still half-asleep and just processing waking up to determine any level of hunger or fullness. I sat up more and lifted my arms to stretch them out of their sleep positions. But as I shifted my weight to counterbalance my arms, I startled to total awake-ness as I fell over the edge of the brownish-gray couch. I crashed hard on my right side to the floor. The carpet didn’t seem to break my fall any. 

“OWW. Ahhh, Crap” I moaned out. 

“Oh my gawd, Lar, are you okie?!” was met in time with hurried footsteps. 

“Ahh, yeah. I think so. Ow. I just fell off the...” I blinked hard and focused. “...couch?” 

“Yeah, I know. I watched you. Are you sure you’re alright? It sounded like a hard fall” 

I didn’t reply. I was still staring in bewilderment at the couch. I slowly looked around the room. It was a living room with soft blue paint, bright oak wood matching the hearth for an electric fireplace. The fireplace was on low behind a black protection screen. The hearth had some pictures in black frames on the edges, slightly turned in. The middle had multi-sized white candles with little pumpkins strategically placed between/in front of the candles. The hearth top had a large mirror with decorative stickers of acorns, multi-colored leaves, and pumpkins around it. The wall the couch was against had some medium-sized canvases with abstract-style art. The opposing wall had a tv on a black stand. I looked down to realize I was inches from crashing into the oak-rectangular coffee table. The top had some coasters strewn about, a box of tissues, and two remotes. The coffee-table had a shelf an inch above the feet of it. There were some books, a roll of paper-towels, a canister of Pledge, and some mail. I gingerly pet the gray carpet. I was pulled from my scan of my room when I heard. 

“Are, are you sure you’re okie?” 

I slowly and still confusedly looked at the voice. It was my Aunt Gemma. She was wearing a mustard yellow open-front sweater and a brown tee shirt, blue jeans, and gray Ugg's. Her brown hair was pulled into a low-pony tail, peridot stud earrings, and minimal makeup. Her arms were half-outstretched towards me. Worry lined her olive face and brown eyes. Aunt Gemma looked like my mom used to and a bit like me too. My hair had streaks of blonde and was lighter brown than hers and my eyes were hazel. But our faces had nearly identical structures and shapes. 

“Uh..um. I, uh, I....” I couldn’t manage words. Probably because I had no straight thoughts. I cleared my throat and tried again “H-how did I get here?” 

Aunt Gemma’s face went from concern to confusion. “What...do you mean? You were sleeping on the couch when I got home from the store. It’s been over an hour and almost dinnertime. I thought I would wake you and see if you were hungry” 

I finally got up, but just brought myself to sit on the couch, rubbing my head. 

“But...no. You don’t understand. I didn’t fall asleep here” I told her. 

She turned her head like a German shepherd and squinted her eyes. “Wha, what do you mean?” she repeated. 

“I. Didn’t. Fall. Asleep. Here” I repeated back emphatically clapping my hands to my knees. 

“Well, where did you fall asleep, then?” she asked, coming over to sit next to me. 

This is why I liked Aunt Gemma; she didn’t accuse me of being crazy or think I was lying. She just expressed concern and tried to help. 

“Just think back, what do you remember?” 

I rubbed my face with my hands and then interlaced them and rested them against my chin. 

“My dorm-apartment. I was alone in the apartment, working on my senior thesis. I had been working all day on it, even ate my brunch at my desk. Then I looked at the time, around 2:30 and decided to take a nap before dinner. I laid down in my bed. Then I woke up here!” I explained. 

My room in my shared on-campus apartment was decent sized for a dorm, I had room for a standard closet, dresser, my computer desk and my queen-sized bed and a nightstand. It was off-white, like all the dorms, and had a dark wooden floor. I had put a small red rug down and a noise-bounce canvas that had an image of the beach to brighten the area and soften the echoing. The ceiling had a fan with a light combo in the middle. 

“Well, you had to get here somehow. Let me see your wrists.” Aunt Gemma snapped her fingers as if she had an epiphany. 

I pulled up my maroon sweatshirt sleeves to my elbows and held them out to her. 

She ran her hands up and down my forearms, turning them over. She shook her head. 

“No rope-marks.” she noted. 

“Do I have any around my neck?” I asked with my own worry, pulling the collar of my sweatshirt down and tilting my head back for her to see my neck better. 

She examined it, moving my bronde hair aside and signaling me with her index finger to move my head from one side to the other. She shook her head again. 

“Nope, no ligature marks” she confirmed. 

“And I presume you didn’t find me with a sack over my head when you came in, right?” I asked mostly sarcastically. 

She gave me a small smile “No.” her face and tone went more serious “But you had to get here somehow. The door was closed and locked when I came home. All of them were. I had to unlock the back door to let Sophie out.” 

Sophie was Aunt Gemma’s orange and white tabby cat. The back had two doors; one that led from the house to an enclosed porch and then a second that went outside. She kept the litter box and a large cat tree out there. 

“Do you have any headaches or nausea?” Aunt Gemma asked. 

I paused to access my head and stomach feelings. “A headache from my head spinning” I deduced. 

“I know! Check your phone and see if you can trace your steps!” Aunt Gemma said excitedly. 

I lit up and started looking around and patting my pockets for my phone. But soon my befuddlement returned. I looked up with a feeling of horror. 

“I don’t have my phone on me” I said fearfully. 

“Okie, okie. Deep breaths, come on inhale” She put her hand on my shoulder. 

Then she inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth with me a couple times. 

“Good, there ya go. Now. Think back again. Try to remember the details. Where did you last have your phone?” she asked intently. 

I closed my eyes for a second and then looked to the ceiling, searching my brain. “I had it...on my desk. Next to my mouse. On the other side of my desk, I had my mug with hot cocoa. I drank all of it” 

“Go on” my aunt said, nodding along. Her brow was furrowed. 

“Um...” I sighed “Then...I went to the bathroom. Washed my hands. It took me a minute because I had to replace the hand towel. I went back to my desk. Put the book I was looking from back open on my lap....” 

“What happened immediately before you went to sleep. Think carefully. Did you hear any noises, make sure the door was locked?” My aunt urged. 

I sighed again in thought. “My roommate was gone all day. She left early in the morning. I had to unlock the door to get my food I ordered around 11. I locked it back up. I was just working at my desk. I had stopped all my notifications so I could work without distraction. I heated water in the microwave for hot cocoa. Then around 2:30, I felt sleepy, and I decided to nap. I don’t remember hearing anything. I made sure to save my progress. I stretched a little...then um...went to the edge of my bed. I used my heels to peel off the slippers I was wearing. I yawned as I laid down...flipped my comforter up and got under it. Pulled it up to my eyes and went to sleep.” I gave a shrug at the end. 

My aunt had moved one hand under chin and was drumming her fingers on her lap with the other. She looked at my feet.  

“You’re not wearing slippers” she said. 

I looked down. I had on gray sweatpants and white tube socks. I looked around for my slippers or any footwear at all. Nothing. I quickly picked up both feet and looked at the bottoms. 

“AHA. They’re dirty. Maybe you slept walked!” My aunt said, jumping up off of the couch, pointing at my feet. 

“Sleep-walked? I’ve never sleepwalked before!” I said, shaking my head. 

“Well, stress can make people do that. Plus, look, you have no coat or anything and it’s under 50 degrees out! You left your phone and any id or purse or anything! That would explain it!” She claimed. 

“I don’t know...” I had trepidation. 

“Look, hon, you’ve been stressed. It’s your senior year of college, you’ve been working on that thesis, you’re approaching exam time, and it’s almost the anniversary of your mother’s passing” My aunt said compassionately. 

It would have wrapped this up nicely. But...something nagged at me. I re-looked at the bottoms of my feet. They were a little dirty-but not as dirty as they would have been me walking all the way from my apartment to my aunt’s house. I told my aunt so. 

“And sleepwalking is rare in adults. And I never sleep-walked as a kid. I don’t take any medication. And actually, I’m only kinda stressed about my thesis. My exams are all papers this semester and I’ve already been working on some of them. And I do get sad around the time Mom passed but I’ve been working with a therapist since it happened to help me process. And it’s still a while off anyway.” I explained. 

“Then how do you explain getting here on my couch from your bed, in only your socks, no coat or jacket and without your phone or purse?” my aunt asked. She wasn’t accusing or demanding; she just wanted to know. 

I shrugged and stood up, using my hands on my lap to press off. “I don’t know. Let’s go back to my apartment. Maybe we can find clues there. If you have time” 

“Yes, of course I do. Let me get you some shoes and a coat to wear, first though” she went to the closet.

She came back five minutes later, in her coat with her purse, and handed me some slippers and another coat. I thanked her as I put them on, and she smiled at me. I smiled back and then we headed out the door. 

When we arrived at my apartment building on campus, there were emergency vehicles all around.; no lights or sirens. There were people all standing around outside. Some students, the dean was talking to a policewoman and a firefighter. 

“A fire?” My aunt asked aloud. “No. Look, there’s no hoses out, no smoke or soot” she answered herself.

I looked out of the windshield bewildered for yet again.

I was suddenly startled with a yelp when a knock came on the passenger side window. My aunt had given out a small yell too. We jerked our heads to the window. I took a relieved breath when I saw it was my roommate and her boyfriend. 

She waved at me, and I started to open the door. My roommate and her boyfriend stepped back to give me room. My aunt got out of her side too. 

“What’s going on?!” I asked. 

My roommate, Livy, who was 5’7 and on the plumper side, but it suited her well, with her ivory skin and perfect strawberry –blonde hair and had hazel eyes that leaned green, hugged me when I shut the door. 

“I’m so glad you’re all right! We hoped we made the right decision in not taking you to the hospital. I didn’t want you to just wake up in the hospital. Here’s some of your stuff.” She held out my purse. “Your phone’s in there by the way” she added. 

“Thank you.” I started going through my purse to find it when I paused and looked up. 

“What do you mean ‘didn’t want me to wake up in the hospital’?” 

My aunt had come around to the passenger side of the car by then. 

Livy’s boyfriend, Darryl, spoke up “The building had some kind of gas leak.” 

I gave a soft and knowing smile to them both. 

“Ohhhh. So, I fell asleep and inhaled the gas and you saved me by carrying me to my aunt’s house” I said in an aww-tone. 

Aunt Gemma matched my smile from me to them. 

But Livy and Darryl looked confused at each other then back to us. She was shaking her head. 

“Uh, no. No, we didn’t ‘save you’ or carry you anywhere” Livy said. 

My face fell “But...but you said you didn’t want me to wake up in the hospital!” 

“Yeeeah. That’ssss, why I grabbed your purse and phone from your desk when I saw it, not just mine when we were told to leave until the leak could be fixed. I didn’t want you to go back in later, when they said the leak was getting worse” Livy explained. 

Darryl was nodding to her story. “You weren’t even home when we got back” 

 I looked taken aback at my aunt who had an eyebrow raised. We told them the story of me somehow waking up at my aunt’s house. 

They looked as perplexed as I felt. 

“Are you sure you didn’t sleepwalk? It kinda sounds like it to me” Darryl said, scratching his head. 

“How did you sleep after having a cup of coffee?” Livy asked. 

“Coffee?” I asked back. 

“Yeah. When I grabbed your phone, there was an empty mug of coffee on the desk too” 

“Oh, I-I didn’t drink coffee. It was hot cocoa.” I said. 

Livy’s eyes got wide. “What kind of cocoa?” 

“Just the kind we have in the cupboard” I replied. 

“The stuff in the purple box?” she asked again, eyes wide. 

“Yeah” 

Livy sucked in her painted lips and said “Oh no, that’s sleep-aid cocoa. It’s meant to be drunk before bed. It has sedative-stuff in it. Remember, I bought it offline for us to help us through exams” 

I remembered now. She and I had talked about how hard sleeping can be during exam time and she found that stuff and since we both like cocoa, we figured it would be perfect. 

“So... maybe I slept walked?” I said, still confused. 

“Eh, only a little. You were mostly carried” a fifth voice said from behind. It was the RA, Rob Listings. 

We all turned to look at him. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Glad to see you’re alright. The leak was notified after 1 and thought to be isolated. After some testing, it wasn’t, so we had to evacuate. First just one floor, then another, then the whole building and the one next door. I knocked on your door around 3 something, but no one answered. I used my key to make sure no one was passed out. You were inside asleep. I tried to wake you. You sorta woke up and I told you about the leak. You didn’t seem all there and just went back to sleep. The testing your floor was pretty low, and it hadn’t been long. And remember when we had a fire a while back and everyone needed to leave for a couple weeks?” 

We all nodded. 

“Well, when I had to try to relocate everyone to a hotel or family member, I remembered you had gone to your aunt’s house, and I had to get the address. I looked it up on my phone and half-walked you, mostly carried you to my car. I know I should have let the EMT’s check you out, but I was trying to avoid paperwork. I know, I’m a cad for that. But I figured you could sleep it off in a clean air-area and so I took you to your aunt’s place.” 

“The doors were locked. And she didn’t have her purse with the key on it” My aunt said suspiciously. 

“Yeah, but Miss, you’re not all that unique were you ‘hide’ your spare key. It was under your welcome mat” Rob told her with a small head shake. 

“I tried knocking. For a few minutes, it was chilly outside, and I hadn’t thought to get her a coat and I needed to get back. So, I checked the mat, went inside to see a cat dash off somewhere and just put her down right on the couch and left. I texted you about it” he said, looking at me. 

I quickly looked at my phone. The last texts had been from him. One telling me what happened and another asking if I was okie.