Let Me Hold You by Melanie Schuster

Sam, standing at the foot of her bed, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, a familiar and usually endearing pose.
    But the expression on his face was totally out of character. He was frowning at her as though she’d done something wrong. He’d never looked at her like that, ever. She sat up and asked him why he was looking at her like that. He shook his head and turned to leave the room without speaking.
    Both frightened and angry, she jumped out of bed and went after him, yelling his name over and over.
    “Sam, come back here! You can’t just walk out on me! What’s the matter with you, have you lost your mind? You already left me once and now you have the nerve to leave again without even saying a word to me? What’s the matter with you?”
    He didn’t even turn around, he just kept moving through the house and she chased after him, getting angrier and angrier. Her voice got louder and higher until she was screaming at him, cursing him for all she was worth. She started hurling things at him, anything she could get her hands on.
    He started walking to the front door and she knew she had to catch him or she’d never see him again. Her eyes were blurred with tears and she tripped over a low pillowed ottoman which made her fall, but she was close enough to grab his pants leg. His hand was on the doorknob and she tightened her grip. He turned around and said, “Let me go. Let me go, Allie. Let me go.”
    The sound of her own moaning woke her; she jerked awake and threw off the covers. Her head moved back and forth as she tried to remember where she was. She fully expected to be in the living room by the door, but she was in bed. She was both hot and cold and sopping wet from sweat. Her hair was soaking wet, and so was the pillow and the sheets.
    Rubbing her eyes, she realized that she’d been crying. She touched her throat, which was sore and scratchy like she’d been screaming at the top of her lungs. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she felt her heart pounding as she tried to stand. Staggering slightly, she made it down the hall to the dining room, looking out into the living room, fully expecting to see the things that she’d hurled at Sam all over the floor, but everything was as she’d left it, as neat as a pin. All she could do was sink into the nearest chair and cry.
    She was shivering all over from the clammy sweat on her skin and her heart was still pounding. Tollie was right, she needed to sleep. Suddenly she remembered the prescription she’d been carrying around; her doctor had given her a script for a sleeping aid but she hated taking pills of any kind. But she knew she couldn’t go on like this, especially after the horrible dream she’d just had.
    Moving quickly, before she changed her mind, she went to the bedroom and put a sweatshirt on over her tank top. She didn’t even bother to put on jeans; she just put on a pair of sneakers and tied her hair up in a scarf. In minutes she was headed out.
    Wal-mart was open all night and she could get the sleeping pills there.
    She stopped at a red light and something moved in her peripheral vision. It was a little dog, obviously lost and frantic. The poor little thing was going from car to car, standing on its hind legs every time it got to a stopped car and it looked utterly pathetic. Without thinking about what she was doing, Alana opened her car door and got out, calling to the poor pup. It heard her soothing voice and came right to her, narrowly missing getting hit by a car. She scooped it up, ignoring the horns honking and the rather uncomplimentary things that a couple of men were shouting at her. She was back behind the wheel in seconds with the wet, bedraggled little dog clinging to her in gratitude. Putting all thoughts of the sleeping pills out of her head, she headed for home.
    “You poor baby,” she soothed as she drove. “It’s okay, I’ll take care of you, yes I will. You poor little thing,” she crooned. The little dog was