Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 63: What Changed?

Chapter 63: What Changed?

Emily felt as though she had been cheated. In fact, she really had been cheated. She’d had one night. One wonderful night to soar. Then it had all been taken from her. No warning, nothing out of the ordinary to tip her off, just her body deciding to gift her with a full night of uninterrupted sleep, and then taking it all away from her without notice.

If she could have, Emily would have abandoned her body then and there. Found a new one that did not think nightmares were just the right accompaniment to sleep. But, unfortunately for her, the soul and the body were a lifetime package.

Which meant she was stuck with her body, a nightmare free sleep being something that she only day dreamed about instead of having it every night.

And there was nothing quite like disappointment to dampen the mood. It was like finding a fly at the bottom of a soup that had tasted fantastic. It ruined everything, even the flavour that had been enjoyed beforehand now just induced nausea.

It was the same for Emily with her lack of sleep.

She’d had a single night of good rest, and now she did not have it anymore. She almost felt like she should have never had that good night. It had only made things worse for her. Giving her a taste of normalcy and then ripping it all away.

The first night after she had woken up from a bad dream, Emily had stayed in bed embroidering. Come morning, she had been up and about pretending that she had slept. Doing as she usually did, but apparently, that had not been enough.

"Are you alright, Ems? You seem a bit sad. Are you coming down with something?" Her mother had asked when they had crossed paths while both of them were getting ready for work.

The older woman’s cool palm had found its way to Emily’s forehead, and when she had found a normal temperature, she had frowned.

"What is wrong?" She had asked, and before her mom could piece things together, Emily had stepped back and ducked away from her mother’s arm.

"Nothing mom, I am fine. Just a bit of delayed exhaustion from the trip," She had told her mother.

The one good thing about that day had been that she had at least not had to fake being alright at work. For whatever reason, Derek had been feeling low too. And the two of them had talked very little, just staying where they were and not bothering each other. Keeping contact with the outside world to the bare minimum.

By the time the end of the week rolled around, all that Emily had going for her was the hope that maybe the weekend would be different.

The weekend was not different.

She spent Saturday embroidering the likeliness of a cake. Then on Sunday, while her mother slept, Emily gave into temptation. Made her way to the kitchen feeling like she was about to get caught at any time. She ended up finishing off the last of the ice cream while keeping an eye out in case her mom decided to get up for whatever reason. Luckily that did not happen and Emily was able to polish off the ice cream at a leisurely pace.

Once she was done, she did not go back to her room. Instead she had gone to the living room. Getting down on her knees and then laying down on the carpet, Emily had spent the rest of the night either on her back, looking up at the switched off living room light, or on her front. Their yellow carpet looking grey in the semi darkness.

She had tiptoed back to her room in the early hours of the morning. And somehow, she had felt much better going into work on Monday morning. The change of scenery had really helped. And even though she should have known better by then. Emily clearly having not learned her lesson, had begun to hope. A nightmare that included buckets of blood poured down her throat until she suffocated had quickly dashed that hope. She had then gone on to spend Monday night, and the early parts of Tuesday morning crying in frustration.

A terrible mistake on her part. Crying plus exhaustion, plus a lack of proper sleep were a bad combination. She ended up in the office, snapping at anything and everyone, her head pounding and making her miserable. Luckily she did not have any interactions with her boss that day that were long enough for him to notice her mood.

On Tuesday, she had more or less accepted that things were back to the way they were. So when she woke up with a scream lodged in her throat, she simply grabbed her crafts drawer key and went to work.

On Wednesday night, she dreamt that her air supply was being cut off becaue someone had made a million copies of her crafts drawer key and was shoving them down her throat. That night, when she had gone to retrieve the key from its hiding place in an old shoe box, she had hesitated to touch it.

Come Thursday, Emily was done, just done, so rather than spending the night creating, she had spent it destroying. A pair of scissors in hand as she cut up all of the work that she had done. After she was finished, she was instantly swallowed by guilt. Not only had she been wasteful, she had also robbed someone out there who could have used her work of the opportunity to see it.

Friday after work, she stopped by the flea market and bought more fabric. That night after a bad dream had woken her, she worked until her fingers hurt. Intent on making up for the work that she had destroyed.

By time Saturday night came in. Emily was tired. She was tired of not sleeping well. Tired of waiting around and tired of not doing anything about it. So rather than just accepting things as they were, especially now that she knew for sure that she could sleep without sleeping pills and make it through the night, Emily began to think.

She had slept, so that meant that she could do it again.

Back when she had managed to sleep without a nightmare waking her up, what had been different?

With that question in mind, Emily began to plan.