I sipped it as Niko sat in his bouncy seat. I marveled at my little boy as he played with the dangling shapes - Meghan called them his “friends” - that hung from a bar above the seat. Between my wife’s morning greeting and my son’s innocent play, I was already enjoying the day, savoring each moment. She swept into the room, basket of laundry in her hands, her raven tresses pinned up. Despite having carried a baby to term and given birth just five months prior, she still possessed the same figure that she had when we first met. And that wasn’t even her selling point, just the icing on top of a rather sweet cake. I never knew that I could experience love like that, which was only made more complete and perfected by the addition of Niko to our lives. Meghan reminded me time and again, just by being herself, that I was a very blessed and very lucky man.

I cursed silently, as I often did when I thought about how lucky I was. There were never any secrets between us, until I started to wake up in that other place. I never told her about it, at first chalking it up to a dream. But night after night of closing my eyes at home only to instantly open them in the cell told me otherwise. And the only reprieve that was granted to me was that I would end up closing my eyes in my cell and opening them in a moment and be home again. But the guilt of not telling her gnawed at me, and while I wanted to savor the moments of family and togetherness, I also knew that secrets could destroy that which I was attempting to save.

Another sip of coffee, and I watched my wife as she sauntered through the room, the purposeful sway of her hips entrancing me, just as she knew it would. Inspiration and followed by a resolution - if I did not sleep, then I would not leave. I had known this all of the time, but I had been too afraid to break the cycle. Today, the coffee would flow. Tonight, I would not sleep. Tonight, I would make certain that I stayed wide awake, I thought, and then I would show Dr. Miller and those two jerks that this was real, that whatever they were and wherever they were, that was the fiction.

And then I remembered two things that demolished the whole plan: firstly, that I was no longer in my 20’s, and staying up all night was bound to backfire, as I would inevitably need sleep; and secondly, that we were out of coffee.

Out. Of. Coffee.

How? In my happy little world, in this beautiful house that was my home with my beautiful wife, how could we have run out of coffee?

Of course. We never went food shopping. Because I was too busy enjoying my walk in the rain last night. The walk that gave me a taste of freedom, that allowed me to experience the rare gift that I knew that I would never, could never receive once I closed my eyes for the night. And the day was growing short. Niko needed to go down for the night, the stores were closed, and so my hopes were dashed.

OK, but I had an idea, the makings of a plan, and while it was far from novel, it was definitely something to which I had not given serious consideration, as it was risky, and I wasn’t ready for risky.

But I had a plan, and somehow I was going to make it happen.

Part 1:  https://steemit.com/short-story/@phoenix32/i-only-want-to-close-my-eyes-half-of-the-time-part-1
Part 3: https://steemit.com/short-story/@phoenix32/i-only-want-to-close-my-eyes-half-of-the-time-part-3