When I looked at the clock on my wall after having finally put Abby to sleep in my bed, it was 5 in the morning. Pierre had decided to stay the night and was on the other side of the bed, hugging my childhood plush : a small raccoon that had lost an eye. It would have been an endearing sight if it didn’t take place on my own bed : there was no room left for me.

I grabbed a sweater to use as a pillow, and Pierre’s big long cloak. Settling in my gaming chair, I hoped that my exhaustion would be enough for me to fall asleep even in these circumstances.

Of course it wasn’t. I was worried about my friends, about what this movie would do to them, what it would do to me, and how I could manage to make it all worth the effort. I was still too deep in unforgettable memories, and despite the endearing sight of these 2 weirdos over there, my heart still needed a new band-aid.

Abby’s breakdown had taught me that she wasn’t as confident as I believed, and that Pierre also had a lot of pain to live with. He seemed so placid and strong, yet I now knew that he was as easily breakable as us. That wouldn’t do.

I couldn’t let them get so involved without some sort of safety net, and I could not be it. We had to have a therapeutic team with us in this adventure. I knew someone would get hurt, and I really didn’t want it to be my friends. Or me. Or anyone, actually. Enough suffering…

My eyes opened at the sound of Pierre’s shriek. The poor boy was caught in a death grip by Abby. She was still asleep and probably having a nightmare, reaching for safety. And in the weird situation we were, safety meant poor Pierre who was holding on to my raccoon and looking at me with despair in his eyes.

Does it make me a bad friend that I couldn’t stop laughing? Pierre’s look of betrayal tells me it probably does, but I couldn’t help it. It took me a good minute to regain control of my body enough to go disantagle him from the arms and legs that were slowly suffocating him, and I forced Abby to turn around and hug the raccoon instead.

Pierre was having flashbacks now, and my laughter died as quickly as it was born. I took him to the kitchen and made him a cup of strong black tea with enough sugar to trigger the right chemical response in his brain. The good thing about us three is that there can be no shame when this sort of things happen. The bad thing, though, is that it does happen.

We spent the next hour drinking tea in the kitchen, looking out the window as the sun rose and the city slowly awoke. We said not a word, simply because none was needed. I didn’t know what he’d been through, I didn’t really care. If he wanted to talk about it, he’d say so.

When I felt that he was relaxed enough, I let my thoughts wander where they wanted. And of course they got me back to the shriek. I started laughing again, I had been so surprised to hear this sound coming out of a big strong quiet guy like him! It was so funny!

Pierre looked at me with a question in his eyes, but I was laughing so much that I couldn’t form sentences. So I imitated the shriek. To my surprise and delight, he blushed. Then he, too, started laughing, and we kept on like that for a good ten minutes, shrieking and laughing like complete lunatics.

In the end we were so loud that we woke Abby up. When we managed to explain what had caused this outburst, she blushed as well and joined us. It was liberating for the three of us to laugh like this, to dare express a real emotion because we understood each other without judgement, because we were at the same time so different and so much the same.

“Well, now that the both of you are finally up and running, you get to do whatever you want while I take your place and get some well-deserved sleep in my own bed. You can turn on all the lights and make noise but you’re not allowed to wake me up. Oh, and don’t go near the vacuum cleaner, I might turn into a crazy cat and bite you. Or a deadly penguin…”