Sometimes when my roommate opens the balcony door to let sunshine in and starts tidying up the room in the morning, I blink up at her wondering if it's her or my mother or my friend from school I was just dreaming about. Sometimes I’m in the middle of a nightmare and I suddenly see her at the corner of my bed telling me that I've snoozed my alarm for the fifth time in a row. I blink up at her a few times, sighing. I tell her to please let me hold her hand for a few moments. She complies and I hold a finger. I used to hold my mother's finger when I slept as a kid because my hands were too tiny to hold her whole hand. But this is not my mother's hand. This is hers. And she just let me hold it without a question. 'Did you sleep soundly? You were murmuring something’. She tells me, her finger still in my grip. I don't know, I say. I don't remember. She sits there. I stare outside, trying to forget remnants of my blurred dream. I smile and leave her hand, get up, say my prayer and make my side of the bed. It's morning.
