Journal

Ben and Isabelle struggled for a while as he tried to get her up the stairs and into bed.

“What are you doing?” Zane asked him, trying not to wake Isabelle.

“This isn’t working,” Ben answered. “We have got to wake her up.”

“You can’t wake up someone who’s sleepwalking, you idiot,” Zane snapped back. “You have to ease them back into sleeping.”

“This is ridiculous,” Ben groaned before trying to shake Isabelle awake. “Wake up, Isabelle!”

No response from Isabelle.

Ben’s phone started ringing during the struggle. It was Libby. Ben had to take one hand off of Isabelle to answer it.

“Oh, hey Libby,” Ben whispered into the phone. “Yeah, Isabelle’s fine. We’ve had a few bumps in the road, but nothing too bad. Yeah, we’ll see you in a little bit.”

As Ben hung up the phone, Zane asked him, “Everything okay?”

Ben was very much not okay. “Libby’s on her way home. We’ve got to get Isabelle to bed. Now.”

Zane, Ben, and Danielle had to immediately spring into action. Without even a word, Danielle and Zane each grab a part of Isabelle to help Ben get her into bed without making too much noise. It worked. The three of them got Isabelle onto the couch without much issue. Zane was uncertain of their success, so he asked, “Mission accomplished?”

“Go to sleep… Go to sleep… Go to sleep, little Isabelle…” Ben sang to Isabelle, who now has been alternating between being awake and being asleep.

Sheepishly, she responds, “My name is Sparklehorn Bunnyhop!”

Zane was not impressed, but with time running out, they all had to try whatever they could. “This is impossible!” he whined. “Libby will be home any minute now!”

“Maybe we need to cut our losses and let Sparklehorn Bunnyhop stay up past her bedtime,” Danielle chimed in.

“Libby said we’ve got to keep Isabelle asleep somehow,” Ben replied. “Look at her! She hasn’t slept for a few days. Hopefully, this will work before Libby -”

“Before Libby what?”

Zane, Ben, and Danielle all turned around to face Libby at the same time.

“Oh, hey Libby,” Ben whispered.

“What are you all doing in my apartment?” Libby asked them.

“Helping make sure Isabelle stays asleep, like you asked?” Zane asked in response. The look on his face betrayed his attempt to seem cool under pressure.

“Okay, be honest with me,” Libby told Ben. “When you said We’ve had a few bumps in the road, how bad was it?

“She wandered off for a bit,” Ben admitted, “but other than that, she’s actually been asleep… ish… the entire time.”

Libby, instead of being upset, as the trio expected, breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness!” Libby said. “I was so worried that Isabelle's sleepwalking would cause too much trouble.”

As Isabelle fell asleep again, Zane began to imagine her as Sleeping Beauty and himself as the prince tasked with waking her up.

“Don't even think about it, Prince Charming,” Libby told him.

•

Later that night, Libby joined the others in Zane's apartment to watch his favorite baseball team, the Brooklyn Knights, take on the Houston Aero on TV. It was the bottom of the fourth inning, with Houston leading 2-1. The Knights were at bat with one out and a player on second base.

“And Brooklyn has just sent out Timothy Bardot to bat,” the announcer said. “What a strange decision from the manager to put in the struggling rookie!”

“What are you doing?!” Zane asked the TV. “Ugh…” He got up to pace around the couch for a few laps. This was his routine for whenever he would get frustrated, usually about sports. “I swear, Boomer would have never ever put one of our worst players up to bat during a difficult stretch of the game.” Boomer, as Zane called him, was the Knights' old manager. “This new manager-”

Zane's little tirade was interrupted by the announcer. “He's knocked it clear outta the park! That's Bardot's first home run of his career! What a way to remind Brooklyn fans of why he was drafted by that team. The young rookie was one of -”

“You know,” Zane told the others, “maybe I was wrong about the new manager. But I still preferred it when Boomer was calling the shots.”

“I mean, you played under him, so of course you would say that,” Ben teased.

“Zane, can you sit back down?” Libby asked. Zane had accidentally stopped his tirade right between the couch and the TV.

“Yeah, Dad,” Danielle agreed. “Some of us are trying to watch the game!”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Zane told the others as he sat back down on the couch.

Back inside Libby's apartment, Isabelle slowly woke up, did a stretch, and yawned loudly. She acted as if she had slept for an entire weekend, not a care in the world, and not even noticing that her neighbors (and Libby) were making such noise nearby. Once she figured out what was happening, she decided to make her way over to Zane's apartment.

Inside, the others were surprised to hear someone knocking on the door. Food had arrived an hour ago.

“I got it,” Zane told the group. Opening the door revealed Isabelle. Everyone else was shocked to see her wake up so soon, and as if nothing had happened.

“Wow…” Isabelle said. “I know you guys are busy with the big game, but wow was that a crazy dream.”

Pretending nothing had happened earlier, Libby asked her, “What was the dream?”

“I got scared awake by some loud grinding noise,” Isabelle explained, “so I went to go check it out. And Ben, I think that's your name, was there with some weird Viking guy, and there was a cat and a Roomba, and a big scary monster came and grabbed me, too! But then this brave prince came along and rescued me. He laid me down on the couch and kissed me!”

“Ooh la la, girl,” Libby cheered. “You dreamed that you hooked up with royalty!”

“Libby! He! Kissed! Me!” Isabelle continued. “He kinda looked like the big guy over there,” she described the prince, pointing at Zane.

“Me?!” Zane said with a flustered tone in his voice. “Did… did you kiss him back?”

All of a sudden, it hit her. Isabelle looked at the time. 8:30 at night. Way wrong time to be just getting out of bed.

“Oh no… It happened again, didn’t it?” she asked the others.

The others nodded, silently admitting their defeat.

“Not again…”

•

After the game, Isabelle ended the night, just as she did every night, with a journal entry. Contrary to what one might expect from a nervous mess of a med school student, Isabelle's handwriting was elegant and smooth. Had anyone stumbled upon it, it might be hard for them to believe the journal was hers. Part of her writing ritual involved her speaking what she was writing aloud. That would always help her figure out what to write.

“I’m honestly not sure how to feel about living in Brooklyn right now… I mean, as long as I’m away from my stupid old boyfriend, it can’t be all bad right?

Still… I’d imagine it’s rough for anyone to just move to a new place surrounded by complete strangers, let alone make a complete fool of themselves on their first day home. I won’t let that get in the way, though. In the words of one of my favorite people, I'm going to make it after all! I’ve already made the mistake of letting someone prevent me from pursuing my dreams once. I can’t let that happen again.

It’s my world, and I’m here to take it!

I might be here struggling to put my life back together, but I’m already starting to bounce back. I just know that it’ll all work out in the end.”

Isabelle put in the finishing touches on the night’s journal entry, before settling down for the night.

“Especially since I’ve got some pretty nice neighbors.”