NEVER SLEEP WITH your co-workers.

It was common sense. Though Lorenne and I ended up sharing the bed, we did not actually sleep together. I didn't sleep for a minute —my heartbeat was soaring as Dr. Lorenne Dench curled up beside me, her face less than an inch away from mine.

I was stiff, laying on my side and trying to control my breathing. Lorenne was asleep —and I was too embarrassed and cowardly to remove her hands from where they were dangerously close to my chest. I wondered how we had gotten here.

We had moved to the bed when we began to tire, and huddled underneath the covers contrary to my better judgement. I would have escorted her to her own suite, but we had still been talking about my curse.

She couldn't understand how I identified things beneath my feet —how I felt them, and knew their dimensions. It felt like guesswork to her. And I had looked at her in a daze, too distracted by the way she frowned in concentration and fiddled with her reading glasses. How her tongue poked out between her lips all the while.

Thankfully she thought that I was tired, so she had suggested we lay on the bed.

I climbed in under the covers while she sat cross legged on the other side, looking down at me. We had carried on talking into the morning, and before I knew it, I had jolted to being fully alert at the feel of body heat beside me. Lorenne had climbed in.

I almost screamed.

Then I watched her sleep for the rest of the night, as creepy as that made me sound. She was so beautiful —her eyelashes quivered slightly from movement, her breath fanning my face, and her lips parted. I had to get out of there, immediately.

I rolled out on the other side of the bed and headed for the bathroom. I splashed some water on my face and that seemed to make the heat subside. I slicked the stray strands of hair back behind my ears, and groaned at the ceiling. I had to stop thinking about her. I had to concentrate on the project, and get this job done. My visions, and why they were becoming more frequent, was something that I could focus on later.

I looked at myself in the mirror. "Get a grip, Maya," I whispered. "Get a fucking grip."

A sharp pain then exploded in my right temple, causing me to wince and grip the edge of the porcelain sink. My fingers slipped, and one of my nails suddenly skinned my palm. I swore and hissed, beginning to panic. Scarlet blood dripped onto the countertop. Where was I going to get a bandaid at this time of night?

I had to go to the convenience store.

I crudely wrapped my hand in tissue paper and rushed out for the bathroom. I hastily shoved my arms into a jacket, deciding it was too complicated to pull on jeans as well. I roughly stumbled into the bed while stuffing my foot into a sneaker, and gasped as a groan rose from the depths of the bed.

"Maya?" Lorenne called out. "What are you doing?"

"I cut my hand," I quipped, "Don't worry —I'm going to the store to buy some bandaids."

"What? You cut your hand?" she frowned, sitting up. My eyebrows shot upwards. Her shirt had moved as she had slept, and now her entire right shoulder was exposed. And a lacy black bra.

I gestured politely.

She didn't seem bothered, let alone embarrassed, and gently tugged her shirt back up her arm. Then she looked at my hand, stained red from the cut. She shot up to her feet, flinging the duvet across the bed, and stumbled over to me. "How in the world did you manage this?"

I shrugged. "My nails. They slipped and cut into my palm. It's nothing, really —"

"Outside, now," she insisted, grabbing one of my jackets. I was too stunned to comment on it.

As we ran downstairs and out into the night towards the local 24 hour convenience store in our pyjamas, I wondered if this was what girlfriends did —woke up at three in the morning to buy bandaids.

We clambered through the sliding doors, gasping and dizzy, and caught the attention of the cashier, who had started to doze off behind the counter.

Lorenne ran straight for the pharmacy section, yelling some nonsense about not letting me die.

"She's hysterical, your friend," the cashier remarked, her voice high pitched and her accent American. I glanced from her magenta hair to her nose piercing.

"To be fair, I did accidentally wake her while getting dressed," I sighed. "She should be sleeping."

"Oh?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

I was about to ask something when Lorenne suddenly shouted, "I've got them!" as she came to a halt at the till. She crashed into me, and I caught her by her arm. "I found the plasters," she repeated, placing them in front of the cashier.

For the first time, the cashier seemed to notice the blood soaked tissue wrapped around my hand. She hastily checked the product out and I dug into my pockets for a few coins. We were practically out of the door before we could take the bandaids.

Lorenne didn't even wait for us to get back to the hotel —she stopped us just before the street and ripped open the box. She took my hand and peeled away the tissue, dabbed my palm with the clean part of the paper, and then smoothed a bandaid over the cut.

"There," she breathed, her breath visible in the air.

"Thanks," I said, flexing and curling my hand into a fist.

She smiled, making my heartbeat quicken. "Anytime."

"And...you didn't have to come with me, you know," I added, feeling bad for waking her up.

"I may have overreacted," she admitted with a sheepish grin. "I was half asleep and the sight of blood kind of scared me awake."

"It really was an accident, I swear," I hissed, a sudden shiver running down my spine. I didn't want her reaching the suspicion that I might be a lunatic. The pain in my temple was now a dull ache, and was beginning to worry me. It didn't feel like a headache. It had been too sharp —too focused.

I waited for a blue-green snake and jade smoke to curl around my feet, but nothing materialised.

"Are you okay?" Lorenne asked. "You're shivering."

"I'm just a little cold," I whispered. "I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt," I reminded her.

She shrugged off the jacket she was wearing.

"Oh no, no, you don't need to give me that," I quipped, taking a step away from her.

Vague disappointment flooded her features.

I assured her that I was absolutely fine, and that we should probably get back to the hotel. She chewed on her lip, but agreed and started heading in that direction. So we made our way back and flopped onto the bed in exhaustion. I was too tired to get her to sleep in her own bed, so we slept together again.

I didn't watch her sleep this time. But I couldn't stop stroking my injured palm with my thumb.