When I was in 1st grade, my friend had a lot of temper tantrums.
We were having a sleepover and I fell asleep in her bedroom.
In the middle of the night, I woke up in a different bed with her father.
I was highly confused, he was like, “Hey there, kiddo. You sleepwalked in here. It’s okay. Go back to bed.”
I was groggy and scared. I didn’t remember getting up. His voice was low and calm, but something about the situation didn’t feel right. I glanced around—it wasn’t a bedroom like mine, not girly, no stuffed animals. Just dark, with the smell of cologne and something bitter like old coffee.
I sat up and mumbled something like, “Sorry,” and he gently guided me out of the room and back into his daughter’s room. She was still fast asleep, sprawled sideways, one arm dangling off the bed.
I didn’t sleep again that night. I stared at the ceiling until the sun came up and the birds started. I didn’t even tell anyone at first. Not even my mom.
Maybe because I didn’t fully understand it. I didn’t feel touched or hurt. Just deeply, deeply confused.
As kids, you often assume grown-ups know what they’re doing. I remember thinking maybe I had sleepwalked, and maybe it was just one of those weird grown-up things. He didn’t yell. He didn’t act angry. But his hand lingered a little too long on my back when he guided me out. And that tiny thing stayed with me like a pebble in my shoe.
Years went by. I never went back to that house. I told my mom I didn’t want to sleep over there anymore and made some excuse. I distanced myself from the girl gradually, and we ended up in different classes the next year anyway. Her name was Rina.
Fast forward to middle school, Rina transferred out. I didn’t hear about her again until high school. We were juniors, and she popped up on someone’s Instagram story at a house party. Her hair was dyed blue, and her eyeliner looked like war paint. She was wild-eyed, flipping off the camera.
A month later, she was in the news.
Not huge news, but local. “Teen Injured in Domestic Disturbance.” No names given, but I knew it was her. I recognized her house in the background of a blurry photo. A week after that, someone said her dad got arrested for “some creepy stuff.”
I still didn’t tell anyone about that night.
Not until years later—when I became a mom.
My daughter, Lali, was six. She got invited to a sleepover at a classmate’s house. A little girl named Maribel. Sweet kid. Her mom was always super chatty during school pickup. But for some reason, when she invited Lali to spend the night, I felt ice in my chest.
I said yes at first. But then I had a full-on panic spiral that night. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at Lali’s little backpack, already packed with her pajamas and stuffed turtle, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t send her.