You are still awake. I can tell because the room is dark except for your face, all lit up blue like you are looking into a fish tank. I used to think grown-ups got to decide when they went to sleep. That was the whole point of being big.
Your thumb keeps going up. Up, up, up. What are you looking for up there? You do it so fast I can't even see the pictures. When we found a good rock or a bug, we would look at it for ages. We would turn it over. You don't turn anything over anymore.
Some of the faces on the screen look scared and some look mean and you keep going anyway, past all of them, like you are searching for a door that isn't in the pile. I know that feeling. It is the feeling of looking under the bed one more time even though you already looked.
Remember you used to make forts and you would put a flashlight inside and it felt like being in a spaceship? You have a flashlight right there in your hand. It is the brightest one we ever had.
Put it down and make a fort. Or just close your eyes. I promise the morning still comes. It always came before, even the scary times.
You can stop now. I looked.
There's nothing up there.