Paint My Skies Black, I Never Wanna See The Sun Again

I tossed and turned all night long. I tried flipping my pillow over to rest my head on the cool side; I tried sleeping on my side, back, and stomach. I even tried counting sheep.

No such luck.

I couldn’t get what Alex said out of my head.

I sighed grabbed my stuffed fish and decided to go to the kitchen and get some cookies and milk. That always made me feel better. I shuffled down the stairs quietly put my fish on the counter and went to the fridge, pulled out the milk, grabbed the cookies, and sat down at the counter.

I looked outside at the moon. It had occurred to me that I hadn’t taken pictures in a long time. It was very out of character, but so was everything that had happened in the past few days. Wow – to think how much their stay has affected me. And not for worse.

Well, not completely.

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. My head snapped up. At the bottom of the staircase stood Alex – clad in his boxers and a worn, old t-shirt.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I – uh, I should go back upstairs” he turned to march back up the stairs when I stopped him.

“Stay.” I said so softly I was unsure he’d even hear it.

He heard, halted, and faced me. He took a hesitant step towards me. I gave him a tiny smile which reassured him enough to take a seat across from me.

“I’m so sorry, Sunny.” he said again.

I didn’t answer immediately. I took time to pull together what I wanted to say, “I’m not saying I forgive you, Alex, but I will talk to you again. I can’t not talk to you. For some reason, it’s almost physically impossible for me not to.” I chuckled at the sound of my explanation.

“I understand.” He replied.

“But what I want to know is – why? You said that the answer would be almost as bad as any excuse, but still, I’d like to know.”

This time, it was he who took a moment before answering, “This might sound stupid, but...I was upset that you didn’t want me; that you were unattracted to me. And I know I might sound like a conceited ego maniac by saying this but – that’s never happened before! And then I came up with a seemingly ‘brilliant’ and ‘foolproof’ plan to make you jealous.”

He stated, even making the air-quotes around the words brilliant and foolproof.

“I guess it was foolproof. Not Alex-proof, or idiot-proof, or ass-proof. And I don’t think you need me to explain what the plan was...” he trailed off, leaving the last thought to finish itself.
“So, you were trying to make me jealous?” I asked, looking for clarification.

“If you can believe that.” He replied impishly.

Silence filled the room.

“I named the fish.” I said, a smile lilting my voice.

“Oh really? What’s its name?”

“His name is Alex.” I said, giving him a smirk of my own.

“Alex?” he shot back, confused.

“Mhm.”

“May I ask why perhaps?”

“So that when I’m mad at you, I can punch him, when I want to hug you – if that was ever the case – then, I could hug fishy Alex, if I needed someone to comfort me when I was down, then Fishy Alex to the rescue! I guess you could call him an alternate.”

“Ah, I see. But no one could ever really replace me.” He teased, but seriousness underlying the tease.

“No, no one could.” I replied.

“I’m sorry for messing things up. I guess this whole ‘actually having feelings’ thing is new to me” he said, reverting our conversation back. I briefly considered telling him how I felt.

Maybe now was not the time.

Would there ever be a time?