Sing Me To Sleep

Alex lay on his bed, twisting his fingers and staring blankly at the chattering TV perched on the top of his wardrobe. He wasn’t watching it. He wasn’t really doing anything. His mind was blank – he was just kind of out of it. It was like his mind had been overloaded, and now he was temporarily out of order; crashed, like a computer.

It was sunny outside, and birds were singing. It was six o’clock in the morning. His parents weren’t yet awake, and Alex had been awake since he had left Jack’s. It was dark, then, but he didn’t know what time it had been. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting here, as blank as a piece of untouched paper.

Everything felt so fucked in his life. His best friend was cutting herself, allegedly over some boy she was in love with that didn’t love her back. Some boy that wasn’t him¸ but he was in love with her. He had a girlfriend he couldn’t care less about. He didn’t care if it was selfish, if there were other kids with it worse off than him. This was his life and it had problems. It had problems, and if he wanted, he could be upset about them.

A few hours passed and still Alex hadn’t moved. He just stared, stared as the light outside changed and got brighter and more yellow, as people started to wake up and walk around, still he sat.

A knock on his bedroom door provoked the first movement from Alex since about three o’clock that morning. He stared at the door, cleared his throat and told the person to come in.

It was his Mom.

“Alex?” she said attentively, her English accent filling the room that had been silent for so long. “Sweetie? Are you okay? I thought you were at Jack’s house?”

He continued to stare at her blankly. She stepped closer cautiously.

“Alex?” she asked again.

“I came home,” he stated in a monotone voice, turning his blank stare to his window. “I didn’t feel very well.”

His mother was less than convinced, but she went with it. “Oh? How do you feel now? Do you need anything?”

“I’d like to be alone, Mom,” he whispered, moisture filling his eyes as he continued to stare at the morning scene past his backyard.

“Okay, sweetie,” she said quietly. “If you need me, you know where I am.” She threw one last fleeting glance at her son before leaving, closing the door behind.

Mrs. Ross closed the door behind her as she stepped into the quiet house. She paused for a moment, listening for any movement which would suggest her daughter was home, and awake. It was nearing ten o’clock in the morning. She didn’t know if her daughter liked lay-ins or not. She sighed heavily. She didn’t seem to know much about her daughter anymore. Katy used to wait for her to get home. Not anymore – she’d given up. She would only succeed in seeing her mother one out of ten times. Mrs. Ross couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her daughter, awake. It was all because of that bastard. He’d left them both to the dogs for some kid with bleach blonde hair and tits bigger than should be humanly possible.

She went to take her shoes off before she noticed the hall phone off the hook. Maybe that meant Katy was home? She tutted as she replaced the phone and kicked off her shoes, stretching her sore feet and wincing before padding down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom. She hoped Katy would be in there, sleeping peacefully. Katy was all she had left in the world. It was all for her – the extra shifts, the second job. And yet, she never saw her little girl anymore. Mrs. Ross was thankful for her daughter’s good friends; Cassadee, Jack, Rian, Zack and Evan. And Alex. Especially Alex. Before He’d left, she’d seen Alex at their house all the time. Where ever Katy was, Alex wasn’t far. It was adorable, really. Mrs. Ross remembered being young and in love, too. And she knew they were in love, Alex and Katy, even if they didn’t know themselves - Mother’s intuition, and all that. She made a mental note to ask Katy how things were going with Alex when she next saw the seventeen year old girl awake.

She found herself with a soft smile on her face as she reached for the door handle to Katy’s room. She may not have been around an awful lot, but at least her daughter had good friends to take care of her. It relieved a little bit of the guilt. Not much, but still, some.

Then she pushed the bedroom door open, and her whole world crashed down in a spray of blood and a sea of ashen faces.