Twinfestation

When Cali wiggled her way from under my arm, I woke up immediately from the lost feeling of a warm body pressed against me. The bear I used as a replacement wasn't anything near the real thing and I quickly found myself laying on my back with the comforter wrapped around me, unable to fall asleep again. Looking over, the clock said it was nine twenty. Meaning Salem had purposefully let me sleep and, since he was my ride to school and I definitely missed the buss by now, intended on me making up for going to work instead of sleeping yesterday by letting me miss school today.

I sneezed and wiped the water from my eyes. My allergies apparently were coming back and soon every morning I'll wake up with the symptoms of a cold -runny nose, watering eyes, acing everything, and sneezing like crazy- along with the normal freezing feeling. I probably would have tried to pass that off as a really cold if Salem had tried to wake me up anyway, so I couldn't be too mad.

Some days, I don't care. I just want to lay in bed all day and do nothing and be no one. Yeah, talking to Alan and telling Say I was gay gave me a high and happy feeling for a little bit, but then the weird low feeling I get every now and then came back. I lay there with a awful feeling in me. No, awful wasn't the word. It was somewhere between blissful and painful. Happy I was able to feel it, to know that it was there, that something was wrong. But pained at the very feeling. The feeling that obliterated all other.

Like boredom only with everything you know should interest you. Like the world has become old and you're just sick of being in it. Because no one else is there with you and it's just not interesting, it's not worth it anymore. Then when someone walks up to say hey, you act overly happy, but you don't feel it, you don't feel it the slightest bit. It's only a feeling so close to loneliness, but you can feel something else is missing. You don't know what and you don't know why you can feel such a little thing that's not there. But you do. And the only thing that's on your mind without it is leaving this boring world. Because it's just not worth it. Because, for some reason, you're not happy, you're not upset, you're not angry nor anything else. You're just bored and you feel close to lonely. When that person comes to say hey, the feeling still doesn't go away.

And you can't remember the last time it was worth it.

Sighing, I peeled myself off my bed, fanned the comforter out to make it, changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, then headed to the wing opposite of ours. There was one thing here that always made the feeling go away, if just for the time I'm there.

Walking into my mother's living room, a young looking, short haired, black chick looked away from the TV and waved at me.

"Hey Silvester. Don't you have school today?"

I shrugged. "I overslept. Where's Ve?"

"In her room taking a nap."

"At nine thirty?"

Carmen gave me a confused look. "It's almost three. What are you talking about?"

"Oh....Well, do you mind if I steel Ve for awhile? Just until Salem comes home."

Smiling, she lifted up her shirt to revel a plane blue bathing suit. "I had a feeling I'd get a chance to go swimming today."

I laughed before heading to Ve's room. Sometimes, I could swear the only reason Carmen babysits is so she can swim in the pool. But she was good at her job and mom paid her more than she'd earn if she was a waitress. Carmen was getting a late start on life and at age twenty one is working on money for collage. I'm guiltily happy about that, since that meant she got to babysit when I could actually talk to her. I liked her, Say liked her, our mom liked her, and, most importantly, Silvia liked her.

Ve was fast asleep when I got to her room, soundlessly laying on her back. The hair falling in her eyes was curly like our mom's and black like everyone else in our family except me. She was far from losing her baby fay, her cheeks bigger than ever and hands the type you just wanted to hold.

I really did like kids, but they usually didn't like me. I usually ended up being beet on and too scared to play too hard with them so they didn't really listen to me. Plus, they all found my hair especially fun to try to rip out of my head. Thought, when Ve did it I didn't mind.

Walking through the room Carmen was in, she was already gone leaving nothing but the sound of Ve yawning in my ear. She pulled at my hair the whole way back to our wing of the house and wouldn't let go when I tried to put her down, forcing me to pry her away.

"Thi Thi." Her words were incomprehensible and even more distorted by her yawn.

"Hey baby." I cooed at her as I leaned down to tickle her. "How are you?"

Laughing, she smacked me in the face then laughed more at that, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world.

"That's not very nice." I fake pouted to her which only made her laugh more "You wanna watch a movie?"

At the sound of the M word, her arms started flailing and I had to back up to avoid getting another one to the eye. She may be little, but she had a wicked right hook.

I put in her favorite movie, Marry Poppins, then curled up with her on the couch. Before the medicine even went down, she was fast asleep and clutching onto my shirt for dear life. Curling up against the arm of the couch, I encased her to me and tried to hold her warmth to against myself. Holding Silvia didn't calm me as much at clinging to Salem did, but it got rid of most of my bad feelings. I can't say she did it better than Salem since I'd never turned to him when I had them. I tried to hide them from everyone as best I could, especially him. He already dealt with me when I was mentally breaking down he didn't need to when I was emotionally cracking too.

But sometimes I wish I had the courage to ask him to. Since he could pull me back together by just sitting there when I was breaking down mentally, imagine what would happen if I didn't hide when I was feeling down emotionally. No, I don't think it was exactly the same, but I always thought he might be able to help. It's just that I'm fine with him seeing me crammed with so much that I feel like I'm going to burst into a thousand pieces, overloaded. But I didn't want anyone to see me when I felt empty, like I was about to cave in on myself. The last time I let someone see they took me hollow and smashed me against the pavement.

So close to sleep again, on that oh so delicate edge, and the light flicked on. I moaned once and it quickly turned back off. The couch sifted a little and I felt something warm touch my back, but disregarded it. Not seconds later I was fast asleep, feeling oddly but thankfully at peace.