Chapters On A Page

I couldn't sleep. This was rarely ever a problem for me. I loved to sleep and I welcomed it every single time I crawled into bed. Even when there were things bothering me, thoughts bouncing around my skull, I could easily fall asleep. It was an escape, a simple way to forget any of the problems I could have on any given day. If the dilemmas happened to manifest themselves within my dreams, it was never something I recalled in the morning. Waking up to face reality was tough, sure. But anything appeared more likely to be conquered while well refreshed thanks to a good night's sleep. Closing my eyes for even a couple hours was a glorious thing. So I couldn't understand why it was such a difficult task in the moment.

I was trying; as hard as I could, I was trying. When I wasn't kicking my covers off in frustration and then yanking them back up over me in annoyance when I got cold after only a few seconds. I tossed and I turned, I lay on my stomach and on my back, getting up to read on the window seat and attempting to relax to see if either made me tired. But nothing was working, just as I had expected after I had been lying in bed wide awake for the first hour. I hadn't been stressed to begin with, but still being awake had disgruntled me more than I could say. Finally tired of playing a game I wasn't winning, I kicked my blankets off once more and pushed myself out of bed.

After pacing the few feet it took to get to the closet, I knelt on the hardwood and began tearing at everything on the bottom. Not caring what kind of noise I made, I sent shoes flying, boxes of pictures skidding across the floor, old purses airborne behind me in the direction of my bed. Once the space in front of me was clear enough, I reached out a hand toward the corner to my right where I had gotten into the habit of leaving the blankets for my friends and grabbed one from the top to haphazardly spread out into the place I had just cleared and extending out. I didn't bother smoothing it out, just simply threw another one on top of it, and then yet another. When it was thick enough to be considered comfortable, I got back to my feet and tore the blankets off my bed and threw aside a purse to get to my pillow. The latter, I threw so it smacked against the back wall of the closet and landed atop all of the blankets forming a makeshift bed. I followed it, falling to my knees again, this time on soft fabric, and crawling until I could rest my head on the pillow.

This was something that I had come up with ages ago. When I was young, before I had even hit five-years-old, I had had a hard time coping with having to sleep in my own bed. My parents had always let me in whenever I had wanted to sleep in their bed, but, at whatever age it had been, they'd decided that I was too old to continue that. So I had turned to Emma. She had already been ten -or at least nearing it hastily- so she often got annoyed with me rather quickly at that time. But she had been gracious by letting me into her room one evening. Climbing into her bed with her was out of the question though. So she had made me a bed coming out of her closet, convincing me it was just like sleeping under a canopy. It goes without saying it was nothing like that, but it had made me feel better and somehow gotten me to like the idea of my own bed in much less time than my parents' plan would have. Since then, this was a seldom used method for me to find some serenity to fall asleep, but I was deciding to use it tonight for the first time in two years.

I didn't sleep for two weeks after my sister died. I had sat up, awake so late into the night that I had momentarily forgotten that the sun rose and set and that the day wasn't one continuous hour. I had just been expecting her to walk through the door of her room, stumbling slightly but trying her best to keep it down. Being only a little bit intoxicated and not wanting to wake our parents since she still hadn't been legally allowed to drink. She had done it so many times before, had counted on me to help her stay quiet and put her to bed. I had just thought that maybe she was going to come home and tell me I had fallen asleep while I waited, and I would get to tell her about the horrible nightmare I'd had about her death. Or maybe she would tell me that she really had been gone for a few days. She had done that before, too. Disappeared without any real word of where she was going, simply wanting to get away so she could come back to reinvent herself, so to speak. If she was ever gone for more than a day, we would all have known that she was only on her own adventure. But I had never gotten the chance to wake up. I didn't get to hear another of her stories about some big city or small town she had run off to. And it had come time to finally sleep so that I could see her face again, no matter what my subconscious brought up. The way I had gotten over those fourteen days of forced insomnia was by making a bed in her closet just as she'd done for me, and I had been soothed to sleep all over again.

Like the night I had decided slumber was better than the crazed depression, I was ready to see Emma. I was more than willing to take the child version of her or the undead one, as long as it meant that I could squeeze in a few hours of sleep before school. I lay there, the top of my head touching the back of the closet while the hem of a dress brushed my forehead. I didn't let it bother me. I kept my eyes shut and settled into the quiet and the dark around me, anticipating falling unconscious in no time. Maybe I was too eager for this strange tactic to work, or maybe it was just destined to be an all-nighter ordeal. I gave in after I had spent another hour on the floor, no matter what the problem was.

I sat up, hands palm-down on either side of my hips while I stared around my room. It was dark, save for some light spilling across the bed from the streetlight, which was just enough to allow me to see the outlines of the rest of my furniture. My adjusted eyes landed on the desk backed up to the wall right next to my closed door. Somehow, I managed to identify my phone setting on the top, its silver surface nearly invisible when it usually gleamed. Setting it as my end mark, I untangled myself from blankets and sheets and bolted to my feet. I knew that if I was involuntarily staying up through the night, that there was one boy that could help me power through it and entertain me at the same time. It really wasn't all that late since I had tried to go to sleep earlier than usual. It was only half past midnight when I pressed my thumb down on the green button to send out the call to that boy, knowing he would be awake of his own accord.

That didn't stop him from bitching when he answered. "What the hell do you think you're doing calling at this hour?" Alex barked sarcastically at me from the other end of the line. Before he chuckled, I could hear music playing in the background and also what was probably a movie. I always imagined him staying up until three or four hours before school began, sitting in front of his computer and doing whatever he pleased. It seemed to me that my vision just may have been absolutely correct.

"I can't sleep," I confessed disdainfully, glaring though there was nothing to glare at. I was hopeful again though when I asked, "Can I come over?" I was already padding to the other side of the door to reach the light switch, and I flicked it on to illuminate the room that had become my haven. My next stop, before I even received an answer from him, was my dresser. If I was going to his house, I had no plans of coming back home tonight and I would need a change of clothes for school in the morning. Without paying much attention to what I picked out, I began stuffing things into my backpack which I'd grabbed from the desk chair.

He sounded stunned when he spoke again. "You want to come over here because you can't sleep? Was Dominic busy or…" he logically inquired, trailing off. Honestly, I had given no thought to Dominic. I tried to tell myself it was because I knew he'd be sleeping by telling Alex this same excuse. There was no hesitation from him after that. "Yeah, sure, you can come hang out. Give me a few minutes and I'll come get you," he told me, and I could tell he was getting up from the seat he had more than likely made himself comfortable in hours ago.

"No, I can just ride my bike," I insisted with a reflexive shake of my head. In the months that we had been friends, I had somehow never been to Alex's house. But I knew the address and I knew the streets like the back of my hand thanks to taking my bike most places. I had faith in myself that I could make it there without a problem.

"Valerie," he rebuked, sounding very matter-of-fact, "it's like twenty degrees out there. I'm coming to pick you up. No arguing." He was firm on this, and I knew that arguing really wasn't an option because he truly just wanted to drive over for me.

So I simply let out a light giggle and agreed, hanging up after speedy departing words. I swept some makeup cluttering the top of the dresser into the front pocket of my messenger bag and threw my phone in with it, zipping up the compartment with a sound of finality and flipping the flap back into place. I was already in flannel pajama pants, so I just grabbed a hoodie to throw over my ratty old t-shirt and then flung the strap of my bag over my head to rest on my shoulder. I gathered my purse and a jacket to go along with all of my other things and was ready to head out the door before I remembered that I wasn't exactly allowed to leave the house in the middle of the night. That wasn't going to stop me in any way. I scribbled out a note, a lie about how I had left for school early to finish a lab for chemistry, and I taped it to the front of my door for my mother to find when she woke up.

I was as silent and stealthy as a cat as I crept down the stairs into the pitch-black living room. I extracted my keys from my purse as I tiptoed to the front door, which I locked behind me. I waited on the porch swing, swaying back and forth in the night's wind and giving myself a push with my foot against the floor each time I slowed to a stop. There wasn't much to do in the time before Alex showed up but watch my breath condense in the air. It was chilly, but certainly not the temperature he had claimed it to be. It was autumn weather, late nights that were now below sixty. But I knew that it would have been rough having it blow back in my face as I rode to his house, so I was grateful that he had offered to come get me instead.

After fifteen minutes of sitting on the porch, white lights flooded the street more than the yellow glow of the streetlight ever could. The neighborhood was normally quiet at this hour, so I knew it was him. I jumped up and skipped down the steps, reaching the gate before his familiar car showed up in front of the house. I hopped into the passenger seat while he idled in the middle of the road, coming to the realization that I was even more wired than I had previously thought. "It's only like forty-five degrees out there," I blurted out just to correct him as he pushed us forward and on our way. No greeting even left my lips first. "Not twenty."

He guffawed, not able to hold it back. "Oh, well, I apologize. I just know it's fucking cold out. Which I'm sure you know because you sat outside like a dumb ass," he joked, peeking at me from the corner of his eye.

I made a face at him, making fun of his know-it-all attitude about the weather. "Well, thanks for putting up with me… even if you did just insult me," I said, a smirk playing on my lips. A matching one took over his own lips, visible only when we drove beneath another streetlight.

We didn't say much after that as he continued on to his house. As always, a CD I was more than fond of was playing softly through the speakers and I mouthed the lyrics as we drove. It was a short ride, or at least seemed so because time meant nothing when I was so alert when I shouldn't be. He pulled into his driveway, parking in front of a two car garage that had both doors open to reveal his parents' cars. Instead of leading me through them to the door I could faintly make out against the far wall, he took my hand and led me around the house. We went through a gate that was part of a privacy fence and came out into the backyard, speeding passed the pool and over the patio while heading to the back door. He pulled the screen door open slowly, being careful to keep it from creaking too loudly, and then he gave the door which he had apparently left unlatched a shove to open it. He must have turned the light above the stove on before he left -probably more for my benefit than his- and it allowed me to see the dog lying with its head on its paws underneath the table when we had gotten inside.

When I bent down to pet it though, Alex tugged on my hand still clasped in his. "My dad always comes down to get a glass of water around this time. There's no time to pet the dog," he informed me with a firm whisper. He then whistled as quietly as he could. "Come on, Spot. Time for bed," he coaxed, doubling over at the waist so the dog knew he was being spoken to. I smiled to myself, mostly because he'd named his dog Spot but also a bit because he was trying to get him to come with us so I could pet him.

Spot looked uninterested for only a split second, but the prospect of playing with someone new won out. He got to his four furry feet and followed along behind us as we snuck through the house. Everywhere else, Alex had left it dark, so he gingerly guided me around corners and passed furniture that I would have run into otherwise. Once we hit the stairs, I was okay to take them by myself but he still kept my hand while we made our way to the top. A faint light was coming from the crack beneath a door at the end of the hall once we'd made a turn, and I was positive that was our destination. Spot ran ahead of us, scratching at the door once he'd reached it himself and dropped to his haunches when he became aware that the only person that could let him in was behind him. His wagging tale hit me in the knee when Alex turned the knob to allow the three of us to go in.

While Alex shut the door behind us, I took a few steps forward and let my bags fall to the floor in a corner formed by the wall and the TV stand. The room was relatively clean, and I was pleased that I didn't have to pick my way through garbage and laundry. The blinds were closed on the windows that lined the back wall, leaving me unable to see which way they faced. I was more interested in the bed that lay halfway between those windows and myself anyway. Tired or not, beds were still my best friends at this hour. The dog had already jumped up and made himself comfortable, so I padded over to sit on the edge and scratch him behind the ears.

"So… is there a reason you couldn't sleep?" Alex questioned, his voice low as he sat beside me, his back pressed to the pillows and his feet up. He didn't ask if there was also a reason for it being him that I had called but it was implied. He wasn't angry as Dominic might have been if I had called him with the same request. Alex was only curious, wanting to make sure that there was nothing wrong.

I shrugged, because I was now speculating if maybe there had been a reason behind my insomnia of the night. "I didn't think it was anything. But I guess I was thinking a lot about my sister," I admitted, almost ashamed of it. I felt the apples of my cheeks heat with a blush and I let my head drop to stare at my fingers running through Spot's fur. This was true though. Before I had even made the childish bed in my closet, I had had Emma on my brain all night but simply hadn't realized it. "It's hard not to go back to the night she died and wonder what I could have done different. Maybe if I hadn't left the party with Murph and the others, I would have been there to recognize something different with her. I could have known that better than anyone in that house. Maybe I could have saved her." The words had passed through my lips before I was even fully aware that I was the one saying them. I never told anyone these thoughts. Not my mother. Not my boyfriend. Not even my three best friends. I certainly hadn't meant to burden Alex with them. I ran a hand over my eyes, wishing for a way to take it back.

"Val, it wasn't your fault. It hurts to hear, but there's nothing that could have changed what happened that night," he said softly, the words comforting instead of cautious to make sure no one else heard. I felt him lean forward and he placed a hand on my shoulder. "Tearing yourself down doesn't help in any capacity," he announced like he knew precisely what he was talking about.

"How do you know so much about picking yourself up after the death of someone you cared about more than anyone else?" I wondered. No tears were even close to threatening to fall, but my voice still cracked. I wasn't assuming that he had never lost anyone before. He was just speaking as if he knew what it felt like for a sibling to pass away.

He cleared his throat, suddenly very conscious of the question I'd asked. "I had an older half-brother. He passed away when I was a kid," he enlightened me, dropping his hand from my shoulder but not appearing terribly upset.

I hadn't meant to bring up bad memories. "Now who's insensitive?" I mumbled to myself, brought back to that first day we had talked about ourselves to each other after he had given me a ride home.

He chuckled, something I hadn't been expecting at all. "We're both assholes. Why do you think we're such good friends?" he asked rhetorically, and just like that the tension was leeched from the room. He swung his legs back toward the edge of the bed, standing up to head toward the television. "Want to play Mario Kart since we'll probably be up a while?" he questioned with a wink.

I laughed but nodded eagerly. He handed me a controller and turned to get the TV on the right settings while I slid over on the bed and spread out on my stomach with my head at the end opposite the pillows. Spot wiggled so he was next to me again, and he rested his doggy chin on the back of my calf. Once Alex got himself into the same position as me on the other side of the bed, the games began. I was competitive when it came to Mario Kart and angered very easily more often than not. I found it tough not to swear at the top of my lungs and laugh out loud every few seconds. But he was having the same problems. Eventually, I simply gave up on trying to win against him and flipped onto my back, letting my head hang over the edge while we continued to play. This was how I fell asleep however long later, my head still unsupported and the bright orange controller on my stomach.