Restless Insomniacs

Alex Michaels stares at me from behind brilliantly blue eyes, I move my line of vision from his beautiful eyes to his thick lips sprouting words I am too tired to understand. I frown at him and then thinking better of ignoring him taking out my earphones and asking, “What?”

Alex Michaels is the reason I am living and the reason I am slowly dying. He is slowly killing me yet giving me every reason to live and it is so utterly confusing I want nothing more than for it to all stop. Every part of it but I am smarter than to believe it will.

I wish he would hurry up and kill me. I wish he would stop my aching heart from beating and I wish he would free me like a lost soul. But he won’t, there is no way he will ever let me go. He loves me far too much to ever leave me and I am far too comfortable with him and our routine to ever let him go so forever will we fall together breathing and dying at the same time.

“Were you not listening to me?” I know far better than to try to be snarky and annoy Alex but I am so tired I don’t care to know better; I am just so tired. I didn’t sleep last night or the night before that, or a year’s worth of nights before that. But that is okay because I will sleep tonight, I have a good feeling about tonight. Maybe I won’t even wake up, it is a hopeless dream but a dream nonetheless.

“Did you not see the earphones?” Alex raises his eyebrows in surprise and annoyance and I know I have struck a nerve and for a fleeting glimpse I see a boy, a different boy to the one sitting opposite me on the athletics field we occupy with our friends.

There are two side to my boyfriend, two very different competing yet conflicting sides to the boy I claim to love with all my heart and soul. There is Good Alex, who is sweet and kind and buys me flowers every weekend because he wants me to know he still cares and then there is Evil Alex who loses his temper far too easily and scares me more than I can begin to explain.

“Whatcha listening to?” I glance around at the athletics field and wonder what it might feel like to jump off the bleachers, surely it would not kill me but hurt me enough to force me home from school for the day or maybe even two days. It is a sweet thought but nothing more. I wish I had the guts.
“Just some singer” I glance at Alex and gauge his reaction he doesn’t have one and I hope this signals the end of our conversation because I really don’t want to talk but I fear I have no other choice.

“Would I like them?” Good Alex is like a little puppy dog constantly desperate for attention and forever trying to find common interests with me, when I do not comply he becomes a nasty puppy with sharp teeth and a sore bite.

“No” I say automatically, it is not technically a lie because I know what kind of music Alex is into and it is not soulful rock. But honestly, I have no idea if Alex would like this music and truthfully I do not care to find out because I refuse to share this magic with anyone. I will not share my angel with the devil.

“Maybe I know them”

“I highly doubt it” I can tell Alex is starting to get frustrated with me with the way he is fiddling with his fingernails, but I do not really care I will not give in on this. I simply will not.

“What are they called?” I do not want to talk anymore but Alex has a sweet smile on his face and it is really quite pretty and endearing in a sick sort of way so I desperately, and against better judgement, want to keep it around a little longer.

“It’s just a singer…. He died a long time ago” I do not care about Alex’s smile anymore and I am annoyed at him for making me remember. For a second, a brilliantly shining second I had forgotten but back comes the familiar gut wrenching sorrow I feel when I think of my angel, the man whose voice I can hear softly filtering in through my earphones dangling from around my neck.

A few minutes later Alex drags me to his deserted locker with the promise of a ‘surprise’. I think it is my anniversary today but I am not really sure. I promise myself not to say anything until someone else does just in case I am wrong, I really don’t want to be wrong Alex will be hurt and that is the last thing I want… I think.

I stopped paying attention to the number of months Alex and I have been together a while ago, I just sort of stopped counting when I first saw the true boy I am dating. I think we had been together for four months and Evil Alex caught me by surprise I have been on edge ever since awaiting the next visit.

I think Alex and I have been together nine months today but it seems so much longer, like I lifetime but then again I think I just have a warped sense of time. It is hot today and I wish I could wear a short sleeve top but Alex makes sure I can’t, it’s not really his fault. It’s usually mine for setting him off, I know better now. I now know how to avoid the mines on the field with pure accuracy it’s startling. I wish I were alone to wallow in my self-pity but I am with Alex and he is fishing around in his locker for something.

School has been going for half the day and I am drowning in maths equations and poetry. I wish the final bell would ring and I could be free from this hell hole but the day much like my relationship is dragging on. Alex is smiling at me and I know he is in a good mood, and I am happy for him.
Really I promise.

“Here you go beautiful” He says pulling out a ring box for me. It is cubic zirconia, I know that much when I stare at the beautiful ring staring back at me I feel my lungs squeeze out all the air left inside them and I can’t remember how to breathe, oh right in and out. “Happy 12 months” He says punctuating his statement with a kiss on the cheek.

I stare at him trying to process what he has just said, twelve months? It is such a long time and somehow I had underestimated, I thought for sure I would be overestimating but that is not the case and it makes me feel strangely uncomfortable for some reason I can’t quite explain.
“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing” I mumble, staring down at the princess cut ring, it really is beautiful but for some reason I can’t make myself take it out of the box and put it on if it were a gift from anyone else.

Maybe because putting on this ring means accepting Alex no matter what and I really don’t want to, not now not ever and that makes me sad. Infinitely sad but I don’t have time to focus on that because Alex’s smile is fading and he is speaking again.

“What you forgot?” He asks seeing something on my face I thought I was hiding, and just like that Good Alex is gone replaced by Evil Alex and I am terrified. Back is the nasty puppy who hasn’t gotten his fair share of attention back is the bite I fear so much.

He grabs my arm with more force than I have felt in a long time and I know this meant something to him, me forgetting hurts him and I hate that I have hurt him… I think. I immediately let out a small whimper to let him know he is hurting me, four months ago I might have said it outright but I have since learnt that is a fast mistake.

Alex falls into a lecture about how a relationship is equal parts give and take and I am not giving, and that hurts him, do I really want to hurt him? And I am reminded of that stupid song, do you really want to hurt me, from the eighties, it plays out in my head drowning out Alex and his lecture.

I don’t care what he is saying because the truth is on my tongue, I am desperate to scream that I don’t give because I simply don’t care. I do not love Alex Michaels no matter how much I try and fool myself into thinking it. Sure I care for him, but love? No. I am not sure after everything I have lost I am even capable of really loving another person, I am terrified of losing someone I love again so I will forever keep people at arms distance and I don’t care if it hurts it’s what’s for the best.
“Do you understand?” He says suddenly snapping me back to the present.

I nod my weary head shocked about my previous revelation, I do not love my boyfriend, I think I might even hate him a little bit for everything he has put me through. I am not even sure he is aware of how much he hurts me, it’s not like he beats me or anything, far from it. He just uses extra force and makes me do things I don’t want to do. It’s not really his fault I don’t speak up enough anymore and I should. It’s my fault if anything.

Yet despite it being my fault he doesn’t let go of my arm or loosen his grip, he keeps it tight and lets me know he is in control. “Do you understand me Daria? I love you.”

“I…” But the words will simply not come out of my mouth because I don’t love him, the simply sentiment that no longer means anything to me will not escape my lips and I am both happy and sad. Alex lets go of my arm and pushes me up against the wall, there is no escape and even though I know I should be scared I am not, I dare him to kill me.

See if I care.

The halls are empty and I am trapped with Alex, I want to both live and die at this point and not knowing which I want more terrifies me, “Say. It.” He says in his deep baritone voice,

I almost giggle remember when in eight grade he was giving an oral presentation and his voice broke in front of the whole class, everyone tried not to laugh and that was the first real glimpse I go into Evil Alex.

Alex grabs my shoulders and pulls me away from the wall only to slam me back against it my head smashes hard and I see stars, my eyes feeling dizzy and my head discombobulated. And for a fleeting minute this is how I think I am going to die and funnily enough I am okay with it.