Restless Insomniacs

I do not sleep.

I have not slept in a really long time, eighteen months to be exact, my life is spent in a haze of tired eyes and sore thoughts, I am a walking zombie simply going through the motions. Only one thing will help me sleep but I am trying to be good, trying not to fall back into self-destructive behaviours again, I am trying to fight the demons that are strangling me.

I try to ignore the gut wrenching sadness that is slipping in again. I stare at the bags under Yale’s eyes and for a moment my funk lifts because maybe he will understand. Maybe he will understand my sleepless nights and tear filled mornings, maybe he will understand late night walks and stealing my mother’s sleeping pills, maybe he will understand me in a way no one has since my angel left me all alone.

A rough hand grabs me at my forearm and for a second I think it is Yale and I am terrified, more terrified than I ever was with Alex because I never trusted him. Yale for some strange reason I trust and I am petrified he is going to prove that everyone is a monster in some degree.

I look up as I am pulled away and realise it is not Yale that is grabbing me but Alex Michaels and he looks honest and hopeful, he stares at me with bloodshot eyes as if he has been crying and I instantly feel regret in my heart for letting him go so easily. I fight the urge to stroke his bruised and cut lip because I know it will hurt him and I really don’t want to hurt him, not again.

“Daria” He whispers my name and it sounds like heaven rapped in wonderfulness. My heart flips in my chest and I forget about Yale because it is Alex Michaels and he is in a good mood, and I want so desperately to go back to the familiar even if it is slowly killing me.

“Daria” Yale says stepping forward, I look from Yale to Alex confusion growing within me. I stare at Yale, a virtual stranger until this morning and then to Alex the most familiar boy in the world and back at Yale again. Alex’s grip on my arm is tightening but I don’t really mind, the pain feels nice, a gentle reminder that I am nothing.

“Fuck off Yale” Alex spits anger in my voice and upon his face. I stare at him as he pulls me tight against his chest reminding me of everything wrong with us, and I suddenly want to be as far away from him as I can.

“Come on Daria” Alex says pulling on my arm to lead me away but I don’t move.

I am glued to the floor watching Yale, a small part of me still wants to go off with Alex but a large part of me doubts how good he is for me, a larger part of me wants to walk off with Yale and meet his nurse of a mother.

“Why don’t we ask what Daria wants” Yale says his shoulders squared and ready for a fight. It has been so long since someone asked me what I wanted that my voice won’t come. Alex looks down at me expectantly and my arm starts to throb, like really throb and it is all I can focus on and I know in that moment my mind is made up.

My silence like before is enough to enrage a boy who holds part my heart behind his angry fists and ill-tempered heart. He squeezes my arm a little tighter and I cannot help but yelp in pain, I had not meant to let it out, I really promise it just hurts… a lot. The bruises are so fresh and I am just so freaking tired.

“Touch her again and I will kill you” Yale seethes through clenched fists Alex and I turn to stare at him.

Alex swallows visibly, not prepared for a fight with someone his own size and quickly retreats with words of vengeance and retribution. The look in Yale’s eyes scares me more than Alex ever could, and I know it is because his words are not an idle threat, something deep inside is powering Yale and it scares me because I understand. I am suddenly terrified of what Yale is capable of but I am more terrified that I understand and seemingly don’t care.

“What do I do know?” I ask Yale he smiles slightly at me with a crooked mouth and speaks the most beautiful words I have heard from anyone’s mouth but my angels.

“You stay with me poppet.”

*

Yale’s house is not at all what I imagined, it is in the middle of suburbia with a pretty floral garden, flowers of all shapes and colours in various states of bloom rising from the ground, and an actual white picket fence.

It unlike its owner is completely normal and that startles me into silence, not that Yale and I have spoken all the way home. He turned to look at me to make sure I am alright every few miles but apart from that it is almost like the other doesn’t exist except for the fact that my body is on fire in the presence of Yale.

I never really pictured Yale having a house let alone a nice one in the middle of Mocking Bird Lane, or a family really, he was always just the boy my friends warned me away from, the one that was picked on in primary school until he came back to high school with a bad reputation and a penchant for slutty girls.

I try to wipe the look of shock off my face but Yale has seen I hope he is not offended I am just shocked that is all, he laughs and I am set at ease. “What did you expect a literal drug den?”
“I… I” I sputter unable to form words at this point my face flushing red under his scrutiny,

“It’s the nicest homes that sell the best drugs anyway” He departs me on opening his car door.

I sit in my seat for a moment so stuck in habit with Alex opening my door that it takes me a moment to realise Yale is not opening my door, he is already unlocking his front door and disappearing inside out of my view.

I hesitantly unbuckle my seat belt talking myself into actually going inside and walking the paved cement path to Yale’s house. The house like the outside is not all what I imagined, I imagined mattresses on the floor people in different stages of undress doing drugs off each other but the reality is far less interesting.

Immaculately decorated sits a normal suburban house with a flat screen TV and matching couches, with an actual floor rug I did not expect. It is spotlessly clean with family pictures and worn couched with small stains, it is much smaller than my house but something about it seems much nicer.

I notice Yale standing on the staircase staring at me expectantly and I realise I have just been standing in the awning staring open mouthed at the furniture surrounding me. I rush to follow him up the stairs and to his room not wanting to be left alone in a stranger’s house, although I suppose Yale is becoming less and less of a stranger.

Yale’s room unlike the rest of the house is not spotlessly clean, it is a mess. Clothes are strewn over every possible surface, I am surprised he can find his bed in this mess of clothes and posters of bands I have never heard of are plastered on every wall blocking out any of the cream wall colouring.

I can barely make out the big double bed in the middle of the room next to two large windows with the shades drawn closed making the room look almost like it is cloaked in night time darkness. A computer desk and a guitar sit against the opposite wall and are the only two discernible objects in the sea of clothing and garbage.

I stand awkwardly in the doorway not sure if there is anywhere to sit or if the bed is the only option. Yale stands near the window and opens it expertly lighting a cigarette and puffing down the smoke. I want to tell him those will kill him but I think I understand what it is like to not care if you die. He offers them to me and I decline never one to partake in smoking.

“You can sit down if you want?” I glance around the room with a look of confusion before he nods to the bed and I sit on the edge carefully wondering how many other girls have been in this particular positon lately.

Yale continues to smoke holding it in his lungs for a moment before slowly letting it out in a cloud of smoke. The smell is so familiar and I realise belatedly and stupidly where I have smelt that smell before, my father, my angel smoked the same cigarettes as Yale, it was my favourite scent in the world and right now is no different.

My eyes stray from Yale to a framed picture on his bedside table, I stare at the photo of a much younger, pre-bad reputation Yale hugging an older female version of himself, I realise this much be the sister he barely told me about. I notice no other family photos and I am suddenly curious as to what makes her so special, what reminds him of her about me.

“That’s my sister” Yale says moving to sit on the opposite end of the bed from me, his cigarette is quickly burning out and I want to tell him but the words get caught in my throat I want to see how he reacts to pain whether he loves it or fears it, he takes no notice of the burning cigarette getting closer and closer to his fingers.

“She’s pretty” I say quietly Yale nods but adds nothing more,

“Do you have any siblings?” He asks obviously desperate to change the conversation and get rid of the awkward cigarette stained air,

“No I am an only child,” I pause briefly thinking of my parents and their unplanned ‘surprise’ me. “Do you have anymore?”

“Nope” He tells me popping the P, he stares at the nub of the cigarette before leaning behind me and reaching for an ashtray, his breath tickles my neck and I am suddenly very aware that I am in Yale Beckett’s room, sitting on his bed centimetres from his pretty lips.

I wonder what it would be like to kiss Yale to feel the cool metal of his lip ring against my tired lips. I wonder if he kisses like Alex or better entirely, the door flies open and a middle aged woman stares at Yale and I with raised eyebrows, I flush bright red.

“Yale?” She asks she has a kind face covered in lines from years of laughter and frowns, the exact opposite of my botoxed mother, she stares at her son with mild annoyance, I clear my throat awkwardly and move away from Yale acutely aware of his breath fanning my face.
“Yeah?”

“Who is this?”

“A friend” He supplies his mother turning to stare at her with his trademark smirk, I wonder how many times Yale’s mother has found him in similar and worse situations with different girls.

“Since when do you bring girls back here?” I frown at her words not sure I understand them I can’t be the first girl Yale has ever brought home can I? But before I can really ponder her words Yale is speaking and I am distracted from my thoughts because he has a truly wonderful voice.

“She got hurt” Yale’s mum walks over in her white nurse’s outfit and looks me up and down looking for any kind of damage, I want to tell her the real damage is all internal. I want to tell her the damage on my insides is far worse that the ones on my outside but I don’t. I am just tired and not thinking properly.

“Where?” Yale gently grabs my wrist and places it in his mother’s hand, she undoes the pins holding my cardigan together slowing my blue and purple arm to be exposed, the cold arm sends tingles up and down my spine and Yale’s mother’s gentle touch make my heart hurt. I want to explain that it really isn’t that bad but I don’t, I think I just want someone to care even if it is just for a moment.

“What happened?” She asks me her brow furrowed in concern I for the life of me cannot understand why she cares so much; I am really not sure what to say.

“My boyfriend” I begin my voice cracking under the weight of my words, she nods knowingly at me saving me from further explanation, surveying my arm again for longer this time, she gently applies pressure on a few of the bruises and I sharply intake as she applies the pressure.

“How long has this been happening?” She asks I am suddenly terrified that she will tell my mother and that Alex will get in trouble, despite not loving him a part of me does still care for him and I do not want him getting in trouble over something as stupid as me.

I think Yale notices my hesitation because he speaks for me, “It’s over now” Yale’s mum nods and a few minutes later excuses herself mentioning taking over the counter pills if the pain gets too much.

She tells me they are just nasty bruises but nothing to be too concerned about, nothing seems to be broken and I am disappointed, annoyed that Alex didn’t do more damage. I also don’t mention that I will never take pills because I don’t want to dull the pain, that I kind of like it.

“Your mum is really nice” I say staring down at the bruises on my arm they really are quite pretty and magnificent, I am scared for when they go away, for when I am no longer littered with pretty markings. I still have the scars I think reassuringly.

“Yeah she’s awesome”

“What’s your dad like?” I ask desperate to know if he will understand my pain,

“He split a while ago” Yale says my eyes snap up to stare at Yale my heart beats dully as I think of my own father buried six feet under from a lazy set of lungs. “It’s just been me and my mum for a while now… You?”

“My mother and I don’t get along that well,” I say thinking of not only my sweet mother but the relationship we lost when my dad died. The memories and the pain were too much to keep up together, somewhere along the way the pain drove us apart and we have never really looked back. “I don’t talk to about my dad”

I wonder if Yale realises who I am, I wonder if he realises that he has a poster of my dad on his wall, I wonder If he realises my father was pop punk royalty. As much as I want to know Yale and have someone finally understand me I can’t make myself open up and talk about my angel with this beautiful boy, instead I stare up at my father on the opposite wall and wish I was asleep.