The Call of Night

I couldn't sleep. It was nothing new, but tonight the chronic insomnia seemed particularly bad. I'd crawled into bed somewhere around nine after swallowing a few sleeping pills that had been guaranteed to work by the doctor who'd prescribed them. I'd gotten maybe two hours of sleep at the very most before I woke up on the verge of screaming, drenched in cold sweat and goosebumps.

And I'd been awake ever since.

Turning my head to the side, I stared at the digital clock that glowed an angry, violent shade of red in the darkness that almost seemed to burn my eyes.

2:08.

Shit.

I needed my sleep more now than ever, now that summer was over and I was back in school. I fell asleep in nearly every class and I couldn't focus at all whenever I was awake.

With a disgruntled moan, I rolled over to put my back to that unholy clock and curled up under the sheets, holding my knees to my chest.

Sleep, I pleaded with myself. Go to sleeeeeep.

But I knew well enough that I wouldn't--that I couldn't.

On the rare occasion that I actually fell asleep at night, I never stayed asleep. Whether it was because of the insomnia or those freaky nightmares that seemed way too vivid to be all in my head.

I tried to tire myself out by looking around my room. It was the smallest one in the house--of course. But maybe that was because my full-sized bed took up most of the available space. The dark, royal-purple walls looked black in the night; there was a dark, wooden bedside table to my left, on which sat a lamp, the clock and my cell phone, which was plugged into the charger. On the left there was also the small bay window that I enjoyed more than anything else. There was very little space left, only enough to walk around the bed and open the closet door and the main door, both of which were located at the foot of my bed.

I waited for what seemed like forever before rolling back over to face the clock.

2:13.

With an angry, exasperated hiss, I grabbed my clock and yanked on it hard enough to rip the cord right out of the wall. I let it drop on the off-white carpet with a quiet thud and then got up, restless.

I felt tired--no, more than tired. I felt exhausted. But I couldn't go to sleep.

I walked down the hallway as silently as possible. Just because I couldn't sleep didn't mean I wanted the others to suffer as well.

The near-silent night was accompanied by the soft, muted sounds of sleep, coming from behind the closed doors that lined the hallway.

Envy burned the back of my mind.

I went down the carpeted stairs on my toes, trying not to make any sound, and went right into the kitchen. I flung open the refrigerator door and looked through everything. Health food. That's all there was. That's all there ever was nowadays. A lot of fruit and vegetables and yogurt and milk and water and diet crap--but never anything good to eat. Everything either tasted disgusting or was put into portions too small to fill me up.

With a disgusted sigh, I let the fridge door swing shut, then I went out into the foyer, where I opened the front closet and found a big gray hoodie and my favorite pair of pink flip-flops. I wasn't sure whose hoodie I grabbed, but I didn't care; it didn't really matter. I went back into the kitchen and plucked a twenty from the jar full of cash that was sitting on our counter, tucked into a corner under a cabinet. I slipped back into the foyer and out the front door, into the cool night.

It was the end of summer, just about two weeks into the new school year. But it was cold--it was like fall was already here.

As I walked down the front path to the sidewalk, I shoved my hands into the hoodie pocket, finally glancing down to see whose jacket I grabbed.

FBI: Female Body Inspector.

Of course. I just had to grab Jared's hoodie. Great; now people would think I'm a lesbian.

That was just peachy.

I went straight to the 7-Eleven that was two blocks away and earned myself weird, suspicious looks from the girl behind the counter. I couldn't blame her, though; whoever comes int a 7-Eleven at two in the morning wearing a hoodie that implies they're gay is most likely not right in the head. Or really doesn't care.

I was the only other person in the shop, so there was really no other place for her to look.

Avoiding her eyes, I made a beeline for the slushie machine. I filled a large, clear cup with Coke slushie, then grabbed whatever junk food looked good from various parts around the shop.

Anything and everything unhealthy had been utterly banished from our house.

"Late-night snack?" the girl asked in a bored, tired voice as she scanned the items, a little smirk on her face as she glanced down at the hoodie I was wearing. I could swear she used to go to my school; I guessed she graduated.

Or dropped out.

I nodded absently, pulling the twenty out. I wasn't stupid enough to answer; I knew she was making fun of me. Speaking would just give her more opportunities to insult me.

"Sixteen seventy-two," she said, taking the twenty from my outstretched hand and putting it in the cash register. She gave me my change and I stuck it haphazardly in the hoodie pocket. She handed me a plastic bag full of the goods and I gave her a quiet murmur of "thanks" before leaving and walking home.

As I walked back, I drank the slushie, trying to quell the aching thirst in my throat. It felt raw, like it did whenever I was sick.

It was a calm night, surprisingly. Very few cars went driving past me on the street.

I decided to take advantage of the quiet, opening my senses

My eyes focused on everything: the dull, blinking street lamps; the two-story suburban houses, all with a similar build to the last; the polished, perfect green lawns; the forest that stood towering over the houses on either side of the road. It had been raining earlier tonight, very lightly, and I could still smell the pure, relaxing aroma, clinging to the pavement and the grass. I could hear the sound of traffic, distant and coming from beyond the development where we lived. I could hear the nocturnal animals in the forest--owls and foxes and raccoons, mostly.

When I finally reached the house where I lived, I smiled a little bit. Most of the houses on our street looked the same, but we'd been desperate enough to make ours different. While most of the homes were beige and white and blue, ours was a cheerful mint-green, both soft and eye-catching at the same time. I opened the white front door, still unlocked from when I'd left to the store. I turned the deadbolt behind me, the sound oddly ominous in the quiet house.

I dropped the bag onto the counter when I was back in the kitchen and returned the change to the money jar before tearing into a bag of Doritos.

Potato chips never tasted so good.

But the loud crackle of the bag had been bound to wake someone. My prediction was correct; I heard someone coming down the stairs.

"Tash...?" My best friend and my unrelated brother, Gabe Harrison, came into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Like everyone in our house, myself included, he had a tall, lithe build, able to move with liquid grace and cheetah speed. His dark brown hair was disheveled and splayed in every direction, even as he ran his hands through it. His brown eyes were the exact same shade as milk chocolate--they were absolutely mesmerizing. He was only four years older than me, at twenty-one. We looked enough alike that people would ask us if we were siblings. But my hair was a few shades darker, streaked with black and in a few places, lighter brown. And I didn't have brown eyes; they were instead a dark shade of blue that sometimes appeared to be violet. I didn't like them at all. Anytime I looked in a mirror, it seemed like someone else was looking back at me. His skin was also more tanned than mine.

Gabe's voice was tired when he'd spoken, followed immediately by a yawn.

I smiled at him, trying to look like there was nothing strange about eating junk food that didn't belong in the house at two in the morning on a school night. "Hi, Sleeping Beauty."

Gabe didn't even seem to notice the junk food. "Tasha, it's two-thirty in the morning," he said, his voice thick was sleep. "Why aren't you asleep? You have school in the morning."

I shrugged, opening a package of Twix. "I can't sleep."

He let out a long, ragged sigh, then reached out and pulled me into a brotherly embrace while I have the Twix poking out of my mouth like a chocolaty cigarette. "Did you take the sleeping pills?" he asked.

"They didn't work," I told him, letting go and raising my eyebrows at him. "I got two hours of sleep, tops."

He smiled bitterly in sympathy, then leaned out and bit off the end of the Twix. People outside of the house would think he was doing that to flirt with me, but I was used to it. Gabe was just like that. "Try and get some sleep, please," he told me.

"Yeah, sure," I agreed, not really promising anything.

"Don't stay down here too long," he added, back in brother-mode.

"I won't be."

"Okay... Night, Tasha." He yawned again, then left the kitchen. I listened as his footsteps went up the stairs and down the hall, heard his door close.

He didn't even notice the hoodie.

Ha.