2 2) Friends And Sleepless Nights

I'd like to say the day started alright, but I woke up exhausted again. It's been this way since... I can't remember exactly when it happened.

Hey mom, where are you?

Water from the well, hun!

I know that the lack of enough sleep has made me crazy. My dreams are always scattered. I dreamt my soul was chained to the floor of my bedroom and I had died of a heart attack. I made it to my parents beside their bed before the life had completely left me. They were sleeping.

I cried during my sleep thinking of the pain I would cause if I ever died on anyone. Chained to my floor spiritually, I doubted I could ever live on. I was forced to watch my family mourn me while yelling and screaming that I'm right there. They can't see me, but I still yell. I can try to get their attention. I was about to attempt to possess my sister when I woke up and tasted salt and raw emotion.

It was only getting worse.

I attempted to calm down the rat's nest on my head but failed miserably. The birds aren't chirping yet and I take it as a sign I'm up earlier than I usually would be.

I went to bed late last night because I was thinking of the next day's exploration.

Then it all came back to me.

No, don't touch it!

It's fine, Asia, I just want to make sure it's dead.

Oh, it's dead all right. But let's leave. We aren't even supposed to be here.

Yeah, that's right. The cellar we found. She touched the corpse. And then...

No, the rest is foggy. We left after that.

She wants to go back again today. I don't want to go back. That place gives me the creeps.

Yeah, it's definitely dead, she had said.

And then we left because lunch would be over soon and we didn't need to miss class.

Then she said we would just have to come back tomorrow. And so we would. I couldn't talk her out of it no matter how hard I had tried. Honestly, I don't think I tried hard enough. Then again, what could a mere web covered skeleton do? And what could I say?

I was far too shaken up to say much at all. I just had the insistent ache telling me to leave that place. It felt like some bad omen from the universe. It could've been.

I look at the clock. It's five thirty AM. That's too much time. I go back to sleep and await the 6:10 alarm.

When I wake up, I hear everyone in the house already up and walking around. I don't like to get up until the last ten minutes when the bus gets here. There's no problem with that. It means less time wasted, time will move faster, and I get more sleep all in one go.

Usually, even though I get up later than everyone, I'm the first to get on the bus. I never want to stand outside waiting on it. It'll stop anyway, and I can always run or jog or something similar to that.

I usually sleep on the bus, too, so I do just that. I get to school and walk onto the campus. Nobody seems to be in the front of the school which means they must have a nice breakfast this morning.

I notice Cynthia and drop my bag down to greet her. She hugs me and sighs deeply. "Are you alright?" I ask, worried for her.

She shrugs and walks over to one of the food carts. Waffles. Yeah, decent, maybe, but not enough to keep people from going out front.

She hands me a waffle packet and sits on the floor against the brick wall. I follow close behind her and lean back, allowing the cool wall to ease my sleepless bones and wake my drowsy muscles.

Cynthia opens her packet. "Well, my boyfriend got in a fight with this kid, Ethan, and everyone crowded around them and started cheering it on. I was not having it and told the Ethan boy off myself after the fight. Then I went to Jace and he thought I was cheating on him with Ethan. I mean, I wasn't. You know that, right?"

I nod my understanding and trust in her faithfulness and say, "Ah, so what was the fight about?" And an idea hits me! "Oh no! He doesn't think you cheated on him with Ethan and that's why they fought, does he?" I exclaim, and when she closes her eyes and nods a silent confirmation, I want to gather up all of my tiny pieces of courage and throw it in his face for disrespecting her like that. Although... "What did you do to make him think that?"

She looks down. I can't tell if she's trying to hide her face or what. "I don't know." She says and I get the feeling she knows.

"Alright, fine, don't tell me. I guess it's not my business anyway." I eat my waffle and we sit in silence for a moment. "I guess that would explain the lack of people outside. You know, if there was a fight."

She nodded, her mouth full, with a casual "yeah".

"So are you and him still together?"

She must really like nodding today because that's exactly what she does. Again. And then again when I ask if she's sure.

After she finishes her waffles, she briefly tells me goodbye and goes to find some other friend who probably deserves her presence much more than I do. It's nice, though, watching her walk away. I'm not lesbian or anything, but I enjoy watching beautiful people. It fills me with a feeling of satisfaction of some sort. Once she's out of my view, I pick up my bag and head to the table I've been sitting at since the second day of my freshman year.

I can see Alex sitting there. He will leave when I get there. He always does. Then I see Brian. He will leave soon too. Then Fall and her boyfriend. I've already forgotten his name. I remember when she brought him donuts and I was able to have one. They were very decent donuts but nothing at all like Sugar n' Spice, unfortunately.

Then there is Jeremy. He's the only black dude at our table and he's a pretty nice dude when he isn't being a turd. Fun fact: turd is in the word Saturday which makes absolutely zero sense because it's the best day of the week! A whole day all to myself? Yeah; now that is what I call a good Saturday. There are times though, that Ashlyn and dad take advantage of the Saturday and make everyone pitch in to clean the house bright and early in the morning which SUCKS because I can't sleep all day if they do that!

I sit down at the table and almost as soon as I get there, Alex leaves. Classic Alex. Although if he were here, he would only ever be loud and obnoxious. While there is nothing wrong with that and that's partially why I'm friends with these sorts of people, it's too early and I feel too worn out for that right now. Santos steals a chair from somewhere and sits at the table on the other side of me. Maybe he just didn't want to move Alex's book bag out of the way. Alex. He's very nice to look at. Makes me want to just... no, that's in the past.

Santos is a big Christian boy. His body type is more on the round side and he's been wearing a leather jacket with collared shirts recently and an Oreo bandanna on his head. He laughs like HEH-HEH-HEH which is quite often when mixed with Brian. They always bang on the table and bottle flip the small juice boxes. Brian has on the usual under armor hoodie and I see Jeremy with his green jacket and black pants doing homework. Fall is cuddling her boyfriend in the other side of the table and I wonder to myself where I belong in this group. Am I just the nerd? Santos and Brian call me it pretty often. We are truly a strange bunch. Two love-birds, the black boy who never does his homework so he does it in the morning, the big Christian boy who loves Oreo clothing, the name-brand clothes boy who loves to laugh and act stupid even when I know he's a very bright person but tries to hide it, Alex; my ex and pretty boy who would usually act stupid with Brian and Santos but has been doing other things recently, and then there's me, the super hyper when I'm not exhausted odd ball who is secretly a nerd. Well, I guess it's not exactly a secret now. Santos and Brian are in my World History class so they officially know I'm very smart and therefore call me a nerd. I read a book: NERD! I say "sentimental": NERD! I say "shut up, stupid heads": HEH-HEH-HEH! From Santos and AH-HAH-HAH! From Brian.

They are so predictable, it's sad. Even Fall. She's like the mediator in the group. She gets in the middle of something and tried to help solve the problem.

I grab the apple juice Brian has flipped numerous times now, and drink it. The bell is about to ring and I need brain power.

Brian just grabs another juice, used to me butting into his boy games.

I hear a loud "AYYYY!" From Brian and the bell rings. Nobody ever stays a bit longer like I do. First Brian and Santos leave, then Alex comes over to grab his bag, Fall and her boyfriend go separate ways after a quick kiss and secret smile and all that's left is Jeremy and I. I haven't moved, but Jeremy is still packing all of his things. I'm positive he used to have a crush on me. He always used to give me his jacket when I was absolutely frigid during the winter and I never thought anything of it. It only truly came to me when he got me Victoria's Secret Crush perfume. It had the word "CRUSH" in all caps on the front of the bottle. That told me enough and ever since, I've treated him a bit differently. I'm not interested in a romantic relationship with him and I showed him that with my actions since I'm so awful with words. He's treated me VERY differently now, and I see almost none of the gentleman in him I used to see. Almost none. There are some moments I see a small light in his eyes as if he's seeing something that I'm not. When he leaves, I smile at him. He smiles a little back, and runs off to class. People are so strange. I don't understand why they would rush to class when there is obviously a ton of time left. Well, maybe not a ton. There's a whole seven minutes until we actually have to be in class and I'm going to spend a good five of it sipping on some apple juice and biting my nails.

A lot of people are gone now and the lunch ladies are rushing everyone out of the lunch room. I see one of them come up to me and watch as she begins cleaning my table and throwing the trash in the trashcan she brought over here. I help her a bit with my table, but she's so experienced at it that I doubt she truly needed any help at all. I give the brown skinned lady a bright dashing smile and head off to my Geometry class.