• Wish I Were Sleeping

    I can feel the insomnia creeping up on me mocking me with the sleep I could be having if my brain would just shut down. My bed calls to me sweetly whispering about how warm and cozy it is and how much nicer it is than the chair in front of my computer. I firmly believe my bed is a sadistic b***h who likes to to tell me pretty little lies in order to get me to listen to it because quite honestly the bed is a piece of crap while my desk chair on the other hand is the most relaxing thing I've ever sat in. Since I spend most of my time surfing the net and less of it sleeping I figured might as well invest in a chair that doesn't make my spine want to slither out of my body; the only thing that makes the bed appealing is the laying down position I could be in instead of this upright one.

    Eventually the hunk of cloth and springs wins and I turn off the machine that entertains me during the night/early morning hours and sink down into my mattress where I close my eyes and try to go to sleep. If you guessed that I failed epically at this you were right and that person you bet with owns you some money; how stupid of them to believe that I actually found bliss in the warm fabric of the two comforters I wrap myself in every night. I lay in my cold creaking bed staring up at my ceiling singing show tunes in my head waiting for the slip into dreamland.

    Somewhere around a** o'clock in the morning I pass out, my body finally beating my brain into submission; I'm not gonna lie it happens like this almost every night, but it's fine I don't really care how I get my rest just so long as I get it. Sadly it only lasts for an hour or two and then it's time greet the day with a bright smile and cheerful attitude or go to work in a pissy mood and grumble at everyone. Guessing which one is me doesn't get you a cookie. As I open my eyes I can't help but think there just aren't enough hours in the night to sleep and be an insomniac, it's just not how life works.

    The haze of my sort of sleep clings to me making it difficult to part with the covers and drag my feet towards the bathroom to take my shower. Somehow I mange to make it to my rusty old bathtub, in my dirty old bathroom with it's pealing walls and faint mildew smell, without hurting myself. Which believe me is a freaking miracle because if you actually took a good look at my legs you'd notice all the scrapes and bruises from my many attempts at walking from my room to the bathroom without completely breaking myself and my furniture. I don't turn the lights off, it's too early for me to look into any sort of light.

    Once the warm water hit my body I was immediately awake and trying to go through the motions of resembling something like a functioning human being. It's short, the shower, it has to be; any longer and I'd have no time to get dressed and make it to work on time. It's a good thing that years ago I trained my internal clock to wake me up at least 20 minutes before any of my shifts. Today's job is at the local movie rental place, it pays crap but a job's a job so I'm not complaining and plus since it's a) a weekday and b) I'm working the morning shift the place will be practically empty.

    I arrive at work to see I'm right and after relieving the night guys of their posts I go to the back and pick out my selection of movies for today. That's the one perk of this job, as long as it's nothing that would scare little children we're aloud to play any movie on the TV's. It's also another reason I like the morning shift, I don't have to worry about customers interrupting my movie. The rest of the work day is mostly uneventful, I say mostly because there was this one kid in today who lost it and started angrily break dancing on top of the counter because we didn't have the movie he was looking for. Teenagers are freaking crazy, I may still technically be one but I like to think I don't act like I'm constantly on or coming off a sugar high. That's how most of the kids at my high school acted; when I graduated last year you can bet that I did a break dance of my own only mine was out of happiness and not frustration at the new Disney movie not being in.

    It's now 2: 25 P.M. that means my shift is almost over and I have three maybe four minutes until I am attacked by 115 pounds of hyper energy in a skirt. Sure enough just after three minutes had past I hear the door open behind me followed by the enthusiastic squeal of the only teenager I wouldn't toss out into traffic. Her name's Kay, short for Kathryn, we've known each other for thirteen years and our relationship can best be described as complicated.

    "Natty!" she yells as she catapults herself onto my back, I scowl at the nickname and grab the backs of her knees to keep her from strangling me as I carry her around, "Don't call me Natty Kay or I'll drop you in the DVD bin again." "Aw you wouldn't do that," she laughs and I roll my eyes, "If I remember correctly that exactly what you said right before I dumped you in there last time." She laughs and then is completely silent for a moment, "Maybe," she says quietly her usual cheer missing from the words, "But that's not important now. Come on lets go home I have something to tell you." I start having a bit of a freak out after she says this, every time Kay uses that quite serious voice of hers it means something is majorly wrong or upsetting her. The first time I heard it was when she was seven and she told me she had to go home early because her parents had gotten into a car accident, the most recent one had been a month ago when she told me her latest boyfriend had been beating her.

    Turning my head slightly to look at her I saw that she had on her typical goofy smile only it didn't exactly reach her eyes, something was defiantly up but since she was still able to smile almost like she means it then that must mean no one must have died or been hurt, but with Kay you never really know until she tells you. I turn back to the inside of the store and shout back to James, the other employee working here today, that I was leaving, he nods in acknowledgment and waves not looking up from the display he's fixing in the back.

    Kay doesn't say anything more until we get into my old faded orange bug and I ask her which 'home' we're going to because over the years we've become apart of each others household, her mother treats me like I'm her long lost son and my mother thinks of Kay as the daughter she never had but always wanted. "Your place," she mutters while looking out the window and clutching her backpack like a life line, it is now that I defiantly know that no one's hurt or dieing, she only asks to go to my apartment when shes like this to talk to me alone about us, but I still have no idea what the hells going on in that blond little head of her's. I can remember only one other time when Kay did this, it was the day she ended us as a couple; that right there is what makes our relationship complicated I started out as her best friends, then became her brother, and then one day we were lovers.

    The apartment I live in is nothing short of crap, much like everything I own with only a few exceptions, we walk again in silence up the rickety rusty iron stairs to my door. We arrive there and I fish my keys out of my pocket desperately try to think of something to say to lift the awkwardness that has now become our atmosphere, I get the same result as this morning when I tried to slip into slumber. Once inside the apartment I gesture for her to take a seat on the couch which she does nervously perching on the edge instead of plopping down like she always does makes me worry even more as I take my seat in the chair opposite of the couch.

    Still nothing is said, she stares at anything but me and I can't stare at anything but her. "So," I say not being able to take the quite any longer, "Whats on your mind Kay?" Her blue eyes finally meet my gray ones, her breath hitches, and her grip on her bag tightens; not braking my stare I slowly get up from the chair and kneel down to her level. "Kay what's wrong?" I ask softly cradling her face in my hands and leaning my forehead against her's. She closes her eyes, takes a shaky breath in an attempt to calm herself down, and says the absolute last thing I had expected to hear come out of her mouth.

    "Nathaniel....I'm pregnant."