Protect Me 18+✔️

Chapter 13 Noises ✔️

I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to get to sleep. But all I can seem to do is toss and turn. 

I keep thinking about what Drew said earlier and how angry he got with me for teasing him. It did give me a bit more insight into why he chose here, and I can compare our situation to that of the characters in that book and see some similarities, but it also doesn't make me feel any better about our circumstances or the situation with him.

It is always like one step forward, three steps back with him. I thought we had gotten past the majority of our issues and that our teasing one another was more of a game now than an obsessive need to hurt one another, but after tonight, I don't know what to believe. I don't know why he seemed so upset when he said it, but I just keep thinking about what he said and how there is a lot that I didn't know about him. It is true. Other than the fact we have spent all of our entire lives trying to make each other miserable, that he is River's best friend and has just always been there, I really don't know that much else about him. Not really.  I make a mental list of all the things I do know. Then I make another separate list of all of the things I don't know. 

Eventually it is too much and I can't keep track of everything, so I roll over, grab my journal off of the nightstand, grab my pen, and start listing them all out on paper. By the time I am done, it is painfully obvious that the list of things I know is far shorter. Reading them over, I also realize that they are all things that are obvious, most of them things that you would know after spending ten minutes with someone.

It is weird looking down at it, actually seeing it laid out in front of me in black and white. I have known him my entire life, and I really don't know much more than anyone would after just meeting him and for some reason it makes me kind of sad. 

It also gets me thinking about how little I know about the other people in my life—my parents, his parents, and even River.

Everything that I have always thought I knew has been warped and distorted over the last month. 

Do I really know that much about anyone? It is becoming more and more clear to me that I don't...

I close my journal and lay it on the bed, leaning back against the pillows, letting these thoughts swim around in my head.

This was a bad idea; I should have just kept trying to sleep. Now my mind is a racing mess, and sleep is the last thing on it.

So to combat the insomnia I begin to try to put everything together and make it make sense, feeling much like I did when I did the same thing three years ago, and also, just like before, it only ends up leading to even more questions.

I can't do this.  I will worry about it tomorrow. Even if I figure it all out tonight, there is nothing that I can do about it.

Just as I finally start to relax enough to close my eyes, I hear a sound outside my window.

I can't tell what it is, but it sounds like something or someone scratching against the side of the house, the side which happens to contain my bedroom window. 

I pull the covers up to my chin, shielding myself like a child frightened of monsters in the dark, praying that it will go away, but it only gets louder. Maybe that is what I am—a frightened child alone in the dark. No, I refuse to let this get to me. You have to grow up, Sky.

My heart races as I muster up enough courage to be brave enough to lean up to see if I can make anything out.

It is times like these that I wish Drew was still up my ass like he was before sleeping on a pile of blankets on my floor, ready to pounce at every little noise or movement.