(NOT fan fiction!) Kurt Cobain and Tally Fisk

Chapter Four

Sleep is something that never comes quickly for me.

Insomniac is not a word I would use to describe myself. I've never been completely unable to fall asleep but there's always at least an hour spent just lying there before unconsciousness claims me.

My cousin, Jasper, he's four months older than me, says he sleeps with earbuds in, listening to music. He plays guitar too and since our moms are sisters, we see each other quite a bit. More than just holidays.

I can't listen to music while I sleep. I've tried it probably two dozen times before. I set my laptop on my bedside table and make a playlist of songs that are soothing. I like Vivaldi so I put some of his work on the list. Serenity by Godsmack, of course. Some Beatles stuff like Imagine and, my own personal anthem, Eleanor Rigby. For obvious reasons. There's some good Americana that I've run across in movies and looked up later.

Anyway, I play it, lay back, close my eyes, try to relax my body and just fall into the music.

But I can't.

My mind comes alive and starts focusing on the different parts, the harmonies, the various instruments. I start to imagine what my part would be if I suddenly joined in.

And, an hour later, I'm more awake than when I started.

I can't do my schoolwork with music on either, for the same reason. I can only listen to music when I'm doing something completely mindless like the dishes or driving to school or doing nothing else at all.

I think that's why I don't listen to much music even though I love it. Even the music in stores distracts me from shopping.

Something's probably wrong with my brain.

It's about nine in the night and I'm lying on my bed, not trying to sleep, listening to Vivaldi, breathing, wishing I played the violin, trying to not freak out about John saying he's going to mention me to Tally tomorrow morning.

The music sucks me in and there's nothing but the melding of tones in my ears and the sensations they cause in various places throughout my body

I'm at a part in the song that I love, and the only way to describe it is that it takes up residence in my fingers and then moves up my arms until it become a tingling on my scalp, when I'm interrupted by a shadow passing by my lamp that causes me to open my eyes.

"I knocked but you didn't hear me," my mom says.

She steps over to the bed and smooths my hair back. I reach over to my computer and turn off the music.

"What's up?"

"I just wanted to tell you that a boy named John called. He said he was just calling to get your cell number. I gave it to him. I hope that's okay."

She's swallowing back and trying to hide a ridiculous amount of joy and I feel like the biggest loser to ever exist in the Milky Way galaxy. She's about to fly through the roof just because someone called her son on the phone. Her seventeen-year-old son.

"Thanks. That's the guy I eat lunch with at school. I've told you about him."

I actually have not told my mom about John. I'd feel guilty for lying about telling her but is it really a lie when you know the other person doesn't believe you?

"Hm. You'd think I'd remember that." She smiles.

You probably wonder, if I've eaten lunch with John for two years, why haven't I mentioned him to my parents? It's because I didn't want to be the loser who calls acquaintances friends. And also because I didn't want to jinx it.