Doesn't Take Much

Chapter 18

"Wakey, wakey, Mils," a meaty hand waved in my face, "You're practically using your fries as a pillow."

I blinked a few times before swatting Cole's hand away. My eyes must have drifted closed while we were sitting there.

"You good, sis?" Leo said from across the table.

I waved a hand, signing, 'Yeah, all good.'

In all complete honesty, I was pretty exhausted. I hadn't been sleeping well all week. Nightmares and flashbacks had been giving me nights of sporadic sleeping. It wasn't so bad Tuesday or Wednesday nights, maybe an hour or two lost, but that was enough to make the fact that I'd barely slept at all last night pretty catastrophic to my energy levels. I didn't like that the issue seemed to be getting worse with time, rather than the usual slow fade into the background.

I'd been preoccupied with my past a few too many times in thought, I guessed.

Even though Dean had helped chase the demons away on Monday, and I'd been nightmare free on Monday night, that hadn't stopped them from stalking my dreams later.

Speaking of Dean, he'd been AWOL since Monday night. He had slipped away after the game Monday night without many people noticing, despite being quite the star player of the game. Some of his saves were truly impressive, and many of the guys commented that they were disappointed that he'd simply disappeared.

I had seen him go, though. After shaking hands with two opposing teammates and fistbumping a handful of guys, he'd slipped behind the goal posts to seemingly collect the extra balls, but he'd simply begun to blend into the darkness of the hill to leave. Before he'd disappeared fully, though, as if he could sense my eyes on him, he'd turned.

*Flashback*

Everyone seemed to have missed his little slip away, but I don't think anyone quite had the same awareness of Dean as I did. His frame seemed to bleed into the inky darkness that the unlit hill behind the goal provided. But before he was completely swallowed by it, he turned.

Even from so far away, his eyes pierced into my own.

I gave a small smile, knowing my eyes already showed the excitement, how impressed I was.

Seemingly in response to this, Dean gave a small shrug, but then his face broke into a rather wolfish grin. Seeing that he was still backing away slowly, I gave him a subtle wave.

His head dipped slightly, in almost a bow, and then he was gone.

*Flashback ends*

That was the last interaction I'd had with Dean this week. He even hadn't shown for our Wednesday Anatomy class. I wanted to say that his absence had nothing to do with how extra on edge I'd been all week, but that would be a lie.

Something had shifted that Monday afternoon, and I still hadn't really figured out how. Part of me was anxious to see him, so I would know just where we stood. That much was normal teenage girl kind of stuff.

But deeper...somehow it was like my mind craved him in this tense state my nightmares were leaving me in. I knew if they kept up much longer, I would need to tell my mom and Jean.

And additionally, I wanted to know what was keeping him away! As much as I'd teased Kara for being a Nancy Drew, this felt like a mystery. Him in general was a mystery. Much as I felt magnetically connected to him, as much as our interactions had been weirdly deep and not deep, we had never shared much of anything about each other.

When asked, Laker just said that he had something come up, so he'd been on and off campus the whole week. I could tell that he knew more, but that he didn't feel like he could share. This just piqued my curiosity more - what could come up for a college student to draw them off campus? Was it family related? If so, did it have something to do with his dad?