Running • Iggy

Detrimental

Catching the 5:30am bus to get to school by 6:30 wasn't my ideal schedule. The three morning birds I went to school with outvoted me on this, not considering my chronic sleeping issues. By the time I got to sleep (not counting for nightmares), by 5:30am I would only have had 5 hours of sleep at the maximum. If it was a normal night, possibly 2 hours minus nightmares. If it was a day like this, I hadn't even gotten to sleep. Curled up next to Iggy, my mind was running wild. Mostly Jessie.

She had been getting worse as she realized how close me and Iggy actually were. Her jealousy became somewhat of an obsession in my eyes - always trying to take any sort of measure to make my life a little bit more of a hell whenever our paths crossed. This combined with the strange way my life had shifted was causing my sleeping issues to really ramp up to a thousand.

I sat silently with no one beside me on the bus. I could hear Fang, Max and Iggy's loud laughter as they talked to Kyle and Louis, two of the friends in their seemingly endless group. I had realized recently that Iggy's interest in me as a whole had begun diminishing, at least, that's what I felt. I hoped I was wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I still felt like Iggy loved me. Of course he did - but his willingness to hang out with me alone was practically non-existent now. He had more exciting human friends. Whenever I offered to watch a movie or go out, he'd turn me down and go do something with his friends. I was glad he was happy, of course I was, but I missed our alone time.

My energy that day was gone. My eyes were half shut as we began pulling into our school's street - the high school and college mashup they had decided to begin repurposing it into for next year. I didn't see the appeal. The bus finally made its stop, allowing me to sit up and slowly make my way out of the crowded bus. I went to go catch up with Iggy, to ask if he'd be home that night, but he was heading over to Jessie. I didn't want to deal with Jessie.

I turned to go find somewhere to shut my eyes for a while, but instead, I found my face lightly hitting someone's chest. A familiar scent hit me. Something like ink, calming incense and lavender. His arms wrapped around me before I could look up to see his blue eyes and curly black hair. "M'lloh..." I muttered.

"Shhh." Mello sounded amused. He was joking around. "You can rest now. You look 3 steps away from death's doorstep. Don't fight it, just let go." He said in a completely calm tone, as normal. " ' w'll en' uck dyhim ihk yvuu domb lekt mne breadh... " Which I think meant I will end up dying if you don't let me breathe, but I could barely make out my own words. I was smothered against his warm knitted sweater. It was soft.

Mello relaxed his grip, even though it really wasn't even a grip to me. I looked up at his calm, gentle expression. He seemed tired too. Any normal person would be tired at 6:30 in the morning. "Why are you in so early?" I asked him. I didn't want to move from his grip, mostly because I felt like I was covered in non-existent snow. I was freezing, even in my big black zip-up jacket and grey tracksuit bottoms.

"Mom needed to go to work early. You coming?" Mello stepped away, much to my dismay, and began walking into the school campus. We began heading to the second of 4 high school buildings, the other 5 being used for college-age dorms and buildings, along with more being built for both age groups.

I caught Iggy in the corner of my eye as I caught up with Mello. He was staring at me, anger fuming in his eyes. Anger? Did I do something? Was it because I hugged Mello? Shit. I don't want Iggy to be mad at me. It'll mean he'll spend less time with me than he already does. I miss him. I want to go out on a date again. I want to kiss him so badly. Is he becoming so distant because of his new friends, or because I did something wrong? I did, didn't I? Shit... Shit, shit shit shit...

"Citrus?" Jackson's hand was on my arm, and Mello had begun to walk forward to do the same. When had Jackson gotten here? When had we gotten near the front of our form room building? When had I started having a full-on meltdown? My arms were beginning to go red from where I had been scratching at them. My head hurt - I had been clenching my teeth. Tears were stinging my eyes, but weren't falling. It had been so long since my mind had gone that fast in public. Since I almost lost control.