Write In My Heart

Chapter Two: Nights

My plan had completely and utterly failed.

It had been over a week since I nearly let my inner feelings get the best of me at practice, yet it was still bothering me. A lot. And even worse, operation "go to sleep to avoid my crippling anxieties and depression" had bombed and now I was dealing with the consequences. In the previous nights, I'd woken up at least 5 times when my pleasant dreams turned into vicious nightmares that included me getting outed, ostracized, and traumatized; every time I woke up hyperventilating to the point that I couldn't breathe. I even woke up crying for a time or two. After tonight's nightmare about Johnathan finding out about my crush on him, calling me a fag, and then literally stabbing me in the heart with a kitchen knife, I decided that sleep was doing me more harm than good.

So, I decided to do the other thing that usually relaxes me when my mind was in shambles: I wrote. I wasn't writing anything in particular, just whatever popped into my brain, and I bet if an outsider picked up my notebook, it would look more like the scribbling of a mad person rather than a form of much-needed catharsis.

Writing had been an escape for me for as long as I could remember. From the poems I wrote in elementary school to the morbid drafts of suicide notes I wrote the year prior when I was thinking of ending it all, when it felt like no one else was there, writing always was. And, despite it being a wildly unreliable income source, I aimed to study it at an out-of-state college called Wesley University, and hopefully become an author or, if that didn't work out, I could settle for being a writing teacher. Maybe both. It wasn't too competitive, but the writing program was top-notch. Besides, the campus and surrounding area looked pretty, and maybe in a new environment, I could finally be myself. The real Asa Hill without worrying about the standards I had to live up to.

Maybe I could fall in love and forget about my stupid crush on Johnathan.

I was in the middle of following a thought about how different the world would be if people were born with gills to breathe underwater when my alarm obviously went off, causing me to jump out of surprise and my pencil streaked across the page, leaving an ugly dark black mark.

I quickly rolled over to the opposite side of my bed and shut it off before I sighed.

It was already 6 am and I'd gotten less than four hours of sleep.

I was definitely screwed.

Nonetheless, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed and into the bathroom to get ready for the day. Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in the kitchen eating some toast, careful not to get any of the jelly on my white button-up or my navy tie that represented my status as a senior. Before long, my father wandered downstairs in his usual work attire of a button-up shirt, slacks, and dress shoes. His tie was draped across his shoulders, likely because he was waiting for my mother to wake up and tie it for him since he still struggled to do it on his own. His deep brown eyes that matched mine looked tired as he rubbed his hands along his cleanly shaved face in an effort to wake himself up.

"Mornin', sport," he said, his voice still rough from exhaustion.

"Morning, dad. How was your sleep?"

"Not long enough," he said as he shook his head. "Yours?"

"Same."

He let out a humorless chuckle before he sobered up and looked at me.

"What?" I asked after he hadn't said anything after a few moments.

He slowly walked toward me as he continued studying me. "Are you alright, son? Over the past few days, it's seemed like there was something on your mind, and you run away so fast after dinner that I keep thinkin' the devil's chasing after ya. What's going on?"