Pretty Little Black Parade

Sleep

"Who, uh." She clears her throat. Who's that girl?"

"My mom." I laugh. "Don't worry about waking her, she'll sleep through anything."

She nods like she has nothing better to say. 

"So um," I grab for breath. Walking around is not my forte lately. "How’ve you been?"

Arias eyes scan me up and down. She doesn't say anything but I can tell. She's looking at my weight loss, my dark circles, my needle bruises, my pale skin even in the dim light, and the fact that I still have hair. "I've been okay." She answers, unable to make eye contact. "Um..." She finally looks at my face but still not my eyes. "How are you?" She asks, moving her foot in and out of her flip flop. 

I can't decide what to reply with. A snarky "You'd know if you'd talk to me" because I'm slightly hurt over her not contacting me before then.

Or maybe an honest answer like "Not too well, my pain meds and wearing off, but I've been worse." Or maybe I should lie and be the comforting man I never was and tell her I feel great. 

I can't decide. So I usher to my bed and invite her to sit down. She understands that I don't know how to answer, and doesn't ask again as she sits down. Luckily, during my five second make over I thought to make the bed, which isn't a hard task considering

 I've been sleeping alone.

"I'm sorry for dropping by so late..." 

I laugh. "Aria, I'm not forty. It's not THAT late."

"So I didn't wake you?" 

I shook my head. "Na. I couldn't sleep."

“Why not?” She asks. She was always overly-interested in the small details.

We have a big issue laying in front of us – I’m dying and we haven’t spoken since she told me “I don’t love you like I did yesterday” and I slammed the door in her face. But she’s asking me why I can’t sleep. And even though I shouldn’t tell her, I do, because it’s easier than making something up that she can see through.

“I slept all day,” I told her. “And I had a lot of nightmares. I’d much rather sit up and talk with you than sleep.”

She smiles, slightly. Then she frowns. “Are your terrors back again?”

Back after the shooting, I had some really bad nightmares. Shortly after I made Aria stop sleeping over because I didn’t want to freak her out. But she saw a few.  

After she woke me up, she told me I had been screaming in my sleep. I brushed it off for a while. But she made me explain to her what was wrong. And after such a lack of sleep, I told her. “Well…. Like last night… I had some.. well..” I had looked around my apartment – the same room we’re in right now - grabbing for the words. “They’re not like tremors, they’re worse than tremors, they’re…” I found the word. “They’re these terrors.

And it's like, it feels like as if somebody was gripping my throat and squeezing and –“

“Hey,” she had interrupted me. “Shut your eyes,” she said, making me lay down in my bed. She leaned in “Kiss me goodnight,” She requested, even though at this time it was only around seven in the evening. I kissed her soft lips and let myself relax. “There’s no need to be scared.” She assured me. “Just sleep.” She stayed with me, even though I couldn’t fall asleep, she sat there and waited. “The hardest part is letting go of your dreams.” She had told me.

“No,” I had replied, still wide awake, waiting for sleep to come. “The hardest part is the awful things that I’ve seen.”

She repositioned herself so I could see her face. “Why don’t you tell me what happens in your dreams?”