Wake

Chapter 4

Vinny

I was never tired enough.

It didn't matter how many hours I'd been up, how taxing the day had been, how much I wanted to go to sleep. I was just never tired enough to close my eyes and drift away. So most nights, I didn't.

I didn't know why I was so restless, just that I'd been this way ever since the day Cian and Lucie had dug me from the earth. I'd stay up, blinking into the darkness, letting my thoughts run amuck inside my head.

I had a lot to think about.

I wondered about little things: whether or not I was going to get my drivers' license, if I'd finish up school, somehow, if I should call my old friend, Felix, again. I wondered about larger things: if Cian was really okay, if I was ever going to tell him what happened between Lucie and me on his roof that night, if Lucie was going to come back.

It all made my head hurt a little.

This night, I couldn't seem to stay still. I tossed and I turned, removed the blankets and pulled them up again, but I couldn't get comfortable. Eventually, I let out a heavy breath and rose from my bed entirely, rubbing my bleary eyes. My soccer trophies were sharp, tall shadows in the dark, the moonlight slicing a clean trail down the center of my bedroom's wood floors. I fumbled around for a sweatshirt, found one hanging beside my door, then swept out into the hall.

The house had always been quiet, but it seemed more so now, now that Dad was gone. Everything was lonely and cold, bathed in shades of black and blue, the stars glinting off the glass chandelier turning it to an array of frigid icicles. When I exhaled, I swore I could see my own breath.

It didn't matter what he'd said, what he'd done. He was still my father, and the house missed him as much as I did.

I wanted to turn my back on him entirely, like he'd done us—it was the logical thing to do. But I couldn't.

Suddenly I couldn't bear to be in here anymore—in this empty, empty house, a mere remnant of what it had been when Cian and I had been younger. So I rounded the corner, heading for the backyard, not stopping until I had shoved open the door and burst out into the fresh air.

Fall was settling in; I tossed the sweatshirt over my head to keep from freezing. Crickets sang in the dewy grass beneath my bare feet, trees rustling gently in the bay's breezes. I looked up, at the ocean, at the dock, and then back, at the house, grayer in the night than it was in the morning. I wondered why he'd ever want to leave this, leave us. I kept searching for something I'd done wrong, but every time, I came up with nothing.

It was the same with Lucie. What had she done, I thought, to deserve that bullet in her head? Why did the best people always get taken from?

The waves were calling me. I moved towards the dock's edge.

The wind tossed my hair into my eyes; I brushed the strands back with impatient fingers, scrutinizing the water beneath me. Waves, or rather, small versions of them, lapped up against the wood, a gentle, rhythmic tink against the humming of the tide. I remembered the night I'd gone to the bay with Lucie, the feel of the water closing in over my head, that split second of panic I'd had that I wouldn't be able to find my way back to the surface—that I'd be gone, a second time.

Then I'd come up, caught my breath. I always would, I thought. There was no reason to be afraid of it anymore. Sure, I'd drowned, but that had been a long time ago. I wasn't that same, feeble kid anymore.

The breeze blew by; I shivered.

Sighing, I pulled the collar of my sweatshirt up to my mouth, twining the fabric between my fingers. I dipped a tentative toe off the dock's edge; cold water enveloped my nerves. I shivered, this time more forcefully, and I didn't stop shivering.