alternate feelings || bws

chapter twenty one || "i'm not tired"

My fingers hit all the right keys on the piano. The music sheet in front of me, with hand drawn notes on, some scribbled out as they didn't quite sound or flow right with the rest. I didn't even need to look at the keys, having memorised each one and their exact place and sound. My eyes were fixated on the messy piece of paper, trying to make this music perfect, not a single flaw in the entirety of it. I had to make my dad proud of this.

It wasn't the melody him and I were working on, whilst he has been in hospital I have been writing a lot of notes down and some just happened to sound beautiful; obviously needing fixed up and perfected but they will eventually get there. I had also began writing lyrics, having found my muse.

It was four 'o' clock on a sunday morning, Brad was asleep in my bed as it wasn't on my agenda to sleep today. He had been staying with me for just over a week now and not one day we had slept in the same bed, me leading him to believe we would be but I always got up just as I heard that small, soft snore leaving his lips. I remove his arm and leave, often to the piano but at a select number of times I have wandered to my dad's bed and just break down until I tire myself out and eventually drift off.

I didn't like sleeping, the second unconsciousness takes over me all the bad stuff comes to haunt me. All the weight gain. My dad being so fucking ill. My mother not being here anymore. Letting myself develop feelings for someone who is just going to break my heart. Every nights sleep is filled with nightmares and last nights was the worst and after that I am to terrified to let myself fall asleep anymore.

I know Brad realises that I'm not asleep with him, waking up with no one beside him. Probably at first thinking I was just waking up earlier than him but when he watched me run out the room, not being as careful to not wake him up as I usually am, and throw my guts up in my bathroom with the door wide open after a nightmare I had within five minutes of accidentally falling asleep and never going back to the bed.

My eating disorder is still something I suffer with and something I'm doing a better job at hiding. Everyone thinks I'm getting better however, I'm not. It's crazy what you can hide with baggy clothing and a smile.

I feel a tear fall from my eye and land on a piano key, my fingers abruptly stopping playing. I place my head on the keys, a loud, messy tune coming from the piano.

"Lauren?" I hear from beside me. "What's wrong?"

It seems that all our conversations lately occur early in the mornings where silence surrounds us and the rest of the town is asleep. I find a comforting warmth in this and I don't understand why.

"Nothing." My voice is muffled so I lift my tear stained face up and look up at him. "I'm fine." I lie.

I allow myself to check him out, his eyes droopy and squinted, his hair messy curls and his pyjama bottoms hung low on his hips showing his V-line. He was drunk on sleep and it was the most adorable thing I had ever seen.

"You haven't slept at all since I've been here, You barely even look at me anymore. In fact you rarely even talk to me. What happened to you shouting at me and glaring at me? Strangely I miss that and prefer it a lot more than this." He says, sitting next to me on the stool and I avoid eye contact with him, I avoid looking at him just like he said I do.

"I'm not tired." I lie again, all I seem to do is lie to him.

"You're exhausted, love. Come to bed." He tries pulling on my arm but I yank it back.

"I need to get this to be perfect." I say, referring to the song I'm working on and he sighs.

"It is perfect and it would be even better on a good nights sleep." He tells me and I look at him for a split second again before giving up and closing the cover.

I nod defeatedly, finally giving in and standing in sync with him but my legs give in; not being strong enough to carry the very little body weight I have left. Luckily, Brad catches me and stares down at me with his eyebrows furrowed. Once again, I look away and try to push him off of me but it doesn't work and instead he just picks me up and carries me to my room.

He gently places me on my bed and lifts the hoodie from my torso and I let him with teary eyes. I was worse than I was before and I was ashamed to get better. It's hard to get better, I've relapsed so many times the phrase "you need to relapse to get better" is a bunch of bullshit. He looks at me with something I couldn't read.

The words he had said when he first discovered my problem haunt me in the back of my head, he was looking at me the same way he was then and it was like all my nightmares were becoming a reality.

I thought he was going to grab his backpack from the corner of my room and walk away and never look back but he doesn't. He stays put, his bag filled with his stuff stays untouched in the corner but his chocolate eyes stay looking in mine.

"We're going to get through this Lauren, me and you. You just need to let me in."

"You've already made a home out of my heart Brad, you're already in and I'm just trying to get you out but I can't because a part of me doesn't want to let you go and that part of me I'm trying to deny."

i'll add a gif later, i don't have my laptop on me right now and i just wanted to get this chapter out