I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to get to sleep. But all I can seem to do is toss and turn.
I keep thinking about what Drew said earlier and how angry he got with me for teasing him. It did give me a bit more insight into why he chose here, and I can compare our situation to that of the characters in that book and see some similarities, but it also doesn't make me feel any better about our circumstances or the situation with him.
It is always like one step forward, three steps back with him. I thought we had gotten past the majority of our issues and that our teasing one another was more of a game now than an obsessive need to hurt one another, but after tonight, I don't know what to believe. I don't know why he seemed so upset when he said it, but I just keep thinking about what he said and how there is a lot that I didn't know about him. It is true. Other than the fact we have spent all of our entire lives trying to make each other miserable, that he is River's best friend and has just always been there, I really don't know that much else about him. Not really. I make a mental list of all the things I do know. Then I make another separate list of all of the things I don't know.
Eventually it is too much and I can't keep track of everything, so I roll over, grab my journal off of the nightstand, grab my pen, and start listing them all out on paper. By the time I am done, it is painfully obvious that the list of things I know is far shorter. Reading them over, I also realize that they are all things that are obvious, most of them things that you would know after spending ten minutes with someone.
It is weird looking down at it, actually seeing it laid out in front of me in black and white. I have known him my entire life, and I really don't know much more than anyone would after just meeting him and for some reason it makes me kind of sad.
It also gets me thinking about how little I know about the other people in my life—my parents, his parents, and even River.
Everything that I have always thought I knew has been warped and distorted over the last month.
Do I really know that much about anyone? It is becoming more and more clear to me that I don't...
I close my journal and lay it on the bed, leaning back against the pillows, letting these thoughts swim around in my head.
This was a bad idea; I should have just kept trying to sleep. Now my mind is a racing mess, and sleep is the last thing on it.
So to combat the insomnia I begin to try to put everything together and make it make sense, feeling much like I did when I did the same thing three years ago, and also, just like before, it only ends up leading to even more questions.
I can't do this. I will worry about it tomorrow. Even if I figure it all out tonight, there is nothing that I can do about it.
Just as I finally start to relax enough to close my eyes, I hear a sound outside my window.
I can't tell what it is, but it sounds like something or someone scratching against the side of the house, the side which happens to contain my bedroom window.
I pull the covers up to my chin, shielding myself like a child frightened of monsters in the dark, praying that it will go away, but it only gets louder. Maybe that is what I am—a frightened child alone in the dark. No, I refuse to let this get to me. You have to grow up, Sky.
My heart races as I muster up enough courage to be brave enough to lean up to see if I can make anything out.
It is times like these that I wish Drew was still up my ass like he was before sleeping on a pile of blankets on my floor, ready to pounce at every little noise or movement.
I keep leaning forward, straining my neck to see as much as I can without actually getting out of bed.
I finally will myself to move a little more, just enough so that I can see out and I can just make out a large, gray shadow stretching across the yard.
Shit! Shit, shit, shit!
I try to control my racing heart and my breathing. I am try hard to convince myself that I am overreacting and that it is just the shadow from one of the trees in the backyard or from something that Drew propped up against the building that is close to my window.
I watch it, waiting for the noise that has quietened to return.
After a minute, I start to sit back, thinking it is only my anxiety-ridden mind playing tricks on me, when the sound starts again, only this time louder and closer to my window than before. I lean forward again, my eyes landing on the shadow. I hold my breath until I see that it starts to move.
I fall out of bed, not caring about the noise that I am making, and race towards Drew's room, calling out his name.
Even before I get there, he is standing in his doorway in his shorts, holding a gun.
"Skylar, what is wrong?" He asks quickly, looking around for what has me so scared.
"There is something outside my bedroom window." I pant, completely out of breath, pointing towards my room with a shaking finger.
"Stay behind me." He commands in an authoritative voice, moving in front of me.
He doesn't have to tell me twice. I am not about to pick a time like now to defy him.
Together we walk into my room, carefully crossing towards my window, me on his heels as I try to resist the urge to grab him from behind out of my own need for comfort.
He looks out of the window, and I see him visibly relax.
"What is it?" I whisper, afraid of his answer. I put my hand on his back out of my desire to feel safe and try to peek around him to see for myself.
"It is just a bear." He looks over his shoulder at me with a smile.
"A bear?"
"Yeah, come on." He takes my hand, I don't know where we are going, but still afraid, I follow him.
We go into his room, where he opens the closet, revealing several large guns, a few smaller ones, and a lot of ammo.
I don't have time to react to his hidden arsenal as he takes one of the guns and checks it to make sure it's loaded.
"What are you doing?" I ask as he tucks the one he took into my room into the waistband of his shorts. "You aren't going to kill it, are you?" I am suddenly more afraid for the bear than myself.
"Not if I don't have to." He moves back towards the door, putting his hand on my shoulder as he steps around me. "Hopefully I can scare it off with this." He holds up the gun he retrieved from the closet.
"And if it doesn't work?" I ask, biting the inside of my cheek.
"Then I will take care of it."
"Please, don't kill it, Drew." I beg as he heads towards the door.
"I won't, not unless it doesn't give me another choice." He turns to me. "Wait in here." He says before walking outside.
Everything is silent when he steps out, leaving me alone in the house. I hear a loud gunshot ring out. Echoing through the night air. After that, everything stills again.
It must have worked; I wait for another shot to tell me otherwise, but thankfully it doesn't come.
"Is it gone?" I ask as Drew finally comes back inside, locking and dead bolting the door behind him.
"Yeah, I think so. For now anyways, it was getting into the trash cans out back." He explains walking back towards his room to put his guns away. "We are going to have to be more careful about leaving things sitting around. If we don't, it will keep drawing them in."
"Thank you." I step closer to him, both relieved that the bear is gone and grateful that it wasn't something more sinister.
"That's my job." He grins, grabbing my chin between his fingers, before moving towards the bed.
"I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight." I breathe out a sigh of relief that a bear was all that was outside tonight, though I am still rattled by the whole experience. Drew sits down on the side of his bed and pats the space beside him, gesturing for me to sit too, though I don't move.
"Want to stay in here with me?" He asks. "In case it was to come back." He adds after seeing my surprised expression.
"Would it be ok?" I ask hesitantly, biting my cheek again.
"I don't see why it wouldn't be." He laughs, patting the bed beside him again, and giving me a look that makes my heart beat faster than all of the commotion with the bear did.