“Get up, douchebag,” Stiles’ voice says when I hear the door of the room open and close. “Amber’s here. We need to talk.”
I groan into my pillow, my eyes tightly shut. I hear Amber’s heels click on the floor until she’s right at my bed. I feel the mattress I’m sprawled out on sink under an extra weight and a hand massage my back.
“Stiles told me you were in a bad mood today,” Amber says.
“He was,” Stiles’ voice confirms. “In front of Hannah, too. She was totally in shock.”
“Terrance, look at us.”
I shift my head so it’s on the side and no longer getting squished by the pillow. My eyes open slowly, my sight blurry for a little from them being squeezed so tight for so long.
“What happened?” Stiles asks, taking a seat beside Hannah on the bed. I hug Mickey and lean my chin on the toy.
When I don’t reply, Stiles adds, “Did she call you again?”
I don’t reply, a sharp pang piercing in my chest from the reminder. I bury my head back into my pillow, squeezing my eyes shut again and clenching the sheets of the bed.
“It’s okay, Terrance,” Amber tells me.
“Don’t wanna talk about it,” I mutter into the pillow.
“Okay,” Stiles says. I feel Amber give me an awkward hug before they both get up, the mattress popping back up from the release of weight. “You should sleep. I’ll come get you before your next class, okay?”
I grunt into my pillow as a reply, and I hear Stiles whisper to Amber to let me be alone. They walk out with soft goodbyes, the door closing quietly behind them. I lift my head once I’m sure they’re gone, blinking away the blurriness in my vision, and hug Mickey closer to my chest.
I push myself into a sitting position, reaching for my laptop on the side table. My phone rings from a new message, but I grab it and put it on silent without sparing the message a glance. Throwing the phone as far away from my reach as I can, I open up my laptop, typing in my password to reveal the movie I was watching earlier.
I open a new tab and type in symptoms of insomnia. I know a little about the sickness- not getting enough sleep, pretty much, and that’s exactly what’s been happening lately. I’m not sure if it’s Stiles’ snoring that kept me up, or the stress, but I haven’t gotten proper sleep in almost four days.
I open a page to about the cause, symptoms, and treatments, scrolling down to the symptoms section. A list showed up, listing off things like being tired and cranky even after sleep, not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep, waking up early and not being to fall back asleep. I sigh and close the tab. I don’t want to worry about having insomnia- it’s only been four days. I’ll probably return back to my regular sleeping patterns by the end of the week.
I click play on the movie I was watching earlier, deciding I could get the rest Stiles suggested later. I put my headphones into my ears, the world around me turning into a blur.
“Wake up sunshine- Oh sweet Jesus, why aren’t you sleeping?”
I look up from my laptop, blinking slowly. “Huh?”
Stiles enters the room and drops his textbook on his desk, arms crossed over his chest. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Um, no.”
“Why not?”
I point to my laptop. “It’s Disney’s fault.”
Stiles scowls and walks over, closing my laptop, unplugging it from its charger and scooping it up in his arm. “You’re not getting this back until you get some sleep.”
I sit up straighter. “You can’t do that!”
“Damn straight I can, honey,” Stiles tells me, pushing me down when I try to get up.
“Stiles, I need that,” I argue, fighting against him.
“You need sleep,” Stiles argues back. “You have two hours until your next class. Just rest your eyes.”
“I’m fine. Give me back my Disn- I mean, laptop.”
Three knocks on the door interrupt out conversation. Stiles sends me a stern glare before putting my laptop on his bed, saying, “If you take your laptop back I’ll make sure Mickey’s in the shredder tomorrow morning,” before walking over to the door. He unlockes it, slowly pulling it open to reveal Hannah and Amber.
Amber grabs Stiles wrist, pushing him aside so she could walk into the room. “Get up,” she tells me. “We’re going to get lunch.”
Stiles frowns. “Actually, Terrance needs to sleep-”
“I’d love some lunch,” I say, sending Stiles a wide smile that I know will get on his nerves. “Let’s go get some lunch, Stiles.”
Hannah’s eyebrow is raised, and I know it’s from my change of attitude. I seriously hated her having to see me the way I was this morning. I was at one of my worst- angry, upset, and tired all at the same time. I don’t want her to start asking questions, and I don’t want her to think of me as a bad person, because she’s actually starting to become a nice person to be around.
“Awesome,” Ambers says, clapping her hands. “Let’s go!”
Stiles and Amber walk ahead, Stiles scowling and complaining- probably about me- to Amber. Hannah trails behind a little with me as I turn off the lights to the dorm, making sure everything’s fine before shutting the door, locking them with the keys.
Hannah clears her throat, eyes trailing to where Amber and Stiles has already disappeared down the hallway.
“Listen,” I say slowly, taking the key out of its slot. “About this morning, I know I seemed like a douchebag, but I’m not really like that. Mornings are just mornings, you know? And I’m really not much of a morning person, but like seriously, who is? Mornings sucks and I’m just-”
Hannah interrupts my rambling with, “Terrance, are you trying to apologize?”
My cheeks grow warm. “Yeah. It didn’t work out, did it?”
Hannah snorts. “Your apologizing skills are even worse than your game.”
I gape at her as she giggles. “I take offence to that.”
“That was the point,” she assures. She laughs at my expression and says, “God, Terrance, it’s okay! But if you don’t mind me asking, what was wrong?”
I swallow and don’t meet her eyes. Managing to put a small smile on my face, I say, “Nothing,” and we walk down the hall. Hannah doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer but doesn’t push it.
We catch up to Amber and Stiles at Subway. They’re ordering and give us a thumbs up, singling they got it. Hannah and I find a booth and slide in, sitting on opposite sides.
“I didn’t know you were majoring in psychology,” Hannah says randomly, drawing my attention back to her. She’s obviously still hung up about this morning if she keeps bringing up the class.
“Yeah,” I say. “After meeting Stiles I needed to know what’s going on in people like his head’s.”
Hannah threw her head back and laughed, her brown hair falling behind her shoulders. “I don’t know about me,” she says. “I’ve just always though it’d be cool to help people through these kinds of things.”
“What do you want to be?”
“A crisis and abuse counsellor,” she says, and I swallow at the topic.
“Oh,” I say.
“What about you?” she asks, an innocent smile on her face as if she hadn’t made my head spin with just one sentence.
I blink. “A child and youth worker,” I reply. My head drops, making it clear I’m done with the conversation.
Luckily, Amber and Stiles arrive quickly, four ham and cheese subs in hand. Stiles slides in beside me and Amber takes a seat beside Hannah.
“Hope you like ham and cheese,” Amber tells Hannah, unwrapping the covering around her sandwich, “Because you don’t really have a choice.”
Hannah snorts and says, “Lucky for you, I do.”
Amber turns to Stiles and I. “See? Told you she’s perfect. Now all she needs are some heels.”
“Not happening,” Hannah says.
Amber smirks. “You’ll come around,” she promises, and Hannah makes a face before taking a bite out of her sandwich.
I take the sandwich in my hands, unwrapping it slowly. I really don’t feel like eating, but I just began to convince Hannah that this morning was just a mood swing, and not eating wouldn’t reinforce that. I take a pitiful bite, chewing slowly.
“I’m going to take this up to my room and prepare for my next class,” I say, standing up with my sub in hand.
Stiles frowns. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”
“Maybe tomorrow,” I tell him, trying to pull of an apologetic look. I scoot past him out of the booth.
Amber sighs. “Alright. We’ll see you tonight?”
“For sure,” I promise. I wave to them a quick goodbye and run out of the eatery, desperate to just lock myself in the room with my laptop, Mickey, and some space.
Hii everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as it was super super fun (yet sad bc omg poor terrance </3) to write. I worked quite hard on it, so please vote and comment what you think about this story so far! Sydney and I love it it's so much fun to write and i swear to god these charcters are addicting omg ^-^
Don't forget to fan this account, @smarttalk and @Sydaaney for more! I love you all very very much and thank for reading! (: xoxo