63rd St.

Chapter 11

"Athena i'm not messing around." I stress. "You need sleep!"

She's currently laying in my bed, tucked away tightly under the covers, practically engulfed in them. I somehow persuaded her to get under them, thinking she'd be so comfortable that she'd drop the fight fall right asleep.

I was right about one thing, she looks pleasantly content under the heavy protection of the comforter. I just didn't get so lucky with the whole "dropping the fight" part.

"But i'm not sleepy! What part about insomniac do you not fucking understand?" She argues relentlessly. God she's fucking exhausting, we've been at this for an hour.

"You can barely keep your fucking eyes open!" My voice has raised at this point. Not in an aggressive way; but in more of a "you make me want to rip all my hair out" type of way.

"This whole argument is pointless because I'm not going to sleep." She juts her chin up like a toddler and I roll my eyes. "You can kick me out if it's that big of a problem, but it's not happening."

I run my tongue along the inside of my mouth, damn near biting it to keep myself from saying something back. She wins this one. I'm not kicking her out in the middle of the night, and I'm not going to pretend like I ever would.

Maybe if she was someone else with better judgment and more value of their life, I'd consider it. But she's not someone else.

She's Athena. The Athena that tiptoes on the edge of buildings. The same Athena that takes mysterious pills from strange people without second thought. The Athena that drinks her life away, burning her future away along with the lining of her throat.

She'll always be the same Athena and until that changes, she's not going anywhere.

Not tonight at least. Besides, I know she'll be out like a light before she knows it anyway.

"Okay." I begrudgingly agree. "If you want to lay in here and stare at the ceiling for hours, be my guest." With those sarcasm-laced words, I turned on my heels and headed out.

"Where are you going?" she questions.

I don't stop walking to answer. "I'm sleeping in the guest room, if that's okay with you."

The last part was sarcastically rhetorical, and I assume she knows that when she doesn't reply.

"What if I choke." she blurts out abruptly as I reach the door, almost as if someone forced her against her will. It comes out as neither question nor statement. I stop in my tracks, silently prompting her to continue.

"I'm very intoxicated right now," she justifies, convincing me as if I can't tell. "I could vomit in the middle of the night and choke on it." Her words drip with uncertainty, but she continues making her point known.

The probability of this is extremely low and she knows this. She's wasting my time and I know that. Yet for some fucking reason, I let her continue.

"If you're in the guest room, no one would be here to wake me up and roll me over, maybe even pat my back. I'd die cold and alone."

I smirk, amused by her antics. I don't know what she's trying to do, but I'd love to see where this goes.

"So what do you insist I do about it?" I muse, trying my absolute hardest to contain my amusement. She hesitates a beat before answering.

"Well you should probably stay in here, and keep an ear out. Unless you want me to die in your bed a dead, smelly mess." she suggests as if she's doing me a huge favor. While the thought of finding her cold corpse in my bed tomorrow morning is beyond repulsing, I can't help but wonder if being trapped in the same bed with her all night is worth it.