The Age of Wiccans

Burden

I woke Alex up for dinner. He seemed tired to the core when I woke him up, but I managed to get him to eat dinner. I knew he needed sleep, but I knew he needed food too.

His black hair was messy from sleeping and his eyes kept on dropping due to the lack of sleep. I put a reassuring hand on his back and he offered me a small smile in return. A smile that made me smile.

He rested his head on my shoulder, his face snuggling in my hair and neck and I pulled him closer. 'Do you want to sleep over?'

'Yeah, that'd be great!' he answered in response. His voice was low, weak and he sounded worn out. I pressed him closer to myself before taking out his phone from his pocket and handing it to him so he could text his parents.

He did so in a matter of seconds and collapsed back on my shoulder.

'Finish your food and then we'll go back to sleep, okay?' he groaned in response, and I pressed a kiss on his head.

Eventually, after a few minutes, he resumed eating, and then I took him back to my room. I pulled out his spare pyjamas which he always kept at my place and he left to use the bathroom to change.

I waited patiently for him to change, and then changed myself. Once we wear both dressed to sleep, I turned off the lights and immediately, he fell asleep. I, however, just couldn't fall asleep. All I could do was watch his face, his face that showed only weariness.

I stroked his hair before getting up and grabbing my phone and walking to the balcony. I realized I had a few unread messages, and started checking them one after the other.

One was from Luke, he was asking me about Veronica's favorite color. The next one was from Anthony, and it just had a small "hi". There was one from my other friends too, and the list was rather long. One after other, I started responding to those texts.

Halfway through them, a new message popped up.

It was from Alex and it read, Come back to sleep.

I turned around and almost screamed when I found him standing right behind me.

'Hey,' he whispered.

'Hi. I am sorry if I woke you up by any chance.' I whispered back apologetically.

'You didn't.' His answer was short and he came to stand beside me before asking, 'Can't sleep?'

'Not really. My head's just too overcrowded with thoughts.'

'You're stressing too much. It'll be alright.'

'Maybe. It's just that the thought of dying just chews me from the inside. Four years ago there was so much I wanted to do and now I just don't hope cause man what's the point? You know what, you should go back to sleep. I don't want to interrupt that.'

'You can talk to me, you know. I won't mind. El, we have been best friends for years and now you're shutting me out.'

'I am not shutting you out. I just don't want to be burden.' I replied honestly. He leaned in closer to me and for a second I thought he was going to kiss me. But instead, he hugged me and said,

'You're not a burden Elianna, not to me. Never to me.'

I wrapped my arms tighter around him before pulling back and guiding him back to my bed so he could sleep.

Not for the first time, I felt lucky to have a friend as great as him.