I am awake again at night. Exhausted yet restless, I can feel the waves of sleep gently caressing my mind. But I can't sleep. Not yet. Noceur. That's what I am.
I cannot sleep with all these thoughts racing, bubbling over and spilling out. I need to tell someone! I need to find Wrenley.
As I lay in bed, my hands gingerly resting atop my stomach, I can hear dreary sounds. Taylor's raspy breathing, Opal's television playing an old program, and Daniel's chitter chatter with his friends as he talks to them. I do not listen. My breathing is the only thing I can hear, the silence is deafening and overwhelmingly loud, even though there's nothing except for my quiet heaves. I feel the trickle of a tear, sliding down my cheek and landing on my pillow. I stretch my hands up, jolting up and sitting on my bed. It's lonely in this room. It's lonely in my head.
I rub my eyes with my sleeves, wincing as the darkness engulfs me. It pulls me into its warm embrace, coddles me and reassures me. It says somewhere, in another universe, Wrenley is okay, Luce isn't doing opioids, and I am not me.
As I rub, I can feel the pain in my arms. My wrists rub against the fabric of my hoodie, and I wince. Albeit only being a tinge of pain, something that pricks, like the bite of a cat, it still stings.
The grief is what hurts the most.
I feel solivagant, left to wander this plane of snow and desolate souls on my own. I want my sister. I want my mother.
I don't even know who Luce is anymore. She isn't my mom. She never was. She never held me in her arms, and cradled me to her chest as I wept over a scraped knee or something miniscule, a stupid problem that has no relevance now. No, Luce never did that for me.
…
I wonder if she even wanted me, or just wanted an outlet away from opioids. An escape. What Luce told me earlier when I visited her in the morning was extremely laconic. "You really should have worn a scarf." The words are engraved into my head like the carving on a tombstone. Maybe that's what should be ingrained into my tombstone.
…
I can't tell if Luce still loves me, still views me as her son, or just wants to torment me, like she's done in the past. I'm assuming she simply wants to make me feel like she's there for me, like she cares about Wrenley and I, when in reality she only wants to make my prison sentence worse.
Life is my jail cell, and I am serving my sentence until I either kill myself or get killed. Possibly by my own curiosity.
I take a gander out, stare at the window and the clean blanket of snow shading the ground. It's dark and flurries are lightly flying from the sky, coating the leafless trees in white snow. I've always loved winter. I just wish it didn't snow so close to Wrenley's birthday.
I'm sure Wrenley would've loved snow, too. She would roll around in it, trudge through the ice, and smile as her face went numb and her fingertips began to lose feeling, albeit being dressed up in all the proper snow gear.
The sky has no stars, and is barren of color. It's black and cold, the temperature seeping in through the walls of aunt Opal's house, making me shiver and dress up in bundles of blankets. It's cold and I am alone. I've been alone for far too long.
And, sometimes, I want it to remain that way. I'd like to dwell in my loneliness, bask in my desolate pessimism, and swim in the pool of my tears.
But, I'd rather be alone with Wrenley instead of alone with my sadness.
Eventually, I find peace, rolling over and tossing and turning. The sheets silence my pleas, and I finally reach a fulfilling slumber, deep and righteous night, confined in the sheets and sinking into my mattress, light as a feather; weightless.
Ataraxia. Serendipity. I feel tranquil and like nothing bad has happened. My sweven is vivid and haunting.
I refuse to accept its existence.
