"I like how sleeping next to someone means more than sex sometimes, the body's way of saying 'I trust you to be by my side at my most vulnerable time,' you have no defenses when you are asleep, you tell no lies" – Eric Shaw
1.2 DENNY WILSON
As the clock would strike seven in the evening and the sun would fall, the gray light darkened sky would consume the blue. Tiny speckles of light would twinkle above, only visible to the mountains or darkened areas of town – only then when Ava could make wishes upon stars, every so often.
She had always been a lover of the night. Her days spent looking forward to the moment her head would rest upon her pillow, her eyes shut as she turned off the lights and pressed play on the motion picture within her head – the dreams she brought to life: the life she wished to obtain.
Ava always endured sleeping, enjoying the world around her when everything surrounding her, herself included, were the most vulnerable. Heartache and pain withered away once her eyes fluttered and her wanderlust mind consumed her. In her sleep, dreams, she was happy. The happiest she'd ever be.
The older Ava got, the more her nights changed. Her tranquility of dreams dissolving into nights she couldn't sleep. She'd pass the hours late upon her computer, writing stories on her laptop in attempt to resurrect the dreams she failed to possess. She'd then, end up driving around town once everyone was asleep; the populated town transformed into a town of abandonment. She would park along the side of the road with her music on full blast, watching the stop lights as they changed colors – counting each second in between.
Staying out and about until the sun began to rise and her neighbors' rooster rang in the new morning; late enough for her body to drain and not withstand holding her eyes open longer. All Ava wanted was to sleep peacefully, but peace was too far out of reach.
There's the saying when 'you're up late at night, three or four A.M, you're either in love or lonely'. And for Ava, well, she never expected herself to make up fifty percent of the lonely.
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"You know, something told me you would call," a groggy voice breathed into the phone syncing with vibrations of movement from the receiving end. A clear signal the person was now out of their bed and on the go.
Ava sighed and tightened the fist of her bed sheets, raising them closer to her face just below the tip of her nose. "I'm sorry, Denny" she muttered, swallowing down the lump in her throat. Her eyes began to water while her heartbeat accelerated, her chest aching as she gasped for air. Inhaling and exhaling slowly, she closed her eyes then reopened them, pressing her cell phone closer to her ear.
"It's just-"
There was a thud on the opposite end, followed by hushed curses before the phone picked up again. "Don't worry about it Ava," Denny said, his voice more alert and awake, the sound of a door shutting echoing behind. "I know," she whispered, tearing her phone from her ear to hold it in front of her face. Tapping the screen her phone woke from its snooze, her eyes squinting as the brightness of the display lit up her face. She sighed when the time 3:15 am appeared on the lock screen, "it's late though, and..."
