WAKE UP

Chapter One

Yay!!!!!!! I'm so excited. I actually have something kind of finished!!!!!! Okay, so I haven't exactly really edited any of the chapters (I'm going chapter by chapter) because since the entire novel isn't complete, I'm only doing grammar and anything that makes me wonder what the hell I was thinking when I wrote this. 

ENJOY!

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My mother thinks I have Insomnia. 

She says she goes into my room every night at the exact same time to see if I’m asleep. That also leads to the reason why I’ll come home every day and see about fifteen different pamphlets about sleep and what Insomnia can do to you. I try constantly telling her that they all say the same things, and she tries constantly telling me that’s she’s only “trying to help me”.

I don’t doubt that I have sleep problems, I doubt whether she’ll ever be done ‘helping’ me or not.

As I thrash around in my bed, I hear my mother’s footsteps putting pressure against the rickety old boards that we don’t bother fixing.

“Hey honey,” she says quietly.

“You don’t need to be in here,” I say, playing with the hem of my shirt.

“I know honey,” she says sighing. “I’m only worried about you.”

“About what? I’ve always been like this.”

She sits on the right side of my bed and I watch her wave the dust that comes out of my mattress. “Not when you were a baby; not at all actually. You used to sleep like an angel.”

“I was a baby,” I say flatly. “All babies sleep.”

“That isn’t the point,” she explains. “The point is that I’m-“

“You’re worried about me,” I finish. “I think you’ve established that.”

“Your right, Tate,” my mom admits. “I have established that. But I don’t think you realize how big of a risk this is?”

“A risk?” I repeat. “You think I’m trying to stay awake? That I’m take some kind of pill, or-“

“Tate, how long has it been?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Well it’s been a while Tatum, and I don’t think you’re trying to stay awake.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“I don’t think you’re trying to sleep either. You gave up. We just don’t have the money now,” my mother says. I can hear her voice start to crack and quaver. “We don’t really have the money for really anything, Tatum.” I don’t respond, nor comfort her as I see from my peripheral vision her hands covering up her shaking face of tears.

“J- Just try Tatum.” I stare straight at the ceiling as I hear my door close and my eyes refuse to until its usual time.

Every morning, I go through the same routine for school.

I sit in the same old stool in front of the mirror on the wall, and I brush my hair.

My mother sits behind me, and watches what I’m doing every once and a while with her needle and thread in hand. She twists and pulls on the thread with crisp movements as she makes progress.

I yank the knots out of my blonde hair, letting some of the hairs fall from my head. Then, when it’s brushed, my mother watches me pick up the almost empty tube of mascara. She makes sure I dab even a little of it on my lashes before I go to school, as much as I think it’s useless.