The Monster Under the Bed || Kickthestickz

Morning Voices

My body shakes violently awake and I sit bolt upright in bed. Slowly I turn myself so I can glance at the floor beside me. Both Dan and Phil lay peaceful, huddled together in their sleeping bags. I flop my head down, around the wooden frame of my bed and stare at the floor beneath it. Nothing; It's empty. Nothing to come crawling from underneath or substances to find myself choking and drowning in. There are no bodiless voices, there is no nothing. Just the dusty floorboards and my suitcase filled with the odds and ends I still haven't bothered to unpack. As I sit myself back up I relax my face from the uncomfortable expression it must have been in for the majority of the night time.

As quietly as possible I fling my legs from my bed and place my feet silently on the ground. Cautiously I make my over the Pj's bed climb on the bottom and snuggle deeply into the pile of cotton blankets he has had out ever since we started talking again. Pj understood the fact that my nightmares were still there. He also understood the fact that every time I woke him up during the night I would spend the next twelve hours apologising for keeping him awake, whilst he attempted to mask his tiredness, and then I feel hideously guilty. I was just something he accepted would happen.

I pull the blankets over my head so the only sign of my presence within them was my two little feet sticking out of the side. Once I start to relax I let my thoughts consume me, as I do every night when I am in this same position at the end of Pj's bed. I think of how my mother is going away for Christmas with a new fella she met. Paris, and they can't afford for me to go too, so I'm stuck spending Christmas at school. I think of how I haven't spoken to Ruben since that Saturday night and how he said we were still friends. I think of how he gave me a box of 'cancer rolled into a stick' and how that box now lays unopened in Pj's bedside table. I think of all the different things that I have done since the start of this school term. I think of how the whole school will be leaving to go home for the holiday's tomorrow morning. I think of many different things. But the one thing I cannot bring myself to think about is the boy on whose bed I am currently wrapped up in. I haven't allowed myself to think solely of him since last Saturday.

When I wake up once more my eyes are fixed shut with yucky, sleepy, gunky stuff and I sigh to myself. That is always a sign I am coming down with a cold. When I peek my face out of my blanket mountain I look up to see Pj's sleepy face smiling at me still with his own blanket wrapped over his body and pulled up tightly to his chin. His eyes green eyes blink deep blinks adjusting to the small amount of light that is coming through the gap of the old curtains that hang at the rickety window. "Morning," I whisper, taking in the way his eye lashes scrape gently against his cheeks when he looks down at me.

"Morning," he mumbles in response, voice groggy from sleep. "Were they bad?"

"Reasonable." I respond. He's been checking up on my nightmares every morning.

"It's Christmas Eve," His voice comes excitedly. "Are you going home today?" We hadn't talked about this topic yet. We hadn't talked about much at all yet, to be honest and it's something we both know is inevitable and the sooner we get the talking over with, the better. I shake my head slowly, glancing down at Dan and Phil who were still snuggled together on the floor, faces peaceful with easy sleep. I didn't feel like elaborating on the subject and Pj didn't ask any questions. He just grins a sleepy, toothy grin and shakes his head back at me, his overly long curls falling in front of his eyes. Pj wasn't going home either.

Smirking back at him I reach forward and slowly push his hair from his face. I know my actions have been confusing the taller boy recently, since I won't let him hold my hand or touch me much at all but I will do things like this. However, I feel in control when it is one simple action that I have done myself. If someone is holding your hand you have to be holding theirs right back. There is no escape from that. It takes some kind of trust, I believe, because the person whose hand yours is in could lead you anywhere and unless you can break free you would have no choice but to go there too. And I am still regaining my trust for the boy. I never asked him as to why his hands were cut and bruised and I'm not sure I want to know the answer. Pj and I haven't touched each other at all since Saturday, excluding when I woke up sweating and screaming and he came to calm me down. His slightly calloused thumbs had swiped away my tears as he held my face in his hands and whispered that everything would be alright. We had sat and watched Drake and Josh from his boxset until 5 am when he tucked back into his bed silently and went to sleep.