Stories under the Velvet Sky

Chapter Fifteen: Friction, of Sorts

The next few days were awkward, to say the very least. I couldn’t quite tell what was going on between me and the rest of the world, but whatever was happening, clearly Mother Nature despised my sorry ass. I am not being figurative here, by the way. It is within my idea of belief that the universe is truly out to get me in some way, and that if I am not careful, it will be the death of me.

Why is this, you ask? Well, not so much ask as stare blankly at the page, wondering just what the hell I’m talking about. I don’t blame you; I think I’m crazy too.

For the past few nights, I have been having increasingly disturbing nightmares. Nightmares that, in any other ordinary situation, would be quite understandable considering the nature of my existence. However, seeing as the fact that the boy I currently had a fairly large, and very probably unhealthy attraction too was not frightening in the least, I could not quite understand exactly what terrified me so about these dark dreams of mine. Just what was I so afraid of, that caused me to be murdered senselessly every night whilst I slept?

I hadn’t the slightest clue, and that was causing me a great deal of distress. Not to mention my inability to sleep peacefully was not helping me stay awake when I needed to be. I kept falling asleep at random intervals, at one point thought I might be suffering from narcolepsy.

I then promptly discarded that thought, because it was stupidly obvious that I was tired, and needed more sleep to compensate for the sorry excuse of sleep I was getting at night.

Strangely enough, my nightmares only occurred during the night, so I took to getting in as much nap time as I could during the day, much to Adrian’s amusement.

Having gotten tired of using a desk as a hard wood pillow, I started to bring my own to school, dozing off in classes I didn’t particularly care about. The one that this happened the most often in happened to be Statistics, but as I was passing the class, and often times already knew what the teacher was discussing, I was left alone to rest in peace.

Of course, I was never allowed to sleep in English, so that was the only time of day that I was actually fully awake for. Thus it was also the time of day Adrian sought to figure out just what I was up to.

Blue eyes shining with thinly-veiled humor, the highly irritating vampire kept my beloved foam pillow from me while also encouraging me to actually do the classwork we had been assigned for once, much to my chagrin. He also took it as an opportunity to question me about my newfound nocturnal wanderings, “Any reason you’ve taken to such odd sleeping habits, Kathryne?” He asked me during class one day as I struggled to steal my pillow back from him. Dangling it over my head like some sort of prize, he tossed it back and forth between his hands while I tried to jump after it, failing miserably due to my current disabled state.

Curse you stairs! I shall loathe you for all eternity!

I glared at him, crossing my arms in an informal sort of surrender, as well as an attempt to make it seem like the group work we were supposed to be doing was actually being done, “Give me back my pillow, and I might tell you,” I replied stiffly, stifling a yawn by pursing my lips. Why couldn’t he just let me sleep darn it!

He smiled, hiding the pillow under his shirt, as if that would stop me from grabbing it if I really wanted it. Seriously, if I wanted to , I would tear of his clothes just to get at what I-

Oh God that sounds really dirty, doesn’t it?!

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’ sound with his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly, “tell me why you haven’t been sleeping properly, and I’ll give you back your pillow.”

Gee, he makes it sound so simple! I absolutely despised opening up to people. It made me feel so... so... so vulnerable; like at any moment someone could step in and erase all that I was, everything that made me who I am... and I didn’t quite trust anyone to get that close to me. Not even my own family...