Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Injury: Part Two: 1

"You guys can come to my house but I have nowhere for you to sleep." 

Ava was walking faster now. The drugs she had ingested throughout the night, half-accidentally, began their descent from the delirious high they had provided her, having lifted her up to a surreal realm of palliation only to drop her down into a crude awareness of her mortal physicality, leaving her to combat the growing heaviness in her legs with quickened steps.

"Why can't we sleep in Grace's bed?" asked Marco.

"Because Grace is home."

"I don't see the problem..."

Melanie and Luther laughed.

"Can't you call Anna to come get us?" Ava asked Marco.

"She's at UMass, she's not driving anywhere tonight."

"What time is it, anyway?" Luther interrupted.

"'It tis tree in da morning'," Melanie teased with an amusing accent.

Ava giggled while the boys rolled their eyes.

"I did it again," Melanie sang out in a low voice just before laughter caught in her throat, plucking at the natural soprano strings of her vocal cords and causing Ava to follow suit.

"I've got my long hair with my snow cap on," Luther finished the tune.

Marco stopped dead in his tracks. "What the fuck are you guys talking about?"

"Had to be there," the other three responded in unison.

Ava turned to Luther, walking backwards with long strides as she pressed her hands, balled into fists beneath the cuffs of her sweatshirt, against her cold ears. "Speaking of snow caps..."

Luther reached into his back pocket and pulled out Marcus's hat, waving it in front of Ava. He lifted it higher in the air when she jumped at him to grab it.

"You can have this back when you tell me who you really got it from." He stuffed the hat back into his pocket and lit up another cigarette as he stepped ahead with longer strides, eager to get home and out of the cold.

"Aw, Luther, don't be jealous," Melanie crooned mockingly. He blew another puff of smoke at her and she smoothly grabbed the cigarette from between his fingers. Ava decided she would rather save this argument with Luther for when the two of them were alone. She watched Melanie hold the cigarette up to her perfectly shaped lips and take a long drag.

"I can't believe you're doing that."

Melanie angled her head away from Ava and exhaled, her dimple disappearing into her hallowed cheek. "What?"

"It's wicked gross." Ava kept her voice flat and quiet, as to appear more judgmental than concerned.

Melanie licked her lips and looked down at her cigarette, flexing her hand prettily. "My mom used to smoke."

"Really? I don't remember that." Ava regretted mentioning the cigarette at all.

"Yep. All the time." She shot Ava a smile and then, looking out across the fields, she furrowed her eyebrows as if to recollect something. "Well...maybe not in front of other people she didn't."

As the group came up on two large greenhouses, the realization of how much land was left to cross set in. They stayed silent as they turned their heads back and forth to try and orient themselves, each person suddenly aware that none of the others really knew where they were going either.

"If we go back into the woods a little and find the bike path, I can call Celia to pick us up," Ava suggested.

"Fuck," Luther spoke out, frustrated, causing the rest of the group to halt. "That will take forever, the bike path's at least a mile in." He turned his head and held his line of vision steady to the right. "If we cut straight across this field," he motioned at a section of land to their right that, unlike the surrounding area, was not planted with neat rows of crops but was instead overgrown with tall grass, "I think it will bring us to 63."

"We've been going north this whole time?" Melanie exclaimed.

"No, east..."

"Why don't we just take one of those trucks?" Marco interrupted.

The other three turned their heads to the row of small work trucks parked beside the second greenhouse.

"We won't have time to bring it back," Ava said. "They're gonna start working here in a couple hours, I'm sure."

"Fine," huffed Marco, and they set out across the field behind Luther, leading the way.

As more inside jokes were referenced, the girls quickly became so consumed by laughter that they were walking at half the speed of the boys in front of them.

"The way..." Melanie breathed deeply to try to halt her laughter long enough to get the words out. "The way..." She succumbed to another bout and bent over at the waist, crossing her stomach with one arm and grabbing Ava's wrist with her free hand.

"I know," Ava struggled just as much to complete her sentence before inhaling and exhaling several times. "He—" she laughed again and squeezed Melanie's hand. "He went right through the fucking window—"

Melanie fell to her knees, laughing so hard that she ceased making any sound at all.

The boys looked back at the girls and then at each other, Marco lifting his brows at Luther.

"I don't know," Luther responded with a shrug. "I wasn't there for that one."

Ava pulled Melanie up to stand and, leaning against each other for stability, they composed themselves enough to catch up to the boys, wiping tears from their eyes as they skipped along the dirt path.

"You guys ever notice how in window, there's the word wind? Do you think that's like a coincidence?"

"Marco, who gives a fuck?" Ava responded, sending Melanie and herself into another fit of laughter.

Luther kept his own pace ahead of the other three, determined to get out of the field and onto the road that he had not yet obtained the sight of.

Marco cleared his throat, feeling annoyed. "It's not attractive when girls swear."

Melanie snickered and turned to Ava. "Did you fucking hear something?"

"Nuh-uh." Ava, feeling emboldened now, reached for Melanie's cigarette just as a loud scream sent their heartbeats into their ears and halted them, hand-in-hand on the dark path.