Every Day has a Memory

Chapter 8

One bad dream... Two bad dreams... Three bad dreams...

When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me to count sheep as a way to sleep faster, but now I could only count nightmares.

And for the last four hours and twenty-five minutes, I had been lying awake with nothing but the sounds of Luca to keep me company. And when I could sleep, it would only be in short five minute spurts at a time. There was absolutely nothing that could possibly keep my mind occupied other than the sound of the dog's heavy breathing and excessively loud snoring. This dog was sometimes a blessing.

Darkness cloaked the room, absolutely no signs of moonlight anymore. Just the blackness and hollow silence of the empty room.

It was barely three in the morning.

I had never been one for early mornings, but lately, I hadn't been able to wake up anything but early. I was pretty certain it had something to do with recent stress and anxiety.

Lots and lots of anxiety.

It was awful; I hadn't had a proper night's sleep for close to three or four weeks now—what with the late nights at the hospital, early morning wakeup calls because I was staying at the hospital, and recently this drama with Lachie and Alicia... all of it had taken its toll on me, virtually draining me of any energy I could possibly have left.

I think, in total, this week I had been surviving on maybe seven-and-a-half hours sleep—and probably about eighteen to twenty-four hours sleep in the last three weeks.

Tam had actually started calling me an insomniac.

Sleeping had never really been a problem for me until these recent months; as a kid, I used to spend endless hours running around and playing in the backyard with the twins. And even as I got older, I would still spend an endless amount of time focusing my attention on my art or photography, or even going to parties—there was always something to steal my energy.

Not now though.

I wasn't entire sure anything could fully steal my drifting mind away from the thoughts that dawned on it anymore.

When I graduated I hadn't even touched my photography or my art equipment—it was all stored away in one of the many boxes practically spilling from my old wardrobe—because I had planned to do something with my life, and I didn't want them to distract me.

That plan was long gone.

I dragged a hand down my face, feeling internally broken.

A distraction. That's what I needed right now.

My mom was always asking when I would clean out my wardrobe and sort through all my stuff, and I was forever telling her "Soon." Maybe that "soon" could be now.

I slid out from beneath the covers, leaving Luca in a blissful and loud slumber, and crossed the room to my old closet. The white painted timber-slat closet door was wedged open ever so slightly for me to see the first box of my things.

I pulled the door open a little further, taking a step back. I was shocked at how many boxes were actually there. Eight or nine large boxes sat in my old wardrobe with several labels scrawled across the sides of all of them. "Jesus," I muttered, running a hand over my jaw. "Better get to work."

The first box I grabbed was labelled with Albums. It contained most of the albums that I had made when I was younger: From when I turned eight to when I turned eighteen. There were early photos of me and Alicia trying to take selfies, but having my finger or something half covering the lens. Then there were others of me and my gran, or me and my cousins in the States. There were also a lot of photos with my parents, Alicia and myself standing outside of landmarks in Iowa, or in front of our old house before we moved here to New Zealand—all of that was just in the first album. In the second, third and fourth album I came across, there were at least one-hundred-and-fifty photos of the twins and I alone, whether they be photos of the three of us hanging around in Toby McMillan's yard—the old man who owned the farm across the way; the twins and I used to cut through his farm on the way home from school when we walked—or the three of us hanging out down at the waterhole we found on one of our treks, or at a barbecue. There were literally so many photos of all three of us in here that I didn't even remember having, or taking for that matter.