Kairosclerosis

Chapter 2

The first night in the compound was the worst. I had only been sleeping for an hour or two each night, but that night, I didn't sleep for even a second. I was up all night, drowning out my thoughts with music while I unpacked. It was only ten by the time I finished, so I decided to decorate, starting with my light strips, lining the top of all the walls with them. Once that was done, I turned them on and shut off my ceiling light. Then, I began putting everything else up. Posters, pictures, fake vines, a tapestry, my map, and my string lights. Everything looked much nicer; homey. All that was left to put away were my clothes, toiletries, and mom stuff. That was gonna be hard. So, naturally, I put it off till the last minute and carefully put all my clothes away in my dresser and put my toiletries away in the overly large bathroom.

Finally, I opened the bag of my mom's things. Each item brought back a different memory. Her camera was the worst. It was always with us. Having it was like having her, but it felt emptier. Like she was there, but not really. That makes sense, because she was. There, but not really. I got it out of my hands as fast as possible, gently setting it on my desk. Next were the dried flower petals. Mom had this jar full of dried petals from everywhere we've visited. I put the jar on my bookshelf, letting it act as a bookend. The rest were photobooks that wouldn't hurt unless I opened them. I put those on top of the tall bookcase. So that, if I wanted to look at them, I would have to think about it since I would need a chair to reach them. Now, all my bags were empty and piled into the closet I didn't use and it was midnight. Not really a reasonable time to be awake, but there wasn't much I could do. Instead of sulking in my room with sad music, I decided to get up and try to eat something.

There wasn't much in the fridge that would be easy to eat, but the freezer had ice-cream. So, I took the tub of butter pecan ice cream and a spoon and started eating as I sat on the counter with my legs crossed under me.

"It is late." I heard a boy's voice behind me. I whipped around with the spoon in my mouth. The silver-haired boy laughed at my expression and I turned back around, uninterested in the conversation. "Why don't you sleep?" My shoulders slumped as I realized he was not going to drop it.

"I'm depressed," I excused lamely. I watched Pietro come into the kitchen and stand opposite of me, leaning against the counter. I know that most wouldn't say it out loud, but it's hard to come up with a plausible lie when you're sleep deprived and malnourished. "Why are you up?"

"Nightmares." His explanation was short but sure.

"Sorry," I muttered with my mouth full. Pietro reached beside himself and grabbed a spoon.

"Don't apologize," he said, taking a spoonful of the ice cream in my hand. "Your father will not like that his ice cream is gone."

"Yeah, well I didn't like that my father was gone, so he can deal with it." I had barely any respect left for my dad, and all of it was being poured into not hating him in his presence.

"Why did you come?" All of a sudden, I wished I had left my hearing aids in my room. Talking about it was confessing that it was real. Talking about it was hard.

"Because," I said shortly. I was lucky that the boy could tell I didn't want to talk about it

"You don't eat much, do you?" he asked, noting how slowly I was eating the ice cream.

"No." It seemed like I was becoming fond of one word answers."

Why not?"

"Because," I said again.

"You should sleep."

"No." Great, now I had a pattern. Because. No. Because. No. Because. No. Deciding to ignore the boy in front of me, I took off my hearing aids, visibly set them on the counter beside me, and took my phone out of my pocket. After another half an hour and a quarter of a tub of ice cream, I left my spoon and the ice cream on the counter for Pietro to take care of and took my hearing aids with me back to my room.