Sleep Is Death

Jay

Waiting for my five pills to kick in didn't feel as long as when I needed one to sleep. I wasn't sitting on the couch, impatiently tapping my feet and watching what few channels weren't blurred with static. I didn't drink warm milk or take a hot shower to speed up the process. If there was one thing I could control, I wanted—no, demanded—it to be how much time I had left in the apartment.

I took out my journal, and my eyes lingered on each tear-stained page full of sloppy, often incoherent entries. Writing in my journal felt more therapeutic than on my computer, but I preferred to transfer my thoughts from paper to my floppy disk.

I didn't feel anything. I think I was suffering alone for so long that it was like I couldn't feel anything anymore. That made it easy to write a letter to my parents.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

Dear Mom and Dad,

If you're reading this, I guess it means I'm gone.

I just want you both to know that none of this is on you. All of it was from something none of us could fight, but I'll be honest...I needed to, at least, hear that you understood my feelings.

I think this all started after Kristin died.

'What?' You may ask. These hauntings. I told you something was after me, and you didn't believe nor listen to me. I tried talking to Ms. Morris about switching to a different apartment, but she kept saying she didn't have any available. I know she's lying because the one across the hall has been empty for weeks.

Also, I tried staying at a motel room. When you accused me of blowing through my savings and being irresponsible, after you hung up, I was forced to come back to this apartment. If you saw what I see every single day, you'd understand why I went that route.

I spoke to my doctor. The meds aren't working anymore. He knows it too, but I don't think he knows how to help me. Mom, I sleep 2 hours just about every night and no, it's not because of me picking up extra hours at Saint Ann's. It's because every night, I dream about that night at Kristin's house. It's been five years, but no one wants to talk about it or ask me how I've been feeling since then. Even after it happened, you all were so quick to get me past it instead of through it.

I need someone to actually listen to me and maybe help me finish grieving my best friend. I want to hear and believe that her death wasn't my fault. I wnt to hear ad beive tht you and Dad are proud me even I didnt finish college don't want to be compared to lauren and cole

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

I dreamed of Kristin.

She was wearing a long, sheer pink dress that made her look like one of her older sister's porcelain dolls from the '80s. Her updo wasn't as tight and strict as the girls around her, dancing under disco lighting. She had colorful elastics, butterfly clips, and bobby pins. She stood there like a statue, smiling at me like Mona Lisa, with one hand on her hip and the other dangling by her side, yet those lilac and sunflower-colored bangles stayed on her wrist.

She didn't look like herself. She looked better. Older.

Judging by the balloons, streamers, and matching colored flowers, we were at prom, which I interpret as her showing me what could've been.

That emotional kick in the chest didn't affect me until I was woken up by an EMT.

He had the back of my head cradled in the crook of his arm like it was a newborn, while the other hand pressed a stethoscope to different parts of my chest. The room was whirling, his face was bending like sheet metal, and I imagined the sink doing laps around us before settling to his left.