Fixing A Broken Compass

Exhaustion At It's Finest

"And all of a sudden I felt really tired- like the whole world had drained me for everything that I had."

Miles trudged into Ashely Water's dead feet, dragging his backpack behind him as he suppressed a yawn. His white hair was messy and mused, his hoodie wrinkled, looking like it hadn't seen a washing machine for a bit too long.

He knew the lack of proper sleep would be getting to him. It had already started, he constantly felt tired and drained. However today was a whole step further, Reggie was up the entirety of the night.

He first went down with Willow-but then around eleven he was up and stayed up for the rest of the night. Nothing worked, he spent hours singing to his brother, rocking him, for some reason his brother thought it was playtime. When he wasn't playing he was crying. There was no win.

They moved to the living room at one point in the night. It wasn't until around five when they needed to get up that his brother finally started to sleep. At that point, Miles was past the point of exhaustion and just wanted to cry.

He let his brother sleep-hoping to ease the crankiness he'd have at the daycare. He packed their lunches, got the diaper bag around, double checked Willow's school bag and homework. Made sure the twins's soccer gear was all in bag's by the door. And made breakfast.

Working to braid Willow's hair and gently encourage her outfit of the day. Mentally preparing himself for setting a meeting with her teacher about Willow.

It was hard not to be concerned and given the events of the previous day he wanted to stay on top of everything. He still couldn't believe she was being picked on at school. His baby sister was the sweetest girl, he just wished other kids understood her like he did.

He was mentally trying to prepare himself all morning. He'd been feeling more and more disheartened about life. He needed to get himself in check well taking care of his family.

Still, he knew it was one of those days when he needed everything and anything to keep him awake. So he put one earbud in while playing his hype playlist. He mixed Red Bull into his coffee and stopped at the gas station after dropping off the little's so he had an assortment of monsters, Red Bull, and a few four-hour energy drinks. He also got ice water and mint gum.

Before he walked into the building he splashed some water from his water on his face doing a couple of jumping jacks to wake him up.

He knew that it would hit him at some point but he came prepared. Well as prepared as he could.

Even though he really just wanted to go home and curl up into his bed for a few hours. He needed to save all his sick time if the kids needed him.

English went okay, he was tired but Ms. Johnson gave a lecture for the majority of the period. It also helped that he sat by the guys. They flew into light conversation but for the most part, just focused on Ms. Johnson and took notes.

He mainly focused on his music. Bopping his head and tapping his fingers on his desk. His eyelids felt like they were lined with lead, it took everything not to rest them for a moment.

He half hunched in over his paper, his legs crossed under his desk, most of his upper body weight put onto the desk as he sprawled across it. He doodled in the margins as Ms. Johnson spoke, his hope was that it would keep his brain stimulated enough to keep awake.

"You okay?" Gabe leaned over whispering to him. "You look wrecked, did you pull an all-nighter?" It took Miles a beat to respond, groggily giving him a thumbs up.

Throughout the class, he felt himself sinking further and further into his seat. He even pulled his jacket from his bag wrapping it tightly around his shoulders as he sighed heavily. Cracking his neck. He didn't mean to but moving helped. Moving kept his focus on the board and helped him from resting his head on his desk.