This Is Paradise (Kellic)

Chapter Four

[Vic's POV]

I lay awake that night, trying to quiet my mind, stop all my thoughts from racing. My attempts, however, all seem futile.

For some reason, I can't get that boy out of my head. He's... everything I aspire to be. He seems like he'd be kind and gentle where I'm too strong willed for my own good, I get angry too quickly, and I have no patience. Though these are things I've recognized, I can't seem to get past them. They say that patience is a virtue, well it's one I don't have it.

My only wonder is, why has he plagued my brain so soon after meeting him? And not even formally? He doesn't even know my name, but I know his and I know more about him than he'd probably be comfortable with.

Eventually, staring at the ceiling gets tedious and I roll over to stare at the wall, only I roll a little too far and end up on the hardwood floor instead. However, I'm too lazy to crawl back into the bed, and the floor seems pretty comfy to my sleep deprived body, so I just go with it. I eventually fall asleep there.

I woke up right against the wall, which confused me, because I didn't remember doing it. At this point it was two o'clock, so I ended up crawling back into bed, mainly because I was cold, but also because the floor was no longer seeming comfortable. Unfortunately, from that point on, I tossed and turned, getting no real sleep until 6:30, when my alarm went off. I sigh, roll over, and hit snooze, and closed my eyes, trying to get more sleep.

By the third time my alarm went off, I stopped hitting snooze and instead turned it off, hoping maybe if I didn't wake up, my mother would let me stay home.

Unfortunately, she only lets me sleep for another twenty minutes before walking up the stairs to my room. "Vic, it's only Tuesday, and your second day of school, you have to get up."

"Ma, I didn't get much sleep last night, and I spent most of the time that I was asleep, I was on the floor," I say, not bothering to roll over, covering my head when she turns on the light. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I'd rather stay home today."

"It's your senior year, baby," she murmurs, "you have to go, even if you don't want to."

"Thanks for the offer," I mumble again, muffled by the covers. "but I'd rather not."

"Vic," she says, sitting on the edge of my bed, "I know you probably don't want to go to this school, because you don't have friends out here, or whatever the case may be, but it's okay. It's only this one year. You'll meet people, you'll make friends. It'll be okay."

"Mom, that's not the problem. I've made friends already, four. So that's not why I don't want to go. I just don't want to go to school because I didn't get much sleep and the sleep I did get was on the floor, and not very restful. That's the problem." I will admit, the main reason I didn't want to go was because I felt little to no motivation, probably due to the fact that I managed to skip my medication last night, because my mom was finally not paying as close attention as she used to before.

"Tell me what's wrong. Please," I could hear her worry edging it's way into her voice, which was nothing if not upsetting to me. I had no plans to worry her, I just really didn't want to go to school.

"Mom, I promise, nothing's wrong. It's just that the floor wasn't as comfortable as I would have thought," I mumble, rolling over and attempting to brush my nest of messy brown hair away from my face, though it doesn't go well.

I smile at her and she laughs, which releases the tension in the room, causing me to breathe a sigh of relief.

"But sweetie, it's only the second day of school," she says with a small smile.