Not Your Typical Love Story

Chapter Eight

Bianca

Let's get something straight.

I, Bianca Calson - not White - am more fond of sleep than I am of humanity itself.

Could you really blame me?

How many times have Humans proved to be awful little shits? I mean, our entire history is basically us just continuously fucking up. Our world was literally so sinned that God decided to drown like all of the population. When people came over to the new world, we actually killed the natives from a disease we'd brought. The United States wasn't even a thing at first because King George was selfish. John Booth shot Lincoln when he was trying to enjoy a damn show. Hitler did the whole attempt at world domination. Somebody atomic bombed a whole fucking city. Kim Jong Un having a party over there in South Korea with his shiny new weapons. Jay-Z cheated on Beyoncé. The Vampire Diaries literally went on for seasons without Elena.

People are just wrecks.

And then there's sleep. Not once, has sleep ever done me wrong, not in my entire seventeen years of existence. It's loyal, unwavering, kind, gentle, and peaceful. In all honesty, it's probably the only thing I'll ever love unconditionally forever.

Sleep is just one of those things that I need in order to be a human being for the world. If I'm deprived of it, I'm not exactly some flower child that dances around while singing songs played from their ukulele. Hell, I'm pretty sure the only time I'd ever do that was if I was high.

It's no secret that I'm not the best morning person in Accrington, but when my sleep is messed with, I can only get worse.

Perhaps in another dimension there's a version of Bianca that actually doesn't mind having her hours of sleep cut down, one that doesn't bite your head off in the mornings, and glare at anyone and everything while growling as she goes for her morning coffee. But here is not another dimension, and when I say I do those things, the level of exaggeration is very small.

So you can only imagine the mood I'm in when someone interrupts my sleep.

I'm bordering on homicidal.

It takes me a few seconds to realize that I'm beginning to wake up, stirring from my previous peaceful and beloved slumber. Within the first few seconds of consciousness, my ears pick up the noise that's around me. Confusion is the first thing that crosses my groggy mind as it tries to interpret the sounds around me while simultaneously trying to convince me to go back to sleep. I feel the muscles of my face arrange themselves into a frown on instinct, unhappy despite not even being awake enough to fully know why.

My brain begins to run a lazy assessment of possibilities, wanting to find the source of the clamor in an effort to seek the reason why I was being brought out of R.E.M. when my internal clock tells me it's not even morning.

My mother could have come in to say goodbye before her early shift for work. But surely she would have finished the farewells by now, and the weight of her lips on my forehead would've been something I felt.

My TV could have been another reason, though I didn't remember ever turning it on in the first place before going to bed and passing out. And if the noises had let me sleep through them all night then why would they wake me now?

My third idea was of an animal, but quickly hashed that seeing as one, our family didn't own any pets, and two, I severely doubt that any wildlife came in while I was sleeping.