Three Times is Enemy Action (NaNoWriMo 2013)

Ch 4: I Wasn't Even A Hipster

Ch 4: I Wasn't Even A Hipster

I wake up the next morning feeling better than I had in a couple days. Whereas I used to wake up to daggers in my chest every time I took a breath, it didn't hurt so much to breath now. I look over to find Sebastian awake and watching me. I should have felt creeped out, but I spent so much time watching him sleep that I would have found it hypocritical to judge someone for doing the same to me. His cheeks tinted red when he realized that I was awake and saw him staring… aww, how adorable. He coughs, and starts crackly, "sorry, I was…" his voice had broken twice in three words, and he stops talking and blushed more. I couldn't help myself, I burst out laughing, he was so adorable. He turns sharply towards me… "did I say that out loud." He nods his head up and down. Now I was the one red in embarrassment, I try to cover my tracks and bull shit my way out of this, "well...I… it went like this… so I wasn't talking about you in the slightest, I" he interrupts me with an eye twinkle. He's not fucking Dumbledore, his eyes shouldn't be allowed to twinkle! "It's alright if you find me adorable. Your pretty cute yourself." My heart stopped in my chest, before racing like Amber Chen on the SAT's. He said this so nonchalantly that he must have been saying this to make me feel less embarrassed… right? there is no way that Sebastian Henry finds me, Aria Harmon, cute in any way shape or form. Right!? He means cute like a puppy, not cute like girlfriend material, I try to convince myself. He can probably see the panic and surprise in my features, and seems to get a lot of amusement from my distress. He gives himself a least a minute of my panic attack to enjoy my expression before changing the subject… jerk. This time, he speaks without the voice breaks. "It's only nine in the morning, you're awake kind of early, aren't you?" While not the best segue ever, I'll cling to it as a means of escape and mention that I normally don't wake up until at least twelve in the afternoon if I can help it. It seems like he's been awake for a while though, so I ask him when he woke up. "I've been awake since 6," he says offhandedly. Who in God's name willingly wakes up at 6 unless forced; there had to be a story there, and I was determined to find out what it was. As of this moment, I seemed to know everything superficial about Sebastian Henry, I could tell you that his favorite color is blue and he likes Mexican food, he just turned 18 and he read the Harry Potter series, he is ranked # 34 in our year and Lincoln was his favorite president, but I couldn't tell you why his parents were so late in visiting him, what got him into the habit of waking up so early, or why he was walking down that particular street a couple days ago. I decided that before I left today, I was going to get everything out of him that I possibly could.

"There's a story there, clearly, what is it?" "What story are you talking about" he replied. "You know, the story about the reason that you wake up so early; people don't just become early risers, so what's your story?"

He looks at me carefully, as if judging my worthiness, and it seems like I passed, because he opens his mouth to respond to my nosy question. "Just promise No Judgement, please." He says imploringly. I took the gravity of what he was asking seriously, the story was already off to an unhappy start, and I knew that I had to let Sebastian know that he could trust me, that I was worthy of this part of his life story. "Sebastian, I think we are way past petty judgments, besides from Lana, I think you might now know me best, and I would like to know you better."

He lets out a heavy breath, and seems to gather every scrap of strength that he has, and I am almost sorry that I asked, but seeing Sebastian brace himself like he did made me realize that he too, might also need an ear to listen to him, and that it was too late to stop the story now. He was like a stick of dynamite after you light the fuse- impossible to stop without completely snuffing it out, and snuffing out Sebastian was not something I was willing to do.

"Well, when I was a kid, my parents fought a lot, pretty much for no reason at all. I used to wake up to them screaming at each other at like 5:30 in the morning because they would fight before Mom left for work. I would sneak out and go into my crappy tree house and play with my Batman action figure. Like every other kid, I always believed that he would one day come to my house, and say that we could be a happy family. When my brother was born,when I was nine, things calmed down for a while because of the happy-family-with-a-new-baby air. Our house was relatively functioning, but by the time Simon was two years old, my parents realized that something was "off" with Simon, and got worried. He didn't smile when they smiled at him like babies do. He didn't make any sounds or gesture that spoke of craving human contact, he didn't try to hand you toys or ask you to play with him. I think what was most off was that he didn't smile back when you smiled at him. By the time he was two and a half, he barely talked, and they took him to the doctors. They wouldn't diagnose him until he actually started talking, but they were pretty sure he had autism. When he was three, they diagnosed him and started this thing called ABA, which is supposed to be some sort of treatment. They stopped fighting for awhile, but eventually they were back to their old ways, and Simon would run into my room with his hands over his ears. That's when we got close. He was four or five and I was 13 and we would build forts to distract us from the yelling, and he still sees me as the one to go to when he has a problem. I'm really worried for him right now, what is he doing at home without me to look out for him, what's he going to do when I go to college, because I don't know what he'll do when he can't handle something anymore and I'm not there."