The Way We Feel

Chapter 8

"Hey."

I startled awake, my right leg coming down to the floor and my back straightening, propelling me forward before I could stop myself.

"Woah," the same voice said, a laugh in the sound. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

Cillian. His blue eyes were almost too bright given the fact that mine were just closed.

Given the fact that I had been fully and completely asleep sitting up.

"S'fine," I mumbled, uncrossing my arms and tuning into the sounds of a film set once more. The chatter of voices, the thumping of equipment, laughter echoing in the great expanse of the studio.

Cillian dragged a chair over beside me and sat as he said, "You've got the right idea. A cat nap between takes."

I could tell he was taking the piss, and when I glanced at him sideways, his smirk confirmed it. But I didn't have the energy or the mental capacity to joke back. Instead I sat forward and hung my head in my hands, closed my tired eyes and pressed the heels of my palms into the sockets until tiny pinpricks of blue light flooded my vision.

"You alright?" Cillian asked next.

Someone walked right by us. I felt the breeze of the movement as they passed. I lifted my head and glanced over to see the back of a tech guy walking way from us towards the center of all the action.

"Just tired," I said, glancing around to try and piece together how much I'd missed—how long I'd been asleep.

"I gathered that," Cillian said in his quiet way, more amusement coloring the words. There were a few moments of silence between us before he asked, "Baby still keeping you up at night?"

"Yeah. It's not as bad as before, but she still wakes up hungry."

"How old is she now?"

"About ten weeks."

Cillian chuckled and sat forward too, his elbows propped on his knees just like mine. "I miss those days." He glanced at me. "But I don't miss the exhaustion."

I should've said that it was pretty pathetic of me to be so tired. I wasn't really the one getting up at night. I heard Lila—there's no way you could sleep through her screaming—but it was Mads who got up and went to her. Because only Mads could give her what she needed.

And Mads didn't complain. She always hushed Lila as quickly as possible so that I could keep sleeping. But we were both up again at five a.m. anyway—me, because I felt bad to leave Mads alone to tend to the baby while I was around and capable, and Mads because she couldn't sleep in once Lila was awake.

But the days were so much longer, too. Lila had been sleeping more at night (waking for feedings, of course) and less during the day, so Mads had really had her hands full this last week or so. And the film had also been a constant energy-zap. The physical demands were starting to take their toll.

And it was only week four.

Three more months to go.

"At least you have a few days off now, right?" Cillian asked next. "I think we all need to regroup."

I'd been looking forward to this particular break since the start. It was nothing more than a long weekend—we had off this coming Monday—but it felt like we'd been working on the film far longer than a month, and we were all ready for some time away from each other.

Or at least I was.

But Cillian's reminder only served to bring about an alarmed zing in my stomach, followed by a dull, quiet sadness flooding in afterwards. Tension pulled at my shoulders, my lips, my forehead as I thought about this morning. As I remembered our fight.