Playing Sleep

two » the café

“No one looks back on their life and remembers the nights they had plenty of sleep.” – anonymous.

“So, are you going to like… psycho analyse me or something?” Emily asked, making a crazy gesture around her face as she simultaneously gave me a weird look.

We were still walking along the street, the city lights casting yellow, pink and red hues over everything. We’d been maintaining a mindless chatter for the past five minutes and I had begun to realise why people liked having mutual friends around. They actually made something as boring as walking a lot more enjoyable. With a girlfriend you were always talking about what you could do together, you were already supposed to know everything about them and the atmosphere was completely different. With a friend, you could joke about anything and not have to worry about the consequences.

I returned the odd expression she had given me, “What are you on about?”

Laughing, she swung her body around to face me as she now walked backwards, “Hey, don’t act stupid! You know what I mean, with your psychology and sociology shit.” It sounded as though she was simply trying to make sense of what she had said, rather than make fun of me. For once though, I didn’t really mind the idea of being teased, so long as she was the one teasing. Even as I thought that, a pang of guilt struck me in the heart, but I pushed it away, not wanting to dwell on anything that could alter the relaxed mood we had going on.

“I could try, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t like that.” I countered, smirking at her as she just dodged a street-lamp.

“Well that’s a pretty good feeling, then.”

Looking up at her face, from where my eyes had fallen down to her legs, she had it angled downward. Whilst her hands had once been swinging in crazy motions around her body, they were now stuffed into her pockets. The mood wasn’t ruined, and she hadn’t exactly closed up, however it was quite obvious that it was a touchy topic.

“Hey,” I began, most of the joking tones in my voice having left, “you wanted to go somewhere, right?”

She looked up, hints of a smirk playing in the corner of her mouth, “yeah.”

“Well, I know a place.” I resolved, nodding my head to the left, where the street we were walking along branched into two.

Emily grinned, pulling one of her hands out of her coat pocket in order to run it through her hair, she gave me an approving look, “Alright, lead the way Jay.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, “So, I’m Jay now, am I?”

Giggling, she nodded, “Yep.”

The lights of the city were shining down on her face, making her cheeks pinker and smile brighter. I chuckled, having to run my hand through my own hair in order to get the flyaway pieces off of my forehead.

“Great.” I drawled, turning left down a small side street.

We were about five steps in, when Emily began to look around in an extremely dubious manner. She looked up at the tall buildings and the way the fire escape wrapped around the reddish brown bricks, then down to the closed off windows and half-alive plants. “Are you sure you’re not planning to molest me or something?”

Sighing, I rolled my eyes before turning to face her, “Seriously?”

“Oi!” She cried, “It happens all the time! A naïve seventeen-year-old girl trusts the words of a hot uni boy, never once contemplating the fact that he might have impure intentions!”

I raised my eyebrows, “You think I’m hot?” Although I portrayed myself as nonchalant towards the comment, my stomach was acting up. Feeling all tingly and fuzzy, I added a smirk just for good measure. There was a part of me that wanted to kick myself in the balls just because I shouldn’t be feeling ‘fuzzy’ towards any girl other than Georgia, but the better half decided that such an action would determine my insanity and I’d never get to hang out with this girl again.