Insomnia - luke hemmings

1.3

L U K E

Finals flew by and winter break began today. I hadn't seen Summer since the night I slept over at her house, and I know it's because she was stressed about school. We had texted a few times, I even went to the electric box in search of her— the girl had gone ghost it seemed.

Another thing I had realized over the past week were my feelings towards Summer. She walked into my life for a reason. When I'm with her in calm and happy, I can sleep. Without her I'm sleepless. Nights turn into days, days into nights. Summer is like the medicine to this disease, insomnia. I wonder if we would have crossed paths without it.

Here I am at her door knocking at midnight. It's cold for Beverly Hills usual weather. "I know your in there Summer!" I yell loudly without a care. "Come on, let me in!"

There's a noise behind the door, movement. I hear her sniffle. My poor girl. "You can't judge me." The whimper in her voice is strong and concerning.

"I would never judge you."

"Your going to think it's stupid."

"I'll still listen."

The locks churn and she opens the door. Summers a mess. Mascara stains under her eyes which are bloodshot with tears leaking, her lips are bright red and quivering.

"Oh, honey." I pull her into my arms and cradle her with strength. "What the fuck happened?" I pull her away to sit at arms length. She turns away from me to close her door and we sit on her porch steps.

Her head is knelt between her legs and small, quiet tears stream down her face. My arm hung around her to keep her warm. She was only in some shorts and a tank top, we didn't need her catching pneumonia. "Promise you won't say it's stupid, I already know that it is."

My eyes soften when she faces me. Such a mess, my little mess that I'll gladly help fix. "Go on, I promise." I bite my lip quickly then let it go. I catch a tear on her face, wipe it away and listen with wide ears.

"I failed my chemistry exam." She says the word like it's foreign and combs through her faded blonde hair. "It didn't lower my GPA for the quarter by too much. It's a 3.72 and that's not bad at all. Of course it's no 4.0 but it's still good."

I nod understanding the issue at hand, chemistry was a bitch and I barely passed that with a low D. "Yeah, you're still one of the smartest people at school honey."

Summer smiles and that makes me feel a bit happy. Hopefully I'm saying the right things. I don't think I've comforted a teenage girl since seventh grade with this crybaby of a girl. "Thank you, but my parents called. They said that since I didn't get a 4.0 they won't fly down for Christmas." She broke out into another sob. "Who the fuck does that, leaves their kid alone on one of the biggest holidays in America."

My heart breaks and I pull her back into my chest. She's right, who the fuck does that. I've never met her parents before, in fact she's barely talked about her family with me. "You don't have any siblings?" I question with a frown.

"Remember? He died a long time ago. His name was Kai." She sniffled. "I wish he were here." Summer wipes her own tears away and smiles up towards the sky.

"That's how I feel about my dad." I frown. It's funny, the more I learn about this girl the more we seem to have in common. All this time I thought Summer Royce was just a happy girl living in that miserable school with straight A's and an invitation to every party thrown. To her maybe I was just a jock from Australia with normal grades at a sporty life. What's real is that we're both in broken homes with the fear of sleep.

"Want to come inside and keep me company for the night." Summer suggested. The tears began to dry in her face leaving tiny imprints.

"Of course honey." That's what we do now, pick up one another and hold each other together.