The Way We Get By

20 // Alex

"You can't sleep anymore."

I'm jolted awake in bed by the sound of John's attentive voice sounding above me. I remain tightly tucked into my covers while I hear him move closer to the bed, and I can sense his irritation with the fact that I've been sleeping so much.

John's been rather gracious these last few days by letting me sleep as much as I want to, but now that he's realized that my tired brain will never be satisfied with sleep, I think he's had enough.

"We 'needa have a talk, son."

"I'm not your son," I respond with a quiet, scratchy voice. My eye peaks open to stare up at him and I can see that his head is cocked to the side and his hands are resting sternly on his hips.

"You're in my house, you might as well be."

With that, I roll my eyes and flip my body over to face the wall, a gesture that makes the bed squeak and shake in resistance. I can tell that this doesn't please John, although I'm surprised when he turns his tone of voice from scolding and irritated to happier and more lively.

"C'mon, Alex! We're having a fiesta!"

The word sounds foreign rolling off of his white-man lips, but instead of getting irritated with his culturally appropriated bullshit, I end up getting pissed off when he reaches forward and yanks the blankets off of me. The colder air in the room hits my body at full force and makes me flip back around in the bed just so I can talk back to him.

"You're not Mexican. So it's not a fiesta, it's just a white people party."

"And you are Mexican?"

He doesn't seem to believe me, with his brow raised and his eyes scouring me for signs of my ethnicity.

"I'm Spanish," I fire back. "Halfway."

I reach down to pull the covers back onto the bed without giving a thought to John, who watches me with a very unimpressed eyebrow raised.

"You speak Spanish?"

"Yeah," I mutter as the blankets fall back around me and begin to warm my body back up.

"Alright then. Vamanos."

Again, the comfort of the blankets is brutally ripped away from me. But still, instead of complying, I deliberately disobey him by yet again pulling the blankets back around me.

"No," I state in a cold, stern manner, being sure to give him the stink eye.

"Do I need to call your parents?"

"Is that a threat?" I ask while surrounding myself with the fluffy cloud of warm blankets.

"I don't make threats, I make promises. Let's go, son."

This time, John pulls the blankets off of me and holds them in his arms, where there's no possibility of me getting them back. I stare up at him in pure annoyance, now more awake than ever.

"Not your son," I mutter as I finally find the strength to sit up in the bed.

"Attaboy!" John cheers while using his head to motion for me to stand up.

I follow his motion through groggy, slitted eyes, standing while I watch him place the blankets back on my sweet, sweet, bed. A bed that I'm dying to be in right about now.

"Oh, and I forgot to mention when your parents left earlier, but you're startin' on a round of antidepressants."

My eyes move up from my bed to John as I try to take in what he's just said to me. My tired mind takes a moment longer to truly understand what he's just said, but when I finally put the pieces together, I can't even decide on what to feel.