I'll See You When I Fall Asleep

Chapter 30

Despite their perfect last few days and despite being wrapped in Virgo's warm embrace throughout the night, Cammie couldn't fall asleep. After reading Virgo to sleep, moving through several more chapters until Virgo's breathing changed to the soft exhales of unconsciousness, Cammie lay awake, her mind reeling and spinning.

Virgo fell asleep on Cammie's chest, her soft breathing a small comfort through the turmoil of her mind, an entity that seemed determined to make her miserable whenever she felt most happy. Mechanically, Cammie ran her hands through Virgo's long locks as if this mindless, constant movement of her hands would keep the anxiety that tried to swallow her hole at bay.

An exasperated exhale escaped from deep within Cammie's throat, an attempt at dispelling the knots that formed in her stomach, making her feel like she was weighted down with a ton of rocks.

Tomorrow, Jess was coming.

This in itself was exciting; Cammie missed her sister dearly, especially now that they had grown so much closer. Unfortunately, Jess' visit meant the impending trip to their parents house. Their parents. Their mother. After four months of separation, they would all be reunited. In the span of that four months, Cammie had her Dream, lied to her parents about it, broke up with Adam, the man whom she claimed was her Soulmate, and began seeing the woman who was actually her Soulmate. There had been little discourse between Cammie and her parents in those months, except the very pointed phone call in which Elizabeth Driver demanded Cammie's presence at their father's annual gathering.

Cammie recalled the phone call with disdain: her mother had done nothing but nag. Nag about the party, about her grades, about her studies. It was infuriating. This anger and frustration that had been safely sectioned off was cracking through the carefully sealed doors, complete with sealant for any cracks that formed along the way. Cammie worried for their visit home.

The insides of her stomach twisted into knots as she played out scenarios in her head. Of course her parents would ask about everything since seeing them last January, but how well would she be able to lie to them? How well would she be able to convince them that everything in her life—and consequently theirs—was perfectly normal, perfectly okay, and perfectly up to expectations? More importantly, would Cammie be able to hide the anger she felt toward them now? This anger was completely uncharacteristic of her and she worried about how to channel it and disguise herself as the perfect daughter once again. Would the mask she had worn be enough to throw them off her trail?

After hours of staring into the black darkness, the lights moving across her room with the flow of the city, Cammie decided to slip out of bed. She carefully turned on the small light at her desk and pulled out her sketch book. Rough shapes appeared all over the page, seemingly random at first, but soon began to morph together into a coherent scene. A man sat on a bench with his head in his hands, suit in disarray, his briefcase open with papers flying out. Out of where his head should have been funneled a cloud of smoke, filling the upper three-quarters of the page. Within the smoke, random shapes were drawn. As her hand worked over the page, the shapes began to take form: books with torn pages, broken pencils, a shattered picture frame, bent glasses, some birds, even a few raindrops. The mess of random images floated around in the chaotic mess of this man's head.

Cammie jumped at the sudden hand on her shoulder.

"Shit," she exclaimed, jumping in her seat.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Virgo rasped, her voice coated with sleep. Barely visible in the dim light, Cammie could make out that Virgo was dreary with sleep. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Couldn't sleep."

Virgo peeked at the drawing, studying the details, the hurried, almost desperate strokes. The lines were very heavy, dark. Virgo felt that she could read the distress within the lines, not to mention the piece itself. She took a moment to study each of the random items swirling around in the man's head; she couldn't make heads or tails of it.