Chapter 2
The rest of the week, she found herself quite restless. Monday night was almost normal. It was Wednesday night when she found herself tossing and turning until three o'clock before sleep was able to take over. By Thursday she was staying up all night, and maybe had fallen asleep for an hour while sitting at her desk on her laptop. She left during her spare and last period on Friday, going home early, not that it mattered. It was unlikely for Sophia to be home on a Friday afternoon, which meant Sawyer could drop her things on the living room floor and fall asleep on the couch. She didn't remember what she dreamt about, or even if she dreamt at all. She kept her long sleeves on and wrapped herself in a blanket, just long enough for Sophia to come home and wake her up. She guessed the twins were at daycare because her arms were full of brown bags packed with groceries, instead of hyper-active five year old's.
"Long day?" She asked, with pink lip-gloss smile, and Sawyer just nodded, "did you come home early?" She just nodded again, still half asleep she found it difficult to remember how to form words or put sentences together. She sat at the kitchen table and Sophia made her a cup of tea before putting their groceries away. "You look like you haven't slept in a week." Sawyer stifled a laugh, because she unknowingly stated the truth.
"I haven't."
"Are you alright? Do you need to see a doctor?" She asked, her voiced filled with concern. Sawyer just shook her head once more, and took another sip from her tea. It didn't matter what was happening there would be nothing Sophia could do to make her go to a doctor. She would have to drug her and force her into the car before she was seeing another doctor. She didn't like doctors. They knew things that no one else knew, and they could figure out what was going on in her head. They could find out the reason she didn't eat some nights, and they would discover that she had scars more scars than friends. "You don't have any plans tonight do you?" She added. It was a stupid question to ask. She didn't know if she asked out of politeness, or if she had been too oblivious all these years to realize she had nobody. Again Sawyer nodded, and watched while she began pulling books and recipe cards out of the cupboard She looked almost frantic, digging through the pantry, "I invited the Thorton's over for dinner tonight, just moved in down the block."
"Okay." And the conversation ended at that. There were no questions asked, of who of where they were from, or even if they may be sexual offenders. It wasn't like it was a big deal, she was used to Sophia inviting over neighbours, for various and unnecessary occasions. She tried to be friendly, to a point where her sweetness was enough to make her vomit. She held pool parties for Maddison and Claira's friends, and hosted dinner parties a couple times a year, whenever there were new neighbours, which was a rare occurrence for their area, she tried to be the first to befriend the new acquaintances. It was like there was an unstated contest between the fabulous, non-working mom's of the area. You would see them get coffee together, or dinner, or shopping, but secretly they were taking part in some unannounced competition that never had a winner. They might as well have been clawing at each other, and pulling out hair. I was always strange when you saw them together, they looked like they walked straight off of some television show. All of them had perfect hair, most just happened to be blonde. They wore high heels, and only carried designer purses, while they compared cosmetic brands and acrylic nails. Sophia may have been the only one of them with a job, even though she wasn't there often.
Sawyer forgot about their expected company on that Friday night and made her way upstairs to her bedroom. She lay across her bed, with the television on, but mostly she was just staring at the ceiling., thinking of nothing. She did this a lot. Sometimes she thought about her family, and wondered if her mom missed her, other times she wondered if she did well on her math test from the prior hours. Occasionally she would graze her fingers over her the bones that projected from her torso, and think about her disorders. If she was feeling it, which was rare, she thought about where she wanted to go from here and the person she wanted to be. Most times, she just didn't think at all.
