2 a.m.
2 fucking a.m.
The house was dark and still. Exasperated, Jerome finally sat up in his bed, running his fingers through his hair for what felt like the thousandth time that night.
He glanced out of the window: the Anubis garden grounds lay illuminated in the light of the moon. It was mid-September, but summer still lingered in the air. In the garden, like soldiers in August's last charge, the roses were in full bloom. Thriving ivory clung to the benches and statues.
Looking around the room, Jerome could make out Alfie's slumbering form on the bed in the opposite corner. His best friend was sleeping soundly, snoring lightly, having become used to Jerome's fitful nights by now.
Insomnia.
Add that to the list of things that had come with starting the new year. He had had occasional restless nights this past summer, but being back in Anubis House seemed to have amplified whatever in his system was rendering him incapable of sleeping. He found himself spending more and more of each night lying awake.
Frustrated, he got up, and, being careful to make as little noise as possible, crept out of his room.
Jerome didn't know what the hell happened this summer, but coming back to Anubis House for his final year, everything had been different. On the first day, Jerome couldn't help but do double takes as he greeted his housemates. Fabian, Patricia, Amber. People he had known since he was ten years old walked through the doors of Anubis and, somehow, felt like strangers. They had all changed.
He couldn't pinpoint how or why, but he felt it. They all did. Even though the first couple of weeks of term went on as usual, it was as if the very house had changed-the energy inside it was different, restless, more sinister.
Jerome shook those thoughts from his head, which throbbed with a searing pain.
Why not eat insomnia away?
He thought to himself as he walked down the hallway, feeling his way along the wall with his right hand. His head felt groggy and sluggish. His body was sore, and he was tired as hell but couldn't manage to fall asleep. He stumbled toward the kitchen, grumbling to himself.
Maybe something greasy and buttery and cheesy would make him feel better...
Cheese...
He loved cheese…He loved cheese so much he should write a song for it…or a poem…a statue memorial?...
As he finally rounded the corner into the kitchen, he stopped dead in his tracks, nonsense thoughts coming to a halt.
In the darkness of the living room, a solitary lamp was still on. Underneath it, curled up in an armchair, a discarded book in her lap, Mara Jaffray was asleep. The floor around the chair was strewn with various textbooks and papers, and her backpack lay open on the coffee table.
She must have stayed up late doing homework.
A part of his brain told him to turn around and creep back to his room as quietly as possible. Jerome knew he had to stay as far away from Mara as possible. If her mean, borderline-cruel treatment of him last year wasn't enough of a reason, Joy had come back from the summer with new problems of her own, testier and easily aggravated. Being anywhere near Mara was completely and definitely not allowed.
The other part of his brain-the one usually reserved for coming up with pranks, the one that never did as it was told, and the one that always seemed to get him into trouble-dared him to do what he knew he wasn't allowed to.
Creeping forward, his earlier food mission forgotten, he stopped just short of Mara's sleeping form.
He had come across her like this plenty of times in the many years he'd known her. She had a habit of falling asleep down here, in the middle of slaving away at some assignment.
She was breathing deeply, completely knocked out, one hand under her head, the other resting against the open book in her lap.
She looked peaceful, a break from the strange, troubled expression she had come back from the summer sporting.
An expression somehow even more heartbreaking than the almost cruel look she would give him last year, when, in the wake of his cheating, he had seen a different side of her. Her revenge antics had gotten progressively crueler, until every form of interaction with her had become painful.
He had been shocked, to say the least. He didn't know she had that in her. As it turned out, he really didn't know her at all.
Although lately, he had to admit to himself, he felt like he didn't know anything anymore.
Later he would blame it on his insomnia, tell himself he wasn't feeling well, and try to pretend it was all a dream. Even blame the new weird vibe the house was giving off.
But right then, Jerome impulsively reached out, and ran his thumb gently down the sleeping girl's cheek, feeling a warm tingling spread through him from the point of contact. Mara's eyelids fluttered, but she didn't wake. Just as the warmth spread to his stomach, he stood up quickly, strange, difficult-to-name feelings surging through him. Slowly backing away, Jerome kept his eyes peeled on her, planning a quick exit in case she stirred, but Mara remained asleep.
He suddenly felt better and realized with a start that his headache was completely gone. He stifled a yawn as tiredness finally overcame him.
In the hallway, he finally turned away, but not before taking one last glance at the girl in the other room and the paper mess strewn around her.
Jerome smirked.
It was nice to see that, despite everything, some things never changed.