There was nothing more I wanted to do than just hide in my tree house. As I sat there and breathed the air that had otherwise been undisturbed for the last two years I wondered to myself why I'd chosen not to come out here for so long. This was my place, my hideaway. I looked around, there was a small TV on the floor attached to a gas generator that sat in the window.

I sat up from the ratty old plastic covered mattress and walked to the generator in the window, wondering if there was even a chance it was going to work. I yanked the cord a few times, and almost as if by pure chance, it sputtered to life. I squatted down in front of the TV and pressed the button, a white dot appearing on the black screen expanding to the rest of it until it was a screen of snow like fuzz. A slight hum of static emanated quietly from the speakers.

I flipped through the channels until I came across adult swim and sat there watching super jail really wishing I had weed. I could hear the sound of the wind whooshing through the open window along with the hum of the generator. It was pretty relaxing.

By the time it started to get chilly I decided it was probably time to head back, much to my disappointment. But after the generator had sputtered it's last breath of life, and then died, there wasn't really much else I could do up there but be alone with my thoughts and that wasn't what I needed anymore. The planks nailed to the tree as a makeshift ladder groaned under my feet as I climbed down the massive sycamore. I silently promised myself I'd be back up here sooner.

The walk through the woods was quiet, unnervingly quiet. I turned around a bunch of times as I walked along the path cut through our woods, because I had the itching feeling that someone was watching me. I always had that feeling.

My mom was bustling about the kitchen when I got into the house. I could smell spaghetti sauce from the front door. A pang of deja vu hit me like nothing I'd felt before and suddenly a blue light was in my peripheral vision, just for a second.

"Mom?" I called out.

"I'm in the kitchen honey," at the sound of her voice, the uneasiness from earlier melted away.

Our living room was small, there was a large sectional couch that took up the entirety of two of the walls, in the middle of the room was a little end table, and on the wall opposite to the longest part of the couch. Mom's favorite cooking show was already on. I yanked all my stuff off and tossed it on the floor next to the door before walking over and plopping down on the couch.

My mom came out of the kitchen a few minutes later, her long wavy blonde hair pulled into a messy bun and she was wearing a tee shirt and shorts, she had bowls of food in her hands.

"Hey baby," she greeted me sweetly before placing a large portion of spaghetti in a white ceramic bowl into my hands. She sat down on the couch next to me. "How was your walk?"

"Pretty good," I shrugged, starting to eat the spaghetti like I was inhaling it.

"Jeeze, try to at least taste the food you're eating." My mom chided me. She brushed some stray hair from her face and shook her head. Someone could easily mistake my mom with her chubby cheeks and big blue eyes for being around my age.

I looked at my brown skin, a severe contrast against the white of the ceramic. The reason no one ever confused my mother for being my sister was due to the fact that I was on the darker side of mulatto. I had my hair cut into a buzzed off section above and behind my ear and a long wavy mess thrown off to the other side. Luckily I hadn't been born with nappy hair, mine was hard enough to take care of as is.

My cheeks were chubby, like my mom's, I could be perceived as cute. Such as, I have a cute face, but that's about where it ended. Even still most people only told me that because I have an extremely rare combination of green eyes and dark skin, so I'm an oddity. A novel.

A freak.

I sighed, running my hand through my hair before putting my bowl on the end table and sitting back into the cushions on the couch. I settled in and watched the TV, not really paying attention to it as my mother prattled on about work and guys she saw throughout the week, sometimes telling the same story twice before she realized she was repeating herself and then laughing about it.

My mom was snoring quietly beside me. The clock on the wall next to our kitchen entryway shown it was the wee hours of the morning. I could literally feel the bags under my eyes even though I really didn't feel like going to sleep.

I picked up the bowls from the table and shuffled into the kitchen with them, dumping the remainder of my moms portion into the garbage. Dang, she still eats like a bird. I made a mental note to watch my mom the next time she ate to try to coax her into eating more.

My feet dragged on every stair as I lazily made my way up the flight. The carpet causing little shocks on my feet if I dragged my socks long enough. I snickered once, running my finger tips along the wall to my right. I lightly dragged them across the door frame and then the door as I passed the bathroom, paying close attention to the texture differences for next to absolutely no reason.

I reached my door, pulling it open and sighing in relief at my own version of heaven.

It was messy.

My overly fluffy bed was against the wall in the corner, the long side against the wall with the window so that if I wanted to, I could sit by the window and read in the sunlight. Or at least that had been why I put it there. Between college and work it was kind of hard to actually take any time to read for pleasure. Since a month ago, I'd placed a large cobalt blue fleece blanket over the window to accommodate my backwards sleeping schedule. I preferred to study at night.

My bedspread was a similar shade of blue, my black sheets peeking our all over the place because I never made my bed, and the mountain of pillows I usually made a nest out of in pillow cases of an assortment of colors was at the head of my bed.

I had a desk off the long side of my bed opposite to the window and pushed up against the wall. It had just barely fit between where the headboard ended and the corner of the opposing wall, so it looked like I had done interior design with my furniture to mimic a Tetris game.

I flopped onto my bed and then rolled sideways while grabbing the blanket so that I made a blanket burrito out of myself and my bedspread before wiggling around to loosen it up and closing my eyes. The funny thing about sleep is that you have to pretend you're asleep until you actually are asleep.