Hey. Here's word ten. It's weird because both times I spent working on this it was kind of late at night, and yet I like the way/style I wrote it better than the others. It's really not that different, but in my opinion it is slightly better. Anyway, enjoy the word, sleep, while I get ready to go to sleep. BTW, it's kind of long, but oh well. :)
Word Ten: Sleep
Sonny's Point of View
I stared up at the ceiling and sighed. I couldn't sleep. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get my brain to turn off and relax. And this was the night I probably needed the most sleep so that I wouldn't act like a zombie going through the motions of the day tomorrow or look like a vampire with the dark circles under my eyes and pale skin.
Tomorrow I was finally going to fulfill the promise I made to myself but kept breaking. I was going to tell Chad Dylan Cooper that I was in love with him and if he didn't like it, then that's just too dang bad. And I was so nervous.
I was nervous to tell him for one. All of those annoying "what ifs" buzzing around in my head were the biggest reason my brain couldn't just turn off and focus on cute little sheep jumping over my head so I could sleep.
What if he laughed in my face? What if he blogged about my cute little crush on him? What if he told the press? What if he thought I was just joking? What if he rejected me in front of everyone? What if he thought I was being stupid? What if, what if, what if…
Another reason I couldn't get the butterflies in my stomach to pack up and move to the next anxious stomach was another "what if." What if I backed out and didn't tell him again? I couldn't go another day without telling him; I couldn't afford to be the chicken this time.
I turned over on my side and tried to shut my stubborn brown eyes. No such luck. That side turned out to be uncomfortable. So I turned over onto my other side without opening my eyes. I was equally unsettled in that position, so with a heavy sigh, I rolled back over onto my back.
Another reason I hated the nights I had insomnia like this was because I was actually really tired. My eyes felt droopy and actually wanted to close but I couldn't find any relief when I did so and my body just would not unwind. This happens to me every once in awhile, generally before an important event that I need sleep for the next day.
I groaned and covered my eyes with one arm. Now I was worrying more about backing out on the promise then I was just telling him. My arm previously covering my tired eyes blindly searched my bedside table for my cell phone.
Where was – ah! Got it! I picked it up and hit the button to pull up my address book. My thumb hovered over the send button and my eyes tentatively looked at Chad's highlighted name on the glowing screen. Please don't ask why I have Chad Dylan Cooper's name stored in my cell phone. It's a long story for another time.
My eyes drifted to the little ceramic cow analogue clock next to my head on the table. 1:10 in the morning… Hmm.
I looked at the screen again and after several seconds, made my decision. This couldn't wait. I stabbed the green call button with my finger and sat up in bed while I waited for an answer.
The phone rang seven times before he finally picked up. "What do you want, Sonny?"
I wrinkled my eyebrows. "How'd you know it was me?"
"It's this awesome new invention called caller ID. Now why did you call me in the middle of the night?" Chad asked groggily with a cranky edge.
"Umm… Just wanted to talk… So… how are things?" asked the gutless little chicken, AKA Sonny Munroe.
"Okay, I'm hanging up now."
"No, wait!" I pleaded. "I actually did call for a reason."
"Well then could you get on with it? Even Chad Dylan Cooper needs his beauty sleep." Even after he'd been woken up in the early hours of the morning he managed to be conceited.
"Uh…" Somehow this didn't seem like the appropriate timing, plus, it was in that moment, my brain decided to shut down. Figures… Just when you need it the most, bam! It dies!
"Yes?" Chad asked impatiently before yawning into the phone.
"Um, you know what? Never mind! Bye!" I quickly jabbed my finger into the red "end" button and threw my phone down onto the comforter as though it had burned me.
Drat! Beaten by my fears again! I actually could do this if I could just hang on to the courage that presented itself to me when I got the first initial idea to tell him.
"Okay, Sonny, you can do this. One more time," I told myself. My abused phone was rescued from the folds in my blankets and once again my fingers were shaking as I highlighted his name and hit "call."
This time it only rang three and a half times before his crabby voice filled my right ear again. "Is this what you call a joke, Sonny?"
"Sorry, I just uh… I really need to tell you something but it's just a little hard for me to say," I admitted.
"And let me guess, it can't wait until tomorrow," Chad addressed me sarcastically.
"Uh, yeah… See, I've wanted to tell you for awhile but… I know I say that I hate you, but I really actually l-" My confession was stopped short when my phone beeped loudly before ending the call for me and beeping again.
I glared at the red outline of a battery flashing in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
You have got to be kidding me! The closest I'd ever come to actually saying it and my stupid cell phone's batery died and hung up on him! Life is cruel.
I kicked the comforter off my legs and staggered to my feet and out of bed. After tripping over my red Jansport backpack and stubbing my toe on the binding of an abandoned hardcover book on the floor, I found my cell charger lying on the floor next to the power outlet. I felt around for the ends of it and shoved the larger end into the socket and the smaller end into my cell phone. It happily lit up and showed the battery filling up over and over again.
I just glared angrily at my phone for three seconds before calling Chad again without hesitation.
"Leave. Me. Alone," Chad said, crossly yet groggily.
"Chad, I'm sorry. My phone's battery died." I found myself subconsciously twirling a lock of my brown wavy hair around my index finger.
"Please, I beg of you, let me sleep," he groaned.
"This will only take a minute," I promised.
"Make it less," he mumbled.
"Okay, well… This is going to sound crazy but… I actually… don't hate you," I said each word slowly at the end.
"That's great, Sonny. Now that you've gotten that off your chest… goodbye."
"No wait I-" My words were interrupted by the weird bell sound my phone made when the person on the other line hung up.
Why was he making this so difficult for me? It was almost like he was doing this on purpose just to make this confession harder for me. Granted, I had called him three times past midnight and had still yet to supply an actual reason for calling, but still. I was getting to it. Ugh!
I contemplated doing one of two things. One, call him again and blurt it out quickly and then hang up. Two, walk over to his house and throw pebbles at his window until he comes out and then tell him and run away (He lives like four houses down from me. Surprising, I know)
I pursed my lips and thought. Something small and silver caught my eye on the floor next to my cell phone charger. When picked up and examined it was revealed to be a nickel. Hmm. A coin flip would work.
Okay, heads I would call him again and bug him like a mosquito until I got through his thick skull, tails I would go to his house and blurt it out before running home as fast as I could. Please be heads, I begged the coin before throwing it up in the air.
I probably would've caught it, it if hadn't been so dark in my room and I was too lazy to just turn on a lamp. But if my mom caught me up this late with the lamp on she'd almost certainly take away my allowance and give me a long mom-talk. And who wants that? So I might've accidently thrown the nickel up weird so it fell behind me, and in my attempts to catch it, I tripped over a cord and fell into a pile of clothes my mom had been nagging me for weeks to clean up.
The nickel had fallen on the floor in front of me… tails side up. Shoot!
I reluctantly stood up and looked down at my pajamas. I had a white tank top with a fuzzy pink bunny in the center on and pink knee-length shorts on… with little white bunnies on them. What? Fifteen year olds aren't allowed to like furry little animals and wear them on their pajamas?
Deciding whether or not to change into actual clothes free of rabbits on them went surprisingly fast. I figured I'd make the situation slightly less awkward by keeping my pajamas so that it wasn't just one of us in PJs and the other (me) in regular clothes. Chad would be upset that I'd bothered him already.
With this in mind, I slipped on some random flip-flops (I don't think they even went together) and went downstairs as quietly as I could without tripping in the dark. Once outside, I hurriedly shuffled down the street, dragging my feet along the sidewalk until I came to the only white house on our street.
I passed the metal mailbox with "The Coopers" written on the side in black block letters and around to the side of the house where I knew Chad's window was. (Our moms were friends and I'd been forced over here against my will for a couple of holiday dinners, so it's really not that weird that I knew where his bedroom was)
I searched the ground and found a couple of little pebbles near Mrs. Cooper's side garden. Timidly, I threw the smaller one at his window but it fell so short it was laughable. After I retrieved it again from the grass beneath his window, I tried again and was slightly more successful, actually hitting the wood under his window that time. I was beginning to feel ridiculous doing this but I was in too deep to give up now. Or at least, that's what I told myself after my third attempt managed to make contact with the glass and Chad appeared at the window.
Chad looked at me and rolled his eyes before sliding his window open. "This really couldn't have waited until morning?" he hissed.
"No, not really, and it's not my fault you hung up on me," I whispered loudly.
"Fine!" he said shortly before turning away from the window and walking out of sight.
What was he…? Oh no, he wasn't coming downstairs was he? Dang! Face-to-face confrontation was going to be impossible for me.
I waited awkwardly with my feet rooted to the ground for him to walk from the front door to the side of the house.
"Alright," Chad said when he was finally standing in front of me. "What do you want to tell me?"
I could feel my tired eyes widening slightly and my heart started racing. "Umm… well…" Cue the blush. "I've sort of really wanted to tell you this for a really long time but it was never the right time or I couldn't build up the nerve or whatever so…"
"Yes?" Chad prompted, smoothing his hair down even though it was already perfect. His eyes were practically closed. If he fell asleep during this, I was going to scream.
Deep breath… didn't help. Let out the deep breath… still no calming effect. Oh come on, where are emotion manipulators when you need them? Oh right, that's only in books. Darn, there goes my birthday present (Kidding).
"Sonny!" Chad snapped.
"I love you!" I blurted. Ha… real smooth. You know, I think it would've been slightly better if I hadn't used 'love.' Now 'like' is such a loose term that it would've been better than to dump the L-word on him so late at night.
Chad frowned and rubbed his forehead sleepily. "You woke me up from my deep sleep four times to tell me you love me?" he questioned.
"Uh, yeah… I guess I kind of did… And now that you know, I'm just going to go and never come back." My oh so sneaky and clever escape was halted by a hand pulling me back by the wrist and dragging me back to my original spot on the grass.
He chuckled. No! He was laughing at me! Forget emotion manipulators! Give me any little animal out there that could dig holes so I could bury my face in the ground!
"If you had just waited about ten more hours you could've saved yourself a lot of trouble," he said in his usual cocky, smirk-y voice.
I blinked and had a little trouble getting my droopy eyes to reopen. "Ten hours?" I repeated unthinkingly. "What…?"
"I've been building up my own nerve, you know?" Chad smiled a little uncomfortably. "Tomorrow-er, I guess, today was the day I was going to ask you out." He shrugged.
I vaguely noticed that his hand was still clutching my wrist. "So… you… lov-like me too?"
"Eh, you've already dropped the L-word, so… I love you too." Chad wrinkled his nose while maintaining his smile. "Too sick-y sweet?" he checked.
"Mmm, nah… It was just sweet enough…"
"Okay, so since you took initiating the whole we-both-love-each-other thing from me, I get to do this part." Chad grinned sincerely at me. "Would you like to be my girlfriend?"
"You have to ask?"
"Well like I said, you already took the other thing from me, so you have to at least let me do this." He wasn't kidding.
In my head I was rolling my eyes good-naturedly. Guy thing, I supposed. "In that case, yes, of course," I said, grinning like an idiot.
"Great." Chad smiled back at me but yawned which in turn, made me yawn as well. "Sorry to ruin the moment, but I really need to get back to sleep."
"You didn't. I think I do too. Goodnight," I said.
"Goodnight. See you tomorrow." Chad leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. Good. I didn't want my first kiss with him to be spoiled by me yawning or passing out on the ground from exhaustion.
"Okay."
"Do you need me to walk you home…?" Chad trailed off.
"That's okay, I'll be fine. I think I'll be able to make it home."
And with that, we parted ways and I walked home in a daze. The majority of it though was caused by how that all worked out. Who knew he liked him? Heck, who knew he loved me? I guess we were both better actors then we'd been giving the other credit for.
If I hadn't been half-dead on my feet I would've been jumping up and down screaming because Chad was my boyfriend now. Yay!
I twisted the front door knob and dragged my feet through the entrance. I made it as far as seven feet before I slumped over and landed on the couch in a heap with a goofy smile on my face. Ah… At last I could sleep…
Alright, what'd you think? Like it, love it, in between? Please tell me in the form of a lovely review. And, just to add... Yay! I'm a tenth of the way done with the challenge! Hey, progress is progress. I'm enjoying this challenge a lot more than I thought it would. Plus I'm finding that it is really good practice for writing and brainstorming. I already have a really good idea for the next one (in my opinion). Now I just have to hope no one else has already thought of it and I just haven't read it yet or that someone writes it before I do. I'm paranoid that way. So, thanks for reading, and I'll update relatively soon. Bye. :)