Getting back to sleep after a nightmare like Meghan experienced was no easy task. She stalled as long as possible until I began to slip sideways when I could no longer keep my eyes open or my head up, let alone continue an intelligent conversation. After I caught myself from face-planting for the third time, I finally put my foot down, for the sake of both our sanity.
"Meghan." She stopped talking to look at me. "You need to get some sleep."
"No, I'm fine. A few hours is all I need."
"Okay, I need to get some sleep. I've been walking half the night already and we've got school in the morning." I shifted back over onto my own sleeping bag.
Meghan raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you give a flying anything about school?"
A fair point. "I don't. But I thought you did."
Turning around to face her, I could see the truth in her eyes. She was afraid to go back to sleep; afraid of what was waiting for her when she did. "We can't stay awake forever," I reasoned.
"I know, believe me I've tried." She ran a hand through her disheveled hair.
I gave her a look of sympathy before offering a deal. "What if I stay up until you fall asleep?"
She smiled softly. "And how are you going to do that? You were the poster boy for narcolepsy a moment ago."
"Ah," I raised a finger. "Because I wasn't trying very hard to keep myself awake. Contrary to popular opinion, I do have the ability to accomplish things when I put my mind to them." It was really a matter of whether I cared to put the effort in or if it benefited me in any way. In this case, I cared that Meghan had a good night's sleep since it was obvious they were few and far between.
She didn't disagree. "I believe you. I also believe that you're wasting your potential."
"Yeah, you and every other authority figure I've ever encountered." They all said the same thing: I was a smart kid with a bright future if I just tried a little bit harder, blah, blah, blah. I stopped listening after a while.
"Well, they're right," Meghan argued. "That bad boy act of yours might be attractive to some girls but it won't get you far in life. You can pretend all you want that you don't care about what happens to you after high school, but I know you do. You just don't believe you have the capability of reaching those goals."
She wasn't completely wrong, but I wasn't going to tell her that. I didn't have aspirations of being a doctor or businessman; or successful at all really. My only goal in life was not to turn out like the men that ran my childhood. I didn't want to become a deadbeat drunk that abused any poor woman that was naïve enough to believe there was good in me. I wasn't even sure I wanted a family, you know, the whole white picket fence deal. A dog, sure, absolutely, but maybe that was it. I'd start with a dog and see how that went. It scared me that I was hardwired to turn into my father. That no matter what I did or who I tried to be, I would inevitably meet that dark side. I didn't want to subject a family to that if it was my fate.
"Maybe you're right: that bad boy thing is an act. But it's the only thing that gives me the strength to deal with the shit in my life. If I let myself truly care about my future, I'd probably end up self-destructing when I realize I'll never reach it." I found it was better not to have any kind of expectations, especially high ones. I aimed low so I could be content if I landed just a step above.
"I don't believe that, Ty. See, it's the fact that you are so self-aware that makes the possibilities endless for you." Meghan was ready to argue with me until my self-deprecation left her dry, but I wasn't willing to get that far. Not so late at night, anyway.
"You believe what you want, just as long as one of those things is that I can stay awake until you fall asleep. Now, come on, lights out."
Meghan was staring at me in hard disbelief and continued to do so as I flicked off the camp light and left her no choice but to slide back beneath her sleeping bag and make another attempt at getting some rest.
As I lay there in the dark I didn't even have to try to keep myself entertained to stay awake, what Meghan said did that for me. Over and over people told me I was selling myself short, giving up without really giving myself the chance. And every time I tuned them out, until then. Meghan was the first person who made me take the time to really think about the things I wanted out of life and if I really did have the ability to get those things.
The next day dawned with an earthquake. At least, that's what it felt and sounded like.
"Holy shit, what is that?!" I shot upright, disoriented by my surroundings in a blind panic as the tree fort rumbled all around me.
Meghan giggled from the corner, already awake. "Chill out, it's just a train."
Apparently, I missed that little detail the night before when I came across the lot. I walked the tracks every day but never through that particular part of town.
"It sounds like the tree is going to come down around us." I rubbed my eyes hard then ran my hands through my spiked bed head 'do.
"A few more years and it probably will. Here." She threw a Pop Tart into my lap, the rumbling quieting down as the train passed.
"Thanks. What time is it?" It was light enough to see without the use of the camp light, but still looked early judging from the golden glow lighting the small space.
"Almost six." Meghan dug through her backpack.
I watched her. "Seriously? Why are you so awake?"
"I need to do a few things before school."
I pulled apart the foil wrapper of my hearty breakfast. "Like?"
"I'm a girl. It takes us twice as long to get ready for anything than it does you." She was working on stuffing her rolled sleeping bag back into its casing. "I bet you roll out of bed a whole ten minutes before you need to leave, pull on whatever clothes you find on the floor that don't smell too bad, brush your teeth then head out the door."
"Wrong." I gestured with my Pop Tart after taking a bite. "I wake up a whole twenty minutes before I have to leave, pull on whatever clothes look halfway decent, brush my teeth, comb my hair, then spend those last ten minutes trying to convince my mom to get out of bed and eat something that doesn't contain fermented grains."
Meghan's movements slowed, her eyes lingering on the bag. "Sorry."
I didn't intend to make her feel bad. I meant it as a joke despite being the truth. "No it's okay. Most of the time I end up sleeping in and it turns into ten minutes anyway. I've lost count of how many times I went to school in my pajamas. The days I even bothered to show up, that is." Sometimes I just didn't care. No one else in my house seemed to even know what day of the week it was to ask why I wasn't in school and if they did it was because my presence had become bothersome.
"Your mom's a drinker?" Her fingers fiddled with the drawstring. I stopped eating. It seemed we were back to those uncomfortable heavy topics.
"Yeah, mostly nights and weekends. During the day when she's between jobs." Thankfully, that wasn't at the moment. She actually had two jobs then. One waitressing and the other cleaning the home of our elderly neighbor. It was when she was around Wade that she drank, or when he went off to the track, or didn't come home some nights. She worried about him. God knows why, but she did. She'd get so worried she drove herself to drink until she passed out to wake up to him there. She probably had no idea that I was the one who put her to bed those nights. That I was the one who propped her head up on a pillow, pulled off her shoes, and tucked a blanket around her while leaving a glass of water and aspirin on her nightstand for when she woke up with no desire or ability to fetch it herself.
"Mine too. She never used to be, but the whole thing with my dad going to jail was the last straw for her." Pulling the string tight, Meghan pushed the pack aside before sitting back on her heels. "You know, I used to hate my dad so much for leaving us. I used to blame him for all that happened since he left… but he didn't make my mom drink or hook up with this guy. He wouldn't let…" she stopped, almost choking on her words. I looked away, letting her take the moment she needed to hold herself together. "He wouldn't let these things happen to us. It was all her choice - her choice to do nothing." Meghan's quiet tone grew harsher, angrier. I could see the resentment in her eyes as she glared at the floor.
"You know, you can always do something," I advised in a soft voice, aware of her reason for not doing so already. If she tried and nothing came of it, or authorities took too long to do anything, she would be placing herself in a potentially dangerous situation. I didn't know what business her step-father was into, but what he tried to make Meghan do led me to think it certainly wasn't legal or ethical. It was wrong on so many levels and anyone who dabbled in such things knew how to keep people quiet.
"Oh, you mean like you?" It was difficult to tell if her sarcasm was in jest or not. For once I couldn't tell and because it was such a sensitive subject I found it hard to find humor in it. I didn't put on one of my smirks and come back with a witty comment, nor did I get upset and snap at her.
"Maybe if I had control over the outcome, I would." Like if I knew I wouldn't be taken from my mother and she wouldn't resent me for getting Wade arrested and sent to jail. If I could just get him out of the picture and convince my mother she was strong enough to make it on her own and didn't need Wade and that I would always be there to keep her on the straight and narrow and us together, then I'd do something in a heartbeat. But the moment those charges are filed it's a slippery slope and there's no telling what's waiting at the bottom.
Meghan looked at me, but I wasn't sure she really saw me as she looked like she had fallen deep into her mind, absently responding, "Yeah, me too."
In that moment I was not aware of the idea that sparked in her brain, or would evolve into a plan that strengthened over time. A plan that I would not be let in on until it was already too late to manipulate the outcome.